Pronouns: she/her ♀️

Email: nalan0815@gmail.com,

Please also include: damiendebate47@gmail.com

I debated policy debate for 3 years in high school 2008-2011 and have judged for 10+ years now.

I REALLY like to see impact calculus - "Even if..." statements are excellent! Remember: magitude⚠️, timeframe⏳️, probability ⚖️. I only ever give high speaker points to those that remember to do this. This should also help you remember to extend your impacts, and compare them with your opponent's as reasons for a judge to prefer your side.

• However, I don't like when both sides keep extending arguments/cards that say opposite things without also giving reasons to prefer one over the other. Tell me how the arguments interact, how they're talking about something different, etc.
• Be sure to extend arguments (especially your T voters) even if they're uncontested - because that gives me material for the reason for decision. If it's going to be in your last speech, it better be in the speech before it (tech > truth here). Otherwise, I give weight to the debater that points it out and runs theory to block it from coming up again or applying.

------------------------- Miscellaneous ----------------------------

Prep and CX: I do not count emailing /flashdriving as prep time unless it takes ~2+ minutes. Tag-team cross-ex is ok as long as both teams agree to it and you're not talking over your partner. Please keep track of your speech and prep time.

Full disclosure: Beyond the basic K's like Cap, Security, Biopow, Fem, etc., I'm not familiar with unique K's, and especially where FrameWork tends to be a mess, you might need a little more explanation on K solvency for me or I might get lost.

I often read along to the 1AC and 1NC to catch card-clipping, even checking the marked copies.

Peninsula '22 | UCLA '26

Add me to the chain:

blakedee58@gmail.com

I haven't been active in the debate community for a little bit so clarity and a clean flow would be appreciated. If you're exploding down your block I will not be able to follow most of your args.

Arguments must include a claim, warrant, and impact.

T/CP/DA: I find that evidence quality is quintessential - I slightly lean towards a legally precise definition that reflects consensus rather than a debateability push. But, can be easily swayed for either side. If you're aff and its soft left with a framing advantage, actually debate the DA. Riders are probably not legitimate. Neg on CP theory, unless it's an instance of extreme abuse. I will default to kicking the CP for the neg if there's nothing said. Solvency advocates aren't necessary, but coherent explanations of solvency are.

K: Good if they disprove why I should vote affirmative, but if they're something like the fiat makes me sad K, I will almost certainly vote against you. Will usually let the aff weigh the material consequences of the aff if framework is debated out equally by both teams.

Non-traditional affs: Fairness is an impact, you can also go for others. Probably not the best judge for the aff teams. A lot of the time, I find it difficult to see how the ballot resolves aff impacts.

Theory: Condo is generally good.

For Lay Debate --

I will try to evaluate arguments as if I had never done debate. Please treat me as a parent judge.

Otherwise:
Jackson Frankwick

Email chain --- jacksonrpv@gmail.com

Please be nice.

Don’t pref me if you don’t read a plan and care about winning.

If I judge a fairness bad arguement I will immediately vote for the opponents in the spirit of unfairness.

If I can't flow you I will stop paying attention.

I try to make my speaks normally distributed(u = 28.4, sd = 0.5).

Prep ends when email is sent.

Topicality is primarily a question of truth.

Everything is probablistic unless dropped (existential inherency is true).

Yes, email chain. debateoprf@gmail.com

ME:

Debater--The University of Michigan '91-'95

Head Coach--Oak Park and River Forest HS '15-'20

Assistant Coach--New Trier Township High School '20-

POLICY DEBATE:

Top Level

--Old School Policy.

--Like the K on the Neg. Harder sell on the Aff.

--Quality of Evidence Counts. Massive disparities warrant intervention on my part. You can insert rehighlightings. There should not be a time punishment for the tean NOT reading weak evidence.

--Not great with theory debates.

--I value Research and Strategic Thinking (both in round and prep) as paramount when evaluating procedural impacts.

--Utter disdain for trolly Theory args, Death Good, Wipeout and Spark. Respect the game, win classy.

Advantage vs Disadvantage

More often than not, I tend to gravitate towards the team that wins probability. The more coherent and plausible the internal link chain is, the better.

Zero risk is a thing.

I can and will vote against an argument if cards are poor exclusive of counter evidence being read.

Not a big fan of Pre-Fiat DA's: Spending, Must Pass Legislation, Riders, etc. I will err Aff on theory unless the Neg has some really good evidence as to why not.

I love nuanced defense and case turns. Conversely, I love link and impact turns. Please run lots of them.

Counterplans

Conditionality—

I am largely okay with a fair amount of condo. i.e. 4-5 not a big deal for me. I will become sympathetic to Aff Theory ONLY if the Neg starts kicking straight turned arguments. On the other hand, if you go for Condo Bad and can't answer Strat Skew Inevitable, Idea Testing Good and Hard Debate is Good Debate then don't go for Condo Bad. I have voted Aff on Conditionality Theory, but rarely.

2023-2024 EDIT:

**That said, the Inequality Topic has made me add an addendum to my aforementioned grievance about being on my lawn: running blatantly contradictory arguments about Capitalism, Unions, Growth, etc. are egregious performance contradictions that I will no longer ignore under the auspices of conditionality. Its not that I am changing my tune on condo per se, its that this promotes bad neg strats that are usually a result of high school students not thinking about things they should be before reading the 1NC. Its pretty easy to win in-round abuse when a Neg is defending Unions Good and Bad at the same time. I encourage you to try.

Competition—

1. I have grown weary of vague plan writing. To that end, I tend think that the Neg need only win that the CP is functionally competitive. The Plan is about advocacy and cannot be a moving target.

2. Perm do the CP? Intrinsic Perms? I am flexible to Neg if they have a solvency advocate or the Aff is new. Otherwise, I lean Aff.

Other Stuff—

PIC’s and Agent CP’s are part of our game. I err Neg on theory. Ditto 50 State Fiat.

No object Fiat, please. Or International Fiat on a Domestic Topic.

Otherwise, International Fiat is a gray area for me. The Neg needs a good Interp that excludes abusive versions. Its winnable.

Solvency advocates and New Affs make me lean Neg on theory.

I will judge kick automatically unless given a decent reason why not in the 1AR.

K-Affs

If you lean on K Affs, just do yourself a favor and put me low or strike me. I am not unsympathetic to your argument per se, I just vote on Framework 60-70% of the time and it rarely has anything to do with your Aff.

That said, if you can effectively impact turn Framework, beat back a TVA and Switch Side Debate, you can get my ballot.

Topic relevance is important.

If your goal is to make blanket statements about why certain people are good or bad or should be excluded from valuable discussions then I am not your judge. We are all flawed.

I do not like “debate is bad” arguments. I don't think that being a "small school" is a reason why I should vote for you.

Kritiks vs Policy Affs

Truth be told, I vote Neg on Kritiks vs Policy Affs A LOT.

I am prone to voting Aff on Perms, so be advised College Debaters. I have no take on "philosophical competition" but it does seem like a thing.

I am not up on the Lit AT ALL, so the polysyllabic word stews you so love to concoct are going to make my ears bleed.

I like reading cards after the debate and find myself understanding nuance better when I can. If you don’t then you leave me with only the bad handwriting on my flow to decipher what you said an hour later and that’s not good for anybody.

When I usually vote Neg its because the Aff has not done a sufficient job in engaging with core elements of the K, such as Ontology, Root Cause Claims, etc.

I am not a great evaluator of Framework debates and will usually err for the team that accesses Education Impacts the best.

Topicality

Because it theoretically serves an external function that affects other rounds, I do give the Aff a fair amount of leeway when the arguments start to wander into a gray area. The requirement for Offense on the part of the Affirmative is something on which I place little value. Put another way, the Aff need only prove that they are within the predictable confines of research and present a plan that offers enough ground on which to run generic arguments. The Negative must prove that the Affirmative skews research burdens to a point in which the topic is unlimited to a point beyond 20-30 possible cases and/or renders the heart of the topic moot.

Plan Text in a Vacuum is a silly defense. In very few instances have I found it defensible. If you choose to defend it, you had better be ready to defend the solvency implications.

Limits and Fairness are not in and of themselves an impact. Take it to the next level.

Why I vote Aff a lot:

--Bad/Incoherent link mechanics on DA’s

--Perm do the CP

--CP Solvency Deficits

--Framework/Scholarship is defensible

--T can be won defensively

Why I vote Neg a lot:

--Condo Bad is silly

--Weakness of aff internal links/solvency

--Offense that turns the case

--Sufficiency Framing

--You actually had a strategy

PUBLIC FORUM SUPPLEMENT:

I judge about 1 PF Round for every 50 Policy Rounds so bear with me here.

I have NOT judged the PF national circuit pretty much ever. The good news is that I am not biased against or unwilling to vote on any particular style. Chances are I have heard some version of your meta level of argumentation and know how it interacts with the round. The bad news is if you want to complain about a style of debate in which you are unfamiliar, you had better convince me why with, you know, impacts and stuff. Do not try and cite an unspoken rule about debate in your part of the country.

Because of my background in Policy, I tend to look at things from a cost benefit perspective. Even though the Pro is not advocating a Plan and the Con is not reading Disadvantages, to me the round comes down to whether the Pro has a greater possible benefit than the potential implications it might cause. Both sides should frame the round in terms impact calculus and or feasibility. Impacts need to be tangible.

Evidence quality is very important.

I will vote on what is on the flow (yes, I flow) and keep my personal opinions of arguments in check as much as possible. I may mock you for it, but I won’t vote against you for it. No paraphrasing. Quote the author, date and the exact words. Quals are even better but you don’t have to read them unless pressed. Have the website handy. Research is critical.

Speed? Meh. You cannot possibly go fast enough for me to not be able to follow you. However, that does not mean I want to hear you go fast. You can be quick and very persuasive. You don't need to spread.

Defense is nice but is not enough. You must create offense in order to win. There is no “presumption” on the Con.

While I am not a fan of formal “Kritik” arguments in PF, I do think that Philosophical Debates have a place. Using your Framework as a reason to defend your scholarship is a wise move. Racism and Sexism will not be tolerated. You can attack your opponents scholarship.

I reward debaters who think outside the box.

I do not reward debaters who cry foul when hearing an argument that falls outside traditional parameters of PF Debate. Again, I am not a fan of the Kritik, but if its abusive, tell me why instead of just saying “not fair.”

Statistics are nice, to a point. But I feel that judges/debaters overvalue them. Often the best impacts involve higher values that cannot be quantified. A good example would be something like Structural Violence.

While Truth outweighs, technical concessions on key arguments can and will be evaluated. Dropping offense means the argument gets 100% weight.

The goal of the Con is to disprove the value of the Resolution. If the Pro cannot defend the whole resolution (agent, totality, etc.) then the Con gets some leeway.

I care about substance and not style. It never fails that I give 1-2 low point wins at a tournament. Just because your tie is nice and you sound pretty, doesn’t mean you win. I vote on argument quality and technical debating. The rest is for lay judging.

Relax. Have fun.

Hello my name is Axel Garcia

I'm currently attending GCU (Phoenix, Arizona) and Majoring in Forensic Psychology. I debated in high school for 3 1/2 years as a debater/competitor. I am a debate Coach/Judge (3 years now) for Damien High School if they need help. I debated in public forums and policy debates in high school. I mostly Judge Policy.

Please add both emails

damiendebate47@gmail.com

and

aagarcia22@damien-hs.edu

Please add to the email chain. Thank you

--

I am 100% honest, really don't know a lot about the topic this year, focused on school. What you can do is this, Explain... ---> https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/71257ee5-18d7-461e-b39b-3277361953dc

-- I am a policy judge

Policy

- I prefer Policy

- I allow tag team CX

-I like any type of argument you run!

- I Love and huge fan of Spreading as long as you articulate and are clear.

- Don't like K's, I will try my best to flow it.

- Everything else I'm good with.

LD

- I rarely do LD debate, Spend a lot of time contextualizing your card/s if you're relying on it to win the round. Even if it was already constructive, it's a good habit to cover it thoroughly a 2nd time just in case I missed something.

PF

- Sometimes I would do PF but not always. I prefer PF

- Remember to Spread as long as you articulate and are clear.

- I rebuttal speeches show me the most important issues and why they favor your side, we already had rebuttal speeches and 2 crossfires (PF).

- I appreciate puns in rounds.

- Tag team cx is allowed

Big Question

Big questions once during high school don't know much about it. Except to do your best and I value one overarching argument that's successfully upheld throughout the round over winning on the flow. Big picture analysis

Random bonuses like things that would boost your points

- Using your time wisely. ( not just sit there and do nothing. Think about what you are going to do next )

- Try to act confident, even if you're not, by making eye contact with your opponent and standing up straight, which can make your argument appear more believable.

- Remain calm at all times, and never shout or get angry since it will only make your argument seem weak.

- Always have your camera on when speaking and stand up when speaking

What not to do:

- If you intentionally make any racist, sexist, or otherwise discriminatory comments, I will give you extremely low-speak and notify your coach.

- Try not to clip, if you do and other teams catch it. you lost the ballot, if you are wrong another team loses. But the debate will keep on going.

- Don't play games when you are done speaking or when your opponent is speaking

- Don't go on your phone, to call, chat, or play games, ( you can use your phone to be in call your partner and or if you are using prep time ) <--- on only zoom

-Have Fun!!!

https://www.tabroom.com/index/paradigm.mhtml?judge_person_id=171692 Other Profile can see my record and past judging if needed

email (yes, include both): lpgarcia19@damien-hs.edu; damiendebate47@gmail.com

LD: policy pls (below should still be applicable)

If you have any questions feel free to ask me before the round starts.

TL;DR Go for what you're most prepared for and can execute the best because that's what really makes debate fun and productive. I'm not very familiar with the topic.

My Beliefs:

Debate is good

Tech > Truth

Clarity above all else

Clipping is bad

My leanings:

Util good

I, as the judge, am a policymaker

Fiat is a good thing

A couple Great cards + explanation always beats 10 pieces of mediocre ev

There's not an excuse to avoid line by line

Topicality

I don't think fairness isn't an intrinsic impact, same as education. It can be an internal link to other things but simply ending your impact calculus with "They KILLED FAIRNESS" won't do it for me. Just treat your extensions and impact work like you would any DA. (I WON'T EVALUATE T AS A DA. TOPICALITY IS A YES OR NO QUESTION. RISK ANALYSIS FOR T IS ABSURD). I also lean heavily towards competing interpretations; the quality of your ev does matter.

Kritiks

If your entire strategy solely centers around the K, I'm not a great judge for you. I can certainly understand your generic Cap and Security K but any high theory requires a whole lot of explanation for me. Just because I might understand what you're saying doesn't mean you can weasel your way around with generic links if it's even somewhat contested. If you're aff I'd down to see an impact turn (obvious exceptions, of course, are: racism good, sexism good, homophobia good, etc.) I really do not want to hear Death Good, please do not do that in front of me.

K-Affs (Includes Framework)

I have written my disdain for K-Affs before. I am not going to just dismiss it; even as I maintain a reluctance to vote on them, I am not one you should just breeze through your blocks and force me to do work for you. I will be the first to admit that I need a lot of explanation as noted above in "Kritiks". Given all this said, framework is an uphill battle for the aff. I am not very sympathetic to generic "fairness bad/your education bad" impact turns; I think policy education is generally a good thing.

Theory

The only theory I feel even remotely comfortable voting aff (TO REJECT THE ARGUMENT) on are utopian fiat bad, object fiat bad, riders DA bad, delay cps bad, and floating piks bad. Condo is generally a good thing and I personally think you're better off not reading that 30 second shell if the neg is running just a single conditional advocacy but I understand time skew. Also, in principle, I judge-kick. I think that as I default to Condo being a good thing, and the status quo always being a logical option, it would be illogical for me to choose a plan of action when doing nothing would be better.

Also, I doubt I'll ever vote for Word Piks. This certainly doesn't excuse excessively disrespectful behavior.

Disads

I like politics a lot and I like engagement and clash at the link level even more so. Turns case analysis (vice versa for the aff) is always a good thing and should be a must have. Straight turns are fun.

Impacts

I love impact turns and my personal favorites are: Heg Good, Warming Good, Cap Good, Dedev, and CWG. It will take a lot for me to evaluate 0 risk of an impact. It can happen but your cards need to be far better.

I have been involved with Policy Debate since 1981, when I debated in High School in Arizona. I debated NDT for Arizona State in the late 80s, and have been coaching High School debate teams in Arizona, Wisconsin & California for a total of 23 years (off & on) starting in 1986. I coached Policy Debate most recently at Lowell High School in San Francisco from 2012-2016. I worked the 2001-2003 Stanford & Berkeley debate camps. I am Tabula Rasa, but default to Policy Making-I enjoy all aspects of the game, The K, The Counterplan-Disad debate, Case Turns, T whatever, it's all fair game. I do have a higher than average likelihood to pull the trigger on theory arguments if you develop them and win them (conditionality, pics, international actors etc.). Ultimately I think that virtually everything is debateable including the nature and function of the activity itself-that being said you will have an uphill battle the more aggressively anti-norm you get with me. I.E. I think that the affirmative should defend the Resolution, not attack it. Affirmatives without plans are fine, but not my preference. If you read an Aff without a plan I think you should read some Solvency cards for whatever performative experiment you are conducting. Speed is fine, be as loud & clear as possible. I prefer longer, more highly explanatory cards than a slew of 1 line cards, but also understand the tactical utility of the short card in high school debate-just be aware that I do tend to read a few cards after the round, so if you have a crucial argument that you need to win, read the long card. I love to see integrated strategies that are coherent and well-evidenced-love aggressive (but not obnoxious) smart, fast debaters. If you have any specific or more nuanced questions please let me know pre-round and I will answer them. Email chain to gerardgrigsby@hotmail.com

Jeffrey Hsu

Experience:

Debated 3 years at Desert Vista high school

email: hsujeffrey21@gmail.com

General

I'm down for whatever argument you want to throw my way and pretty open-minded. All I ask is that you impact out the debate (ie why your winning arg(s) should win you the round/my ballot).

For local debaters in AZ, don't just re-read tag lines and believe that is reasonable enough to extend your argument, you need to flesh out your arguments and how they impact the round as a whole.

I might not know as much as you about the intricate, technical aspects of the topic, so be clear and slow on topic-specific phrases/acronyms, especially with T

K v Policy

I think one of the most important parts of these rounds is framework. The neg has to present how I should frame the round in my ballot.

Aff args I like: extinction outweighs, institutions matter, debate is a game, perm.

K v K

Personally, I haven't judged many K v K rounds yet, but I have debated in them. For now, the most important thing that I want in these debates is clash between each side's ideologies; How are your theories preferable compared to your opponents?

For really important details, I'd prefer if you could slow down and emphasize these points. Teams that will read their giant block off their laptop will make me zone out.

FW v K aff

I have been on both sides of these debates and so I am ok with a K v FW round. I usually prefer skills/education args over fairness. Both sides should explain clearly what their version of the debate looks like under their interpretation.

I enjoy DA to interps and impact turning the negs FW. I'm also down for running why your model is still topical/debatable 'enough' but with some significant net benefits over theirs. If you're doing the latter, your interp should be super well-explained in the context of their limits/predictability offense

Theory

love it; I usually reject the arg, not the team, unless given a really good reason to do so. Try and not attack your opponents when you're reading some theory arguments like they just committed the most heinous crime known to man.

Policy

Although I was a K debater most of high school, I enjoy judging policy rounds a lot. Everything is fair game so go and read your 12 off.

MISC

Speaks: I find myself giving slightly higher speaks than average

" 'I don't really take myself seriously so feel free not to take yourself that seriously either.' - My Coach" - Me

Cat Jacob

Northwestern' 23

WY'19

Coaching at Head Royce 2019-Present

I work at a think tank, I'll understand your policy arguments

Put me on the chain - catherinelynnjacob01@gmail.com AND hrsdebatedocs@gmail.com

Topicality - I have been in a lot of T debates this year - the only thing I want here is good line by line and impacted out standards in the 2nr/2ar (e.g. and aff ground o/ws neg ground -but why?) *** its not a reverse voter issue/its not genocide (dont annoy me)

T-USFG - I hate judging these now but I still have a conscience, I'm just hostile to them - couple things - make the 2ar responses to the 2nr on FW clear, the 1ar is make or break in FW debates for me so beware technical concessions. I don't really have a preference between prioritizing fairness vs education arguments. For the aff in these debates - dont drop SSD, TVA, or a truth testing claim on your scholarship - with minimal mitigation that's an easy neg ballot to write.

Disadvantages - They're lit - do turns case analysis and have a link story (even if its non specific), have an external impact and you're golden. Bad DAs are fine (ANWR, tradeoff etc), if they read a bad DA produce an amusing CX from it to showcase the contrived link chain, it'll up your ethos (and your speaks)

Counterplans - Have a competitive counterplan text with a net benefit. I will vote on a CP flaw/whether or not a CP is feasibly possible, I will not judgekick unless I am told to. Theoretically illegit CPs are fine and the theory debate should be done well if you really want me to reject them. Unorthodox CPs are also cool w me - anarchy for example.

Conditionality - Explain it, go for it if you want - I don't consider myself having a high threshold for judging theory, unless condo is dropped it should be at least 45 seconds of the 1ar (if extended) or else I will be less lenient in a 2ar on theory. In the 1ar, if condo is extended in 10 seconds as an afterthought (e.g. YEAH condo ummm its abusive next) that's annoying and I won't vote on that if the 2nr spends 8 seconds there and is marginally less coherent than you.

Kritiks v Policy Affs - - I have seen any K you're going to run in front of me and have a reasonable threshold for voting on K tricks. That being said - Reps are shaped by context - In round links/impacts are fine .

--------things that will annoy me in these debates

- Claiming that I should give you leeway because they read a "K trick" a. no BL for a K trick, b. unless you're going for condo with an impact of in round abuse/some other theory arg stop whining to me.

- unresponsive answers to FW that lead to an interventionist decision

- an incoherent link story/alt solvency

- not being able to explain your K in CX

-not Cross applying FW if they read more than one K and instead spending twenty seconds reading the same FW again

-Claiming the role of the aff in debates is to "stfu" - I don't like voting for this model of debate because it is one sided and in debate as a competitive activity engagement is critical - but I can't make that argument for you.

That being said - go read Khirn's reasoning for why he votes for Kritiks most of the time, and what his RFDs look like. I agree with him.

Ks I have written files on/answering/into the lit for - spanos, psycho, cap, communist horizon, security, fem, mao, death cult, berlant, scranton, queerness, set col, *the thing you'll really need to do in high theory debates is be responsive to 2ac answers and break your prewritten block dependency, show me you know what you're doing and I won't use my background knowledge to help you.

Kritiks v K affs - Usually interesting. the RFD will most like be they did/didnt win the perm (that's usually how it goes).

Death Good - I'll vote on it but I'll have a high threshold.

Ethics Violations - Dont clip. Ethics Violations as pertaining to evidence quality/evidence flaws are not usually a voter (these types of debates will also annoy me)- it is not your role to persuade me that it was particularly abusive - if you introduce one of these into the round a. it is make or break - if i determine you're wrong, you lose and that is a decision I will make myself without consideration from either team by reading the ev, b. these are usually accidents and stupid to waste time doing, c. the appropriate thing is to tell the team to correct it and not weaponize it for a strategy - that's a bad model of debate for several reasons and doing so makes you a living representation of a moral hazard.

Impact Turns - They're funny and usually have questionable evidence quality, I think that good impact turn debates are underused and very threatening to a stupid team that reads both an ineq and hard impact adv.

Misc -

- don't shake my hand, don't try it's weird and i don't like it

- I'll vote on a floating PIK

- There's a brightline between being argumentative and being rude, everyone loses that line sometimes but it's important to be attentive and paying attention to the responses of your opponents.

- Ill be on the email chain but I usually won't be flowing off of it

- You get two clears - then I stop flowing

- Time your own prep

- do untopical policy things against K teams it is their fault they can't go for T

-counter-fiction/poetry is acceptable

Feel free to message me w questions about my RFDs/comments - take notes during the RFD

I am a parent judge and I am not an experienced judge. I would prefer it if the teams were to not use theory arguments or Ks or anything too abstract, DAs and CPs are fine. I rank team higher with original arguments and comparison. I would also like for the teams to speak with a slower speed than normal (almost conversational) for I won't be able to understand at the speed of a normal debater. I wish good luck to both teams and I hope they have a fun round! my email address is mailtoashish@gmail.com

ryanryan.koh@gmail.com

Debated for Fullerton Union High School - policy for 4 years

- 2a for my entire career only ran affs with plans. 2a's be creative. I want to give you credit, but you have to justify it. 2ns flag stuff and close doors.

- 2n senior year, only went for politics, process CPs, and T. Not too much T as a 2n tho, but I love it. Ev matters. Predictable Limits >

- cheating CPs are fun, but have a good theory block. If I don't catch your args and the 2a goes for theory, I will assume it wasn't said. I won't fill in gaps.

- not a fast flow. Explanation and clarity plz.

- I'm probably not the best for K affs. I didn't understand them when I debated at a high level, so the threshold of need for explanation in debates is probably much higher, but I will vote for them.

- I went for FW against K affs. Fairness impacts need to pair with an arg about why fw is good for skills or something.. try to solve their offense plz and not just complain.

- take advantage of drops

Chase Laibe

Experience:

Debated 4 years at Desert Vista high school

Senior at Baylor

3x NDT Qual

Although I don't really think paradigms are that useful, I'll try my best to summarize some of my thoughts about debate down below.

email:chaselaibe@gmail.com

K general

I was a K debater most of high school and all of college. While I pretty much read and am comfortable with a lot of literature my research practices tend to focus more towards Baudrillard, Bataille, Psychoanalysis, James, and a variety of other nonsensical positions. While I am more fluent in these positions know that just holds you a higher threshold of doing it well. While links to the plan are nice, I don't really think it is that necessary. Personally don't think you need to win an alt if there is sufficient framing.

K vs Policy

Judge instruction is def a necessity in these debates, in order for neg teams to win these debates usually need to win a turn to the scholarship presented by the affirmative, or winning that the plan worsens the impact that outweighs and turns aff. Affs def should be able to defend the ideological underpinnings of the affirmative so in these debates don't be afraid to read your 5000 heg good cards. I find these debates quite interesting.

K v K aff

These can easily be the best and the worst for me, make sure to spend time explaining your theory of power and how it interacts with your opponents. I think the biggest thing for Affs in these debates is being able to clearly explain "solvency" as well as your method/theoretical approach/alternative. I think presumption is often under utilized in these debates and affs often dismiss it too quickly.

K aff vs FW

Honestly indifferent and don't have too many predispositions towards these debates, so if this is your jam go for it. I find a lot of times in these debates both teams need more explanation of there model and how it would function in debate. I will vote on procedural fairness just know I am more persuaded by the skills/education side of impacts.

POLICY

While I am most comfortable with K debate def fine with this as well just make sure to not use too many topic buzzwords as I haven't judged too many of these debates on this topic. Def fine with pretty much anything you want to read so go ahead and read your extremely contrived process CP just know I would prefer more judge instruction in final rebutalls. I like T and find those debates interesting as well.

Other Random Thoughts

Speaks: I find myself giving slightly higher speaks than average

Other Debate Events Besides Policy:

Fine with anything, note I will hold you to a higher standard of argumentation explanation, and clash than most judges

Background: Parent judge, corporate executive, PhD scientist, life-long learner, tabula rasa

Email Chain: cglee50@gmail.com

Speed: No spreading in general, clarity over speed. I love it when debaters spend more time thinking on their own feet and communicating clearly than regurgitating information that I can read in the e-mail chain (please do send).

Flowing: I will flow all your arguments. Dropped arguments: "silence is compliance"

Time: Please keep your own time and opponent's time. I'd rather focus on the flow of your ideas and arguments.

Stock Issues: All equally important. However, I weigh each round in the following order: solvency, inherency, harms, significance, topicality. Why? Because our world needs real people who can solve real problems. "We cannot solve our problems with the same level of thinking that created them." - Albert Einstein. So, fire away your plan/counterplan/solvency. Harms - I love learning from you. I learn the most listening to harms. If I (or your audience) became enlightened about your issue, it is a big plus.

Recycling: Same arguments floating around debate tournaments over and over again. Recycled ideas and arguments make me fall asleep... zzz.

You all are winners because you are not afraid of failure. Keep debating!

leland '22 | ucla '26 (computational and systems biology major)

he/him

yes, i would like to be on the email chain: yongjindebate@gmail.com

idk if anyone reads paradigms nowadays...if you do, add me on the email chain without asking. thanks!

update for long beach:i have been meaning to leave the activity for a while now, so this will probably be the only tournament i will be judging throughout the entire year. i don't know the topic at all so when you are in front of me, i would expect you to not throw around acronyms around.

tech > truth - this should be the general philosophy of every judge but there is no such thing as tabula rasa

top-level:

1. i thank Allen Kim, Young Park, Allison Harper, Caitlin Walrath, and Ms. Northrop for molding my views and perceptions on debate and how a debate should be held. that means that a lot of my preferences of what i would like to see in a round is a collaboration and hybrid of their amazing opinions on debate. so, if you are ever confused throughout my paradigm, their paradigms should be a lot more concise and straightforward and i wouldn't blame you if you defaulted to searching theirs up.

2. debate is a discussion between the debaters, i'm only an adjudicator of the round - do you what you do best, whether you are running wipeout to agenda ptx to baudrillard, my only job is to listen and flesh a clear ballot that gives me the easiest way to vote - any arguments that you can explain THOROUGHLY is on the table and it is your job by the rebuttals to write the ballot for me

3. BUT... i will not tolerate any arguments that pertain to sexism, racism, misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, anti-Semitism, classism, etc. i will stop a round if i need to, if i find that the debaters are uncomfortable and will cap your speaks to the lowest it can possibly be. respect needs to be earned between the debaters; but, there is a fine line between aggressive and passionate debating and ad hominem incivility

4. speed is fine and be comfortable in the round - whether you spread at 450 wpm or you go at Cal MS's speed, i'll flow whatever claims, warrants, or evidence you are communicating to me - but if i yell clear once and i can understand a drunk donkey better than i can understand your speech, i'll give up flowing :)

5. tag team CX is fine, you don't need to ask me beforehand - but if your partner is clearly speaking for you in CX, i'll make sure to tank both of your speaker points so...¯\_(ツ)_/¯

6. as i might have sounded passive-aggressive in some parts, i'm usually (HOPEFULLY) not too mean unless you break one or more of the stuff listed here. i wish you the best of luck in your rounds and if you have me as a judge, have fun and touch some grass after the round please

7. pre-round disclosure is good...that's a nonnegotiable

policy specific:

1. t: usfg- i put this at the top because you probably ctrl+F'ed my paradigm for this so you're welcome - these are the best debates to see or the absolute worst debates to see - i have been on both sides of these debates debating for and against framework so i welcome K v FW debates openly

- for FW debaters, i see the utility of both fairness and education/clash but i believe fairness is an internal link for education and clash FOR STRATEGIC REASONS, NOT PERSONAL ONES. in all the FW debates i've been in, 99% of explanations of fairness impacts become tautological, repetitive, and defensive by the 2NR and there are no intrinsic or external benefits to having fairness ALONE being good for debate. Additionally, my pet peeves for FW debaters are that they throw out TVAs without explaining why their TVA resolves any literature provided by the 1AC. i view TVAs as crucial for evaluating the round but without any justification for your TVA, there is an extremely high threshold of winning on it

- for K debaters, it is your job to defend why your model of debate is a better alternative to normative debate practices and impact or internal link turn the FW impacts for offense. Also, explain your counter-interpretation and why that has a net benefit to the model of this round or model of debate as a whole.

2. k affirmatives - i love them a lot and i've experimented with them throughout my high school career - while i see the value of K affirmatives and i do not auto default to "defend a hypothetical implementation of a plan" - this does NOT mean i'll understand the nuances of your aff without explanation

- it is your responsibility to:

1. explain the thesis of the 1AC

2. warrant the method/solvency of the 1AC

3. justify my relationship as a judge to the ballot and the round

4. explain the 1AC's relationship to the resolution whether that be positive or negative.

Lack of sufficient explanation of these 4 things increases my chances of voting presumption and/or FW in the debate

3. k v k debates - one of the most underrated debates to have - for K affirmative, explaining the 1AC's theory of power, perm, root cause, and comparisons between the 1AC and alt will help me understand the interaction between the 1AC and the K - for K negative, explaining the link and its relationship to the 1AC and method v method will isolate the ballot for me

4. policy affs - case debate are great to see - whether that entails impact defense, impact turns, specific case defense or offense, every reason provided to the 2NR are reasons to lower the threshold of voting aff - presumption is a thing and i do vote on it

5. cp - i'll reward teams who read specific solvency evidence pertaining to the aff's plan while it is not a necessity - but, what is a necessity though, is internal and/or external net benefits to the CP and how it competes against the aff solvency - i like to see unique and strategic counterplans whether they are abusive or not - but, the more abusive a CP becomes, the more i'll grant aff leniency to theory, i.e. international actors or private actors

6. da - i believe that link portions in a disad are extremely underrated - more and more i see disad links become generic links to the plan and the internal link story of the disad becomes really sketch. in the end, it ends up being an impact framing debate by the 2NR and 2AR

- while i highly regard top-level impact framing and turns case arguments and i'll reward a team that does one well, i do believe that a disad should have a coherent link and i/l story to decrease my threshold on it - i would rather see an impact turn round than see a 1NR mindlessly read 10 UQ wall cards on Biden's midterms

7. k- this is the area where i have interacted the most in my junior and senior year - framework and link debates are the most important to me and this is where your debates should be focused on anyway - whether you read a 2 minute o/v on your K or do line-by-line, i want to learn about how your literature is affected by the 1AC, the 1AC's politics, or the 1AC's rhetoric. And, i want to know what is my relationship to the K and how i should evaluate my ballot.

- i do not want to listen to your prewritten blocks and overviews discussing the nuances of your literature; i could've spent my time better reading comments from 40-year-old moms on Goodreads about your book than you spreading to me 8 minutes in the 2NC about it.

- if you pull lines from the 1AC text contextualizing the aff to the link, i'll heavily boost your speaks - for the alternative, i expect you to tell me if you are judge kicking it or not. if you aren't, i hope listen to a coherent story on how the alt resolves the links and examples of the alt happening either within debate or in politics

- most importantly, explain your buzzwords because it becomes so easy to see when a debater is vomiting random words because they are unfamiliar with the literature. Remember, debate is a discussion between you and the opponent, and your speaks will reflect if you make the debate inaccessible to them.

8. t - i could care less if you read 4 T shells out of your 10 offs, but your decision to go for it in the neg block and the 2NR, purely relies upon your ability to articulate: 1. the warrants of your standards 2. the impact it has in-round and out-of-round and what their plan justifies 3. the credibility of your interpretation and why the aff violates it. When it comes to competing interps and reasonability, i default to competing interps unless given instruction and explanation why reasonability outweighs competing interps.

9. theory - my general ideology on theory or any miscellaneous theory args is: go big or go home - while it defers to a round-by-round basis, i want to hear a 5-minute theory speech than a shoddily extended 45-second theory shell in the 2NR or 2AR. it is your job to justify why the opponent provides an abusive world of debate and how that led to issues in-round. i have no biases in voting for quirky theory arguments (i refuse to call them frivolous bc that's what PF and LD call them and i don't want to associate myself with them). Theory debate legitimately makes my day and i love to see a round that invests their time in one.

miscellaneous:

my speaks start at 28 and will go up or down depending on how well u speak, coordinate w ur partner, being nice to ur opponents, etc. but here are some pet peeves...

1. pet peeves:

- stealing prep (DON'T U DARE TOUCH UR COMPUTER WHEN UR PARTNER IS GOING TO THE RESTROOM)

- taking a millennia to send out the doc (marked or not)

- speaking over each other in cx

- asking "did you read 'x' card" more than once in a cx

- calling me judge instead of yongjin or you

- card clipping results in max 20 speaks - but, card clipping accusations need to be debated in-round for me to assign a loss - however, i will only assign an auto-loss if it is a bubble round because i believe that those who card clip should not be in elim rounds

- not disclosing the aff and 2nr strats pre-round unless its new

Affiliations and History:
Please email (damiendebate47@gmail.com and tjlewis1919@gmail.com) me all of the speeches before you begin.
I am the Director of Debate at Damien High School in La Verne, CA.
I was the Director of Debate for Hebron High School in Carrollton, TX from 2020-2021.
I was an Assistant Coach at Damien from 2017-2020.
I debated on the national circuit for Damien from 2009-2013.
I graduated from Occidental College in Los Angeles with a BA in Critical Theory and Social Justice.
I completed my Master's degree in Social Justice in Higher Education Administration at The University of La Verne.
My academic work involves critical university studies, Georges Bataille, poetics, and post-colonialism.
Author of Suburba(in)e Surrealism (2021).

Yearly Round Numbers:
I try to judge a fair bit each year.
Fiscal Redistribution Round Count: About 40 rounds
I judged 75 rounds or more on the NATO Topic.
I judged over 50 rounds on the Water Topic.
I judged around 40 rounds on the CJR topic.
I judged 30 rounds on the Arms topic (2019-2020)
I judged a bit of LD (32 debates) on the Jan-Feb Topic (nuke disarm) in '19/'20.
I judged around 25 debates on the Immigration topic (2018-2019) on the national circuit.
I judged around 50 rounds on the Education topic (2017-2018) on the national circuit.
LD Protocol:I have a 100% record voting against teams that only read Phil args/Phil v. Policy debates. Adapt or lose.
NDT Protocol: I will rarely have any familiarity with the current college topic and will usually only judge 12-15 rounds pre-NDT.
Please make your T and CP acronyms understandable.

Front Matter Elements:
If you need an accommodation of any kind, please email me before the round starts.
I want everyone to feel safe and able to debate- this is my number one priority as a judge.
I don't run prep time while you email the speech doc. Put the whole speech into one speech doc.
I flow 1AC impact framing, inherency, and solvency straight down on the same page nowadays.
Speed is not an issue for me, but I will ask you to slow down (CLEAR) if you are needlessly sacrificing clarity for quantity--especially if you are reading T or theory arguments.

I will not evaluate evidence identifiable as being produced by software, bots, algorithms etc. Human involvement in the card’s production must be evident unique to the team, individual, and card. This means that evidence you directly take from open source must be re-highlighted at a minimum. You should change the tags and underlining anyways to better fit with your argument’s coherency.

Decision-making:
I privilege technical debating and the flow. I try to get as much down as I possibly can and the little that I miss usually is a result of a lack of clarity on the part of the speaker or because the actual causal chain of the idea does not make consistent sense for me (I usually express this on my face). Your technical skill should make me believe/be able to determine that your argument is the truth. That means warrants. Explain them, impact them, and don't make me fish for them in the un-underlined portion of the six paragraph card that your coach cut for you at a camp you weren't attending. I find myself more and more dissatisfied with debating that operates only on the link claim level. I tend to take a formal, academic approach to the evaluation of ideas, so discussions of source, author intentions and 'true' meaning, and citation are both important to me and something that I hope to see in more debates.

The best debates for me to judge are ones where the last few rebuttals focus on giving me instructions on what the core controversies of the round are, how to evaluate them, and what mode of thinking I should apply to the flow as a history of the round. This means that I'm not going to do things unless you tell me to do them on the flow (judge kick, theory 'traps' etc.). When instructions are not provided or articulated, I will tend to use (what I consider to be) basic, causal logic (i.e. judicial notice) to find connections, contradictions, and gaps/absences. Sometimes this happens on my face--you should be paying attention to the physical impact of the content of your speech act.

I believe in the importance of topicality and theory. No affs are topical until proven otherwise.
Non-impacted theory arguments don't go a long way for me; establish a warranted theory argument that when dropped will make me auto-vote for you. This is not an invitation for arbitrary and non-educational theory arguments being read in front of me, but if you are going to read no neg fiat (for example), then you better understand (and be able to explain to me) the history of the argument and why it is important for the debate and the community.

Reading evidence only happens if you do not make the debate legible and winnable at the level of argument (which is the only reason I would have to defer to evidentiary details).

I find framework to be a boring/unhelpful/poorly debated style of argument on both sides. I want to hear about the ballot-- what is it, what is its role, and what are your warrants for it (especially why your warrants matter!). I want to know what kind of individual you think the judge is (academic, analyst, intellectual etc.). I want to hear about the debate community and the round's relationship within it. These are the most salient questions in a framework debate for me. If you are conducting a performance in the round and/or debate space, you need to have specific, solvable, and demonstrable actions, results, and evidences of success. These are the questions we have to be thinking about in substantial and concrete terms if we are really thinking about them with any authenticity/honesty/care (sorge). I do not think the act of reading FW is necessarily constitutive of a violent act. You can try to convince me of this, but I do start from the position that FW is an argument about what the affirmative should do in the 1AC.

If you are going to go for Fairness, then you need a metric. Not just a caselist, not just a hypothetical ground dispensation, but a functional method to measure the idea of fairness in the round/outside the round i.e. why are the internal components (ground, caselist, etc.) a good representation of a team's burden and what do these components do for individuals/why does that matter. I am not sure what that metric/method is, but my job is not to create it for you. A framework debate that talks about competing theories for how fairness/education should be structured and analyzed will make me very happy i.e. engaging the warrants that constitute ideas of procedural/structural fairness and critical education. Subject formation has really come into vogue as a key element for teams and honestly rare is the debate where people engage the questions meaningfully--keep that in mind if you go for subject formation args in front of me.

In-round Performance and Speaker Points:
An easy way to get better speaker points in front of me is by showing me that you actually understand how the debate is going, the arguments involved, and the path to victory. Every debater has their own style of doing this (humor, time allocation, etc.), but I will not compromise detailed, content-based analysis for the ballot.

I believe that there is a case for in-round violence/damage winning the ballot. Folks need to be considerate of their behavior and language. You should be doing this all of the time anyways.

While I believe that high school students should not be held to a standard of intellectual purity with critical literature, I do expect you to know the body of scholarship that your K revolves around: For example, if you are reading a capitalism K, you should know who Marx, Engels, and Gramsci are; if you are reading a feminism k, you should know what school of feminism (second wave, psychoanalytic, WOC, etc.) your author belongs to. If you try and make things up about the historical aspects/philosophical links of your K, I will reflect my unhappiness in your speaker points and probably not give you much leeway on your link/alt analysis. I will often have a more in-depth discussion with you about the K after the round, so please understand that my post-round comments are designed to be educational and informative, instead of determining your quality/capability as a debater.

I am 100% DONE with teams not showing up on time to disclose. A handful of minutes or so late is different than showing up 3-5 min before the round begins. Punish these folks with disclosure theory and my ears will be open.

CX ends when the timer rings. I will put my fingers in my ears if you do not understand this. I deeply dislike the trend of debaters asking questions about 'did you read X card etc.' in cross-x and I believe this contributes to the decline of flowing skills in debate. While I have not established a metric for how many speaker points an individual will lose each time they say that phrase, know that it is something on my mind. I will not allow questions outside of cross-x outside of core procedural things ('can you give the order again?,' 'everyone ready?' etc.). Asking 'did you read X card' or 'theoretical reasons to reject the team' outside of CX are NOT 'core procedural things.'

Do not read these types of arguments in front of me:
Arguments that directly call an individual's humanity into account
Arguments based in directly insulting your opponents
Arguments that you do not understand

Please include me on the email chain: rydebate@gmail.com

I was a policy debater for 2 years in high school and am not competing in college

I like line by lines, overviews, good analytics, impact weighing

Spreading evidence is fine, but please speak at an understandable pace for analytic arguments

Aff must prove that they meet stock issues. Neg must prove links between aff plan to off cases

I'm willing to vote on counterplans, disadvantages, topicality, kritiks, theory

I lean condo bad because I think it takes away from the educational value of the debate

I'm not that familiar with theory arguments, so if you do decide to run them, explain thoroughly

Clipping will result in an automatic vote for the opposite team

tldr do what you do best; i'll only vote for complete arguments that make sense; weighing & judge instruction tip the scales in your favor; disclosure is good; i care about argument engagement and i value flexibility; stay hydrated & be a good person.

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About me:

she/her

policy coach @ damien: spring 2022 - present

ld coach @ loyola: fall 2023 - present

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My strongest belief about argumentation is that argument engagement is good - I don't have a strong preference as to what styles of arguments teams read in front of me, but I'd prefer if both teams engaged with their opponents' arguments; I don't enjoy teams who avoid clash (regardless of the style of argument they are reading). I value ideological flexibility in judges and actively try not to be someone who will exclusively vote on only "policy" or only "k" arguments.

I am comfortable evaluating arguments that are commonplace in policy (cx) debate; less comfortable evaluating nonsense trick-blip-phil-paradox-skep-word-soup quirks of lincoln douglas. This means that any CX team that debates in a coherent and well-researched manner (whether policy or k) should be fine in front of me. LD teams that read real arguments should be fine in front of me. LD teams that read "eval after 1ar" should strike me before they strike a parent judge.

General note about reading my paradigm - most things are phrased in terms of policy debate structure & norms (2nr/2ar being 5 minutes, "team" instead of "debater," "planless aff" = "non-t k aff," etc). If I'm judging you in LD and you have questions about how something translates to LD, feel free to ask!

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email chains:

ld email chains: loyoladebate47@gmail.com and nethmindebate@gmail.com

policy email chains: damiendebate47@gmail.com and nethmindebate@gmail.com

if you need to contact me directly about rfd questions, accessibility requests, or anything else, please email nethmindebate@gmail.com (please don't email the teamail for these types of requests)!

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flowing: it is good and teams should do it

stolen from alderete - if you show me a decent flow, you can get up to 1 extra speaker point. this can only help you - i won't deduct points for an atrocious flow. this is to encourage teams to actually flow. i recently witnessed a 2ac that answered a whole k that was not read in the 1nc. it nuked my value to life. this is my attempt at remedying it:)

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All of my deal-breakers/hard and fast rules/moments of "I won't vote on this" are dependent on four things:

1 - protecting the safety of the participants in the round (no harrassment, no physical violence, etc).

2 - voting for things that meet the minimum standard to be considered an argument (it needs to have warrants & make some amount of logical sense).

3 - rules set forth by the tournament (speech times, one team wins and one team loses, I have to enter my own ballot, etc).

4 - i will only evaluate the debate after the end of the 2ar. this is 0% negotiable. i did not think i would have to say this, but i guess i do.

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My voting record is roughly 50-50 on most major debate controversies (yes, even planless affs vs framework). As long as your argument doesn't violate the above four criteria, go for it!

I think that warrants are hard to come by in many debate rounds these days, even ones with “good” teams. Err on the side of a little too much explanation, because if your arg is warrantless, you will be ballotless. Extensions need to include warrants, not just taglines.

Independent voters need warrants and an articulation of why they should be evaluated before everything else. These debates could generally benefit from more judge instruction and weighing. Simply calling something an independent voter doesn’t mean I vote for you if you extend it.

Disclose or lose. Non-new affs should be on the wiki & should be disclosed to the neg team a minimum of 30 min before round. Neg offcase positions that have been read before should be on the wiki. Past 2nrs should be disclosed to the aff team a minimum of 30 min before round. New affs don't need to be disclosed pre-round. I am 1000000% done with teams that don't disclose. I have zero belief that there is any good reason for non-disclosure. If your opponent engages in any disclosure nonsense, read theory and there's a 95+% chance I vote for you, regardless of how good they are at the theory debate. Don't like disclosing? Pref someone who is willing to tolerate your nonsense (not me).

note: i am far more lenient on disclosure with novices/debaters who haven't debated at national-circuit tournaments before. the grumpiness of the above section is directed at people who know how to disclose and purposefully avoid it. you know who you are:)

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Some general notes

Accessibility & content warnings: Email me if there is an accessibility request that I can help facilitate - I always want to do my part to make debates more accessible. I prefer not to judge debates that involve procedurals about accessibility and/or content warnings. I think it is more productive to have a pre-round discussion where both teams request any accommodation(s) necessary for them to engage in an equitable debate. I feel increasingly uncomfortable evaluating debates that come down to accessibility/cw procedurals, especially when the issue could have easily been resolved pre-round.

Speed/clarity – I will say clear up to two times per speech before just doing my best to flow you. I can handle a decent amount of speed. Going slower on analytics is a good idea. You should account for pen time/scroll time.

Online debate -- 1] please record your speeches, if there are tech issues, I'll listen to a recording of the speech, but not a re-do. 2] debate's still about communication - please watch for nonverbals, listen for people saying "clear," etc.

I am not comfortable evaluating out-of-round events. The only exception to this is disclosure. I will vote on reasonable and good faith disclosure theory (yeah you should probably disclose on opencaselist, no you probably shouldn't lose for forgetting one round report). I will not vote on arguments about random out-of-round events, things that happened in another round, things that happened on a team's pref sheet, or any other arguments of this nature.

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Speaker points:

Speaker points are dependent on strategy, execution, clarity, and overall engagement in the round and are scaled to adapt to the quality/difficulty/prestige of the tournament.

I try to give points as follows:

30: you're a strong contender to win the tournament & this round was genuinely impressive

29.5+: late elims, many moments of good decisionmaking & argumentative understanding, adapted well to in-round pivots

29+: you'll clear for sure, generally good strat & round vision, a few things could've been more refined

28.5+: likely to clear but not guaranteed, there are some key errors that you should fix

28+: even record, probably losing in the 3-2 round

27.5+: winning less than 50% of your rounds, key technical/strategic errors

27+: winning less than 50% of your rounds, multiple notable technical/strategic errors

26+: errors that indicated a fundamental lack of preparation for the rigor/style of this tournament

25-: you did something really bad/offensive/unsafe.

Extra speaks for flowing, being clear, kindness, adaptation, and good disclosure practices.

Minus speaks for discrimination of any sort, bad-faith disclosure practices, rudeness/unkindness, and attempts to avoid engagement/clash.

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Opinions on Specific Positions (ctrl+f section):

Case:

I think that negatives that don't engage with the 1ac are putting themselves in a bad position. This is true for both K debates and policy debates.

Extensions should involve warrants, not just tagline extensions - I'm willing to give some amount of leeway for the 1ar/2ar extrapolating a warrant that wasn't the focal point of the 2ac, but I should be able to tell from your extensions what the scenario is, what the internal links are, and why you solve.

Planless affs:

I've been on both sides of the planless aff debate, and my strongest opinion about planless affs is that you need to be able to explain what your aff does/why it's good.

I tend to dislike planless affs where the strategy is to make the aff seem like a word salad until after 2ac cx and then give the aff a bunch of new (and not super well-warranted) implications in the 1ar. I tend to be better for planless aff teams when they have a meaningful relationship to the topic, they are straight-up about what they do/don't defend, they use their aff strategically, engage with neg arguments, and make smart 1ar & 2ar decisions with good ballot analysis.

T/framework vs planless affs:

I'm roughly 50-50 in these debates. I don't have a strong preference for how framework teams engage in these debates other than that you should be respectful when discussing sensitive material.

I think that TVAs can be more helpful than teams realize. While having a TVA isn't always necessary, winning a TVA provides substantial defense on many of the aff's exclusion arguments.

I don't have a preference on whether your chosen 2nr is skills or fairness (or something else). I think that both options have strategic value based on the round you're in. Framework teams almost always get better points in front of me when they are able to contextualize their arguments to their opponents' strategy.

I also don't have a preference between the aff going for impact turns or going for a counterinterp. The strategic value of this is dependent on how topical/non-topical your aff is, in my opinion.

Theory:

The less frivolous your theory argument, the better I am for it.

Please weigh! It's not nearly as intuitive to make a decision in theory debates - I can fill in the gaps for why extinction is more impactful than localized war more easily than I can fill in the gaps for why neg flex matters more/less than research burdens.

default to no rvis <3 medium uphill to change my mind on this one

Topicality (not framework):

I like T debates that have robust and contextualized definitions of the relevant words/phrases/entities in the resolution. Have a clear explanation of what your interpretation is/isn't; examples/caselists are your friend.

Grammar-based topicality arguments: I don't find most of the grammar arguments being made these days to be very intuitive. You should explain/warrant them more than you would in front of a judge who loves those arguments.

Tricks (this is mostly an LD thing):

I used to say that I would never vote on tricks. I've decided it's bad to exclude a style of argumentation just because I don't enjoy it. Here are some things to know if you're reading tricks in front of me:

1 - I won't flow off the doc (I never flow off the doc, but I won't be checking the doc to see if I missed any of your tricks/spikes)

2 - The argument has to have a warrant in the speech it is presented

3 - The reason I've been so opposed to voting on tricks in the past is that I've never heard a trick that met the minimum threshold to be considered an argument

Kritiks (neg):

I tend to like K teams that engage with the aff and have a clear analysis of what's wrong with the aff's model/framing/epistemology/etc. I tend to be a bit annoyed when judging K teams that read word-salad or author-salad Ks, refuse to engage with arguments, expect me to fill in massive gaps for them, don't do adequate weighing/ballot analysis/judge instruction, or are actively hostile toward their opponents. The more of the aforementioned things you do, the more annoyed I'll be. The inverse is also true - the more you actively work to ensure that you don't do these things, the happier I'll be!

Disads:

Zero risk probably doesn't exist, but very-close-to-zero risk probably does. Teams that answer their opponents' warrants instead of reading generic defense tend to fare better in close rounds. Good evidence tends to matter more in these debates - I'd rather judge a round with 2 great cards + debaters explaining their cards than a round with 10 horrible cards + debaters asking me to interpret their dumpster-quality cards for them.

Counterplans:

I don't have strong ideological biases about how many condo advocacies the neg gets or what kinds of counterplans are/aren't cheating. More egregious abuse = easier to persuade me on theory; the issue I usually see in theory debates is a lack of warranting for why the neg's model was uniquely abusive - specific analysis > generic args + no explanation.

Judge kick - you've gotta tell me to do it. I'm not opposed to it, but I won't assume that you want me to unless the 2nr tells me to. No strong opinions for/against judge kick.

currently no strong opinions on things like normal means or counterplan competition on the fiscal redistribution topic. this means you can probably get away with more in front of me as long as you warrant it/read good evidence.

--

Arguments I will NEVER vote for:

-arguments that are actively discriminatory or make the round unsafe ("misgendering good," "let's make the debate about a minor's personal life," other stuff of that nature).

-any argument that attempts to police what a debater wears or how they present (this includes shoes theory/formal clothes theory).

-any argument that denies the existence/badness of oppression (i don't mean i won't vote for "extinction outweighs." i mean i won't vote for "genocide good.")

--

if there's anything i didn't mention or you have any questions, feel free to email me! if there's anything i can do to make debate more accessible for you, let me know! i really love debate and i coach because i want to make debate/the community a better place; please don't hesitate to reach out if there's anything you need.

*wear a mask if you are any degree of ill*

neutral or they/them pronouns // aprilmayma@gmail.com

me: 4 yrs TOC circuit policy @ Blue Valley West ('19: surveillance, china, education, immigration) // BA Political Science @ UC Berkeley ('22) // [Current] PhD student, Political Science @ Johns Hopkins. did not debate in college.

conflicts: college prep (2019-present), georgetown day (2023-present), calvert hall (2023-present)

judging stats: 264 sum, aff: 126(46.8%) - neg: 143(53.2%) // panels: 63, sat: 6x, split: 19 // decisions regretted: like 2, maybe 3

non-policy: dabbled but will evaluate like a policy judge.

___

juj preferences

[me] my debate opinions are influenced primarily by KU-affiliated/Kansas debate diaspora (ian beier, allie chase, matt munday, jyleesa hampton, box, hegna, Q, countless others, peers I had the privilege to debate against). i read heg affs as a 2A. I went for the K, impact turn & adv cp, and T as a 2N. Great for policy/T, policy/policy & policy/K, OK for K/policy, mid for K/K & theory. I think i'm good for a fast/technical debate for someone having been out of debate for 5 years. LOL. have mercy on me.

[norms] CX is a speech except when using extra prep. I do not care about respectability/politeness/"professionalism", but ego posturing/nastiness is distinct from assertiveness/confidence/good faith. respect diverse skill levels and debating styles. non-debate (interpersonal) disputes go straight to tab, NOT me. I am a mandated reporter.

[rfd] I will take the easiest way out. I try to write an aff and neg ballot and resolve one of them with as little intervention as possible - read: judge instructions necessary. I only read cards if they're extended into rebuttals w authors & warrants. Ev work, like Mac dre said, is not my job. framing the round through offensive/defense framing, presumption, models, etc. also helpful (if consistent). i flow on paper so slow down where it matters.

[online] do not start if my camera is off. SLOW DOWN, like slower than an in-person tournament, or else your cpu mic/my speaker will eat all your words; I will type "clear" in the round chat box once per speech.

[IRL] I'll clear u once per speech & stop flowing if i don't understand. my facial expressions reveal a lot about what I do/dont understand. track your own prep, but if you're bad at stealing prep (aka, I can tell), you will not like your speaks. cut my rfd short if you need to prep another round immediately.

[gen] debate is not debaters adjusting to the judge. do the type debate you are good at, not what you think I will like. I will meet you where you are, as long as you can explain your args. I like efficiency & will not punish a shortened speech unless its prematurely concluded. i do not read "inserts", a recut card is still a card - read it. I will not evaluate what I cannot flow & I do not flow analytics off the doc. #lets #signpost. clarity > speed, tech > truth. content warnings/disability accommodations/etc should be made verbally before disclosure/round.

** TLDR: I like good debate; as in, the more rounds I judge, the less strong feelings I have about specific arguments. I can be persuaded by most arguments (if you are good at being persuasive). do the work and you will win me over. good luck and have fun! :)

___

argument notes

[ETHICS VIOLATIONS] Teams must call an ethics violation to stop the round. if verified, the violating team drops with lowest speaks. otherwise, the accusing team drops with lowest speaks. [clipping] usually necessitates recording, contingent on debaters consent & tournament rules. clipping includes being unclear to the point of being incomprehensible & not marking.**I am following at least the 1AC and 1NC - read every word. seriously READ ALL THE WORDS!!!! if I notice clipping and no one else calls it out, I will not stop the round, but your speaks will reflect what I hear.

[case] yes. plan texts are my preference, but not a requirement. #1 fan of case debate. case turns too. does anyone go for dedev anymore?

[K-aff] okay, but not my neck of the woods. being germane to the resolution is good, or affs must resolve something or have offense. don't miss the forest for the trees- ex: 2NR responds LBL to the 1AR but fails to contextualize to the rest of the debate. I find myself often w a lot of info but unclear reasons to vote. judge instruction prevents judge intervention (esp. re: kvk debate).

[K-neg] sure. tell me what ur words mean. I'm familiar with most neolib/security/ontology-relevant K's, but never never never assume I know your theory of power. idk your white people (heidegger, bataille, schlag, baudrillard, wtv). K tricks r dope, if you can explain them.

[disads] yes. impact turns/turns case are awesome. idk anything about finance, spare me the jargon or at least explain it in baby words.

[cp] okay. slow down/signpost on deficits & impact out. "sufficiency framing" "perm do ____" are meaningless w/o explanation. abolish perm vomit! adv cp's r awesome!! risk of net ben before CP solvency (unless told otherwise... judge instruction is your friend). remember to actually "[insert aff]" in your cp text.

[T] good (but I'm waiting for it to be great...). default to competing interps/framing through models unless told otherwise. caselists are good. SIGNPOST. slow down, i need to hear every word. + speaks for T debate off the flow. Impress me, & your speaks will reflect it! [re: T vs. K-aff]: I admittedly lean neg for limits being good & personal familiarity of args. i find K-aff v. fw rounds are increasingly uncreative/unadaptive... TVA's are persuasive (aff teams are not good at debating against them). judge instruction is your friend!

[theory] rule of thumb: equal input, equal-ish output. aka, blipped theory warrants blipped answers. do not expect a good rfd if you are speeding through theory blocks like you are reading the Cheesecake Factory menu. I will not vote on theory if you are simply asserting a violation - it is procedural argument, treat it like one.

[speaker points] i am anti speaks inflation. everyone starts at 28. I drop speaks for aforementioned reasons + disorganization + offensive/bad faith behavior. speaks are earned via efficient/effective speech construction, cx usage, succinctness, and strategy. 29.2+ reserved for exemplary speeches. below 28 indicates more pre-tournament prep is needed.

Elise Matton, Director of Speech & Debate at Albuquerque Academy (2022–present)
EMAIL CHAIN: enmatton@gmail.com

· B.A. History, Tulane University (Ancient & Early Modern Europe)
· M.A. History, University of New Mexico (U.S. & Latin America)

Competitive Experience:
· CX debate in NM local circuit, 2010 State Champion (2005-2010)
· IPDA/NPDA debate in college, 2012 LSU Mardi Gras Classic Champion (2011-2014)

Coaching Experience:
· Team Assistant, Isidore Newman (primarily judging/trip chaperoning — 2012-2016)
· Assistant Coach, Albuquerque Academy (LD & CX emphasis — 2017–2022)

Judging Experience:
· I judge a mix of local circuit and national circuit tournaments (traditional & progressive) primarily in CX and LD, but occasionally PF or other Speech events.

Note Pre-Jack Howe:

· Jack Howe is my 1st national circuit tournament in policy this season — I haven't seen or judged many rounds at all yet this year and definitely not too many fast/technical/progressive rounds on the topic. Do not assume I know Aff topic areas, core neg ground, abstract topic-specific acronyms, etc. Adjust accordingly!

General Notes (this is catered for policy and national circuit LD. PF notes are at the bottom).

· Speed is fine generally so long as it's not used to excessively prohibit interaction with your arguments. I do think there is a way to spread and still demonstrate strong speaking ability (varying volume, pacing, tone etc) and will probably reward you for it if you're doing both well. Go slower/clearer/or otherwise give vocal emphasis on taglines and key issues such as plan text or aff advocacy, CP texts, alts, ROB/ROJ, counter-interps, etc. Don't start at your max speed but build up to it instead. If you are one of the particularly fast teams in the circuit, I recommend you slow down SLIGHTLY in front of me. I haven't been judging many fast rounds lately, so I'm slightly rusty. I'm happy to call out "clear" and/or "slow" to help you find that my upper brightline so you can adjust accordingly as needed.

· Put me on the email chain (enmatton@gmail.com) but know I don't like rounds that REQUIRE me to read the doc while you're speaking (or ideally at all). I tend to have the speech doc up, but I am annoyed by rounds where debaters ASSUME that everyone is reading along with them. I flow off what I hear, not what I read, and I believe that your delivery and performance are important aspects of this activity and you have the burden of clearly articulating your points well enough that I theoretically shouldn't need to look at the docs at all for anything other than ev checking when it's requested. If someone who wasn't looking at your speech doc would not be able to tell the difference between the end of one card/warrant and the beginning of a new tagline, you need better vocal variety and clarity (louder, intonation change, inserting "and" or "next" between cards etc, etc.

· The most impressive debaters to me are ones who can handle intense high-level technical debates, but who can make it accessible to a wide variety of audiences. This means that I look for good use of tech and strategy, but ALSO for the ability to "boil it down" in clearly worded extensions, underviews, overviews, and explanations of your paths to the ballot. I strongly value debaters who can summarize the main thesis of each piece of offense in their own words. It shows you have a strong command of the material and that you are highly involved in your own debate prep.

· I believe that Tech>truth GENERALLY, BUT- Just because an argument is dropped doesn't necessarily mean I'll give you 100% weight on it if the warrants aren't there or it is absurdly blippy. I also have and will vote for teams that may be less technically proficient but still make valid warranted claims even if they aren't done formatted in a "Technical" manner. Ex: if you run some a theory argument against a less technical team who doesn't know how to line-by-line respond to it, but they make general arguments about why this strategy is harmful to debaters and the debate community and argue that you should lose for it, I would treat that like an RVI even if they don't call it an RVI. Etc.

· Use my occasional facial expression as cues. You’ll probably notice me either nodding occasionally or looking quizzically from time to time- if something sounds confusing or I’m not following you’ll be able to tell and can and should probably spend a few more seconds re-explaining that argument in another way (don't dwell on this if it happens — if it's an important enough point that you think you need to win, use the cue to help you and try explaining it again!) Note the nodding doesn't mean I necessarily agree with a point, just following it and think you're explaining it well. If you find this distracting please say so pre-round and I’ll make an effort not to do so.

· Use Content warnings if discussing anything that could make the space less safe for anyone within it and be willing to adapt for opponents or judges in the room.

Role as a Judge

Debate is incredible because it is student-driven, but I don't think that means I abandon my role as an educator or an adult in the space when I am in the back of the room making my decision. I believe that good debaters should be able to adapt to multiple audiences. Does this mean completely altering EVERYTHING you do to adapt to a certain judge (traditional judge, K judge, anti-spreading judge, lay judge, etc etc)? No, but it does mean thinking concretely about how you can filter your strategy/argument/approach through a specific lens for that person.

HOW I MAKE MY RFD: At the end of the last negative speech I usually mark the key areas I could see myself voting and then weigh that against what happens in the 2AR to make my decision. My favorite 2NR/2AR’s are ones that directly lay out and tell me the possible places in the round I could vote for them and how/why. 2NR/2AR’s that are essentially a list of possible RFDs/paths to the ballot for me are my favorite because not only do they make my work easier, but it clearly shows me how well you understood and interpreted the round.

Topicality/Theory

Part of me really loves the meta aspect of T and theory, and part of me loathes the semantics and lack of substance it can produce. I see T and Theory as a needing to exist to help set some limits and boundaries, but I also have a fairly high threshold. Teams can and do continue to convince me of appropriate broadenings of those boundaries. Reasonability tends to ring true to me for the Aff on T, but don’t be afraid to force them to prove or meet that interpretation, especially if it is a stretch, and I can be easily persuaded into competing interps. For theory, I don’t have a problem with conditional arguments but do when a neg strat is almost entirely dependent on running an absurd amount of offcase arguments as a time skew that prevents any substantive discussion of arguments. This kind of strat also assumes I’ll vote on something simply because it was “flowed through”, when really I still have to examine the weight of that argument, which in many cases is insubstantial. At the end of the day, don’t be afraid to use theory- it’s there as a strategy if you think it makes sense for the round context, but if you’re going to run it, please spend time in the standards and voters debate so I can weigh it effectively.

Disadvantages

I love a really good disad, especially with extensive impact comparisons. Specific disads with contextualized links to the aff are some of my all-time favorite arguments, simple as they may seem in construct. The cost/benefit aspect of the case/DA debate is particularly appealing to me. I don’t think generic disads are necessarily bad but good links and/or analytics are key. Be sure your impact scenario is fully developed with terminal impacts. Multiple impact scenarios are good when you can. I'm not anti nuke war scenarios (especially when there is a really specific and good internal link chain and it is contextually related to the topic) but there are tons more systemic level impacts too many debaters neglect.

Counterplans

I used to hate PICs but have seen a few really smart ones in the past few years that are making me challenge that notion. That being said I am not a fan of process CPs, but go for it if it’s key to your strat.

Kritiks

Love them, with some caveats. Overviews/underviews, or really clearly worded taglines are key here. I want to see *your* engagement with the literature. HIGH theory K's with absurdly complicated taglines that use methods of obfuscation are not really my jam. The literature might be complex, and that's fine, but your explanations and taglines to USE those arguments should be vastly more clear and communicable if you want to run it in round! I have a high threshold for teams being able to explain their positions well rather than just card-dump. I ran some kritiks in high school (mostly very traditional cap/biopower) but had a pretty low understanding of the best way to use them and how they engaged with other layers of offense in the round. They weren’t as common in my circuit so I didn’t have a ton of exposure to them. However, they’ve really grown on me and I’ve learned a lot while judging them- they’re probably some of my favorite kind of debate to watch these days. (hint: I truly believe in education as a voter, in part because of my own biases of how much this activity has taught me both in and out of round, but this can work in aff’s favor when terrible K debates happen that take away from topic education as well). Being willing to adapt your K to those unfamiliar with it, whether opponents or judge, not only helps you in terms of potential to win the ballot, but, depending on the kind of kritik you're running or pre-fiat claims, also vastly increases likelihood for real world solvency (that is if your K is one that posits real world solvency- I'm down for more discussion-based rounds as theoretical educational exercises as well). I say this because the direction in which I decided to take my graduate school coursework was directly because of good K debaters who have been willing to go the extra step in truly explaining these positions, regardless of the fact I wasn’t perceived as a “K judge”. I think that concept is bogus and demonstrates some of the elitism still sadly present in our activity. If you love the K, run it- however you will need to remember that I myself wasn’t a K debater and am probably not as well versed in the topic/background/author. As neg you will need to spend specific time really explaining to me the alt/role of the ballot/answers to any commodification type arguments. Despite my openness to critical argumentation, I’m also open to lots of general aff answers here as well including framework arguments focused on policymaking good, state inevitable, perms, etc. Like all arguments, it ultimately boils down to how you warrant and substantiate your claims.

MISCELLANEOUS
Flash time/emailing the doc out isn’t prep time (don’t take advantage of this though). Debaters should keep track of their own time, but I also tend to time as well in case of the rare timer failure. If we are evidence sharing, know that I still think you have the burden as debaters to clearly explain your arguments, (aka don’t assume that I'll constantly use the doc or default to it- what counts is still ultimately what comes out of you mouth).

I will yell “clear” if the spread is too incoherent for me to flow, or if I need you to slow down slightly but not if otherwise. If I have to say it more than twice you should probably slow down significantly. My preference while spreading is to go significantly slower/louder/clearer on the tagline and author. Don’t spread out teams that are clearly much slower than you- you don’t have to feel like you have to completely alter your presentation and style, but you should adapt somewhat to make the round educational for everyone. I think spreading is a debate skill you should employ at your discretion, bearing in mind what that means for your opponents and the judge in that round. Be smart about it, but also be inclusive for whoever else is in that round with you.

**PUBLIC FORUM**

I don't judge PF nearly as frequently as I do CX/LD, so I'm not as up to date on norms and trends.

Mostly when judging PF I default to util/cost-benefit analysis framing and then I evaluate clash and impacts, though the burden is on you to effectively weigh that clash and the impacts.

Final Focus should really focus on the ballot story and impact calc. Explain all the possible paths to the ballot and how you access them.

Compared to LD and CX, I find that clash gets developed much later in the round because the 2nd constructive doesn't (typically?) involve any refutations (which I find bizarre from a speech structure standpoint). For this reason, I appreciate utilizing frontlining as much as possible and extending defense into summary.

Impressive speaking style = extra brownie points for PFers given the nature of the event. Ultimately I'm still going to make a decision based on the flow, but this matters more to me when evaluating PF debaters. Utilize vocal intonation, eye contact, gestures, and variance in vocal pacing.

Grand Crossfire can be fun when done right but horribly chaotic when done wrong. Make an effort to not have both partners trying to answer/ask questions simultaneously or I'll have a really hard time making out what's going on. Tag-team it. If Grand Crossfire ends early, I will not convert the time remaining into additional prep. It simply moves us into Final Focus early.

I have a much lower threshold for spreading in PF than I do for CX/LD. I can certainly follow it given my focus on LD and CX, but my philosophy is that PF is stylistically meant to be more accessible and open. I don't mind a rapid delivery, but I will be much less tolerant of teams that spread out opponents, especially given email chains/evidence sharing before the round is not as much of a norm (as far as I've seen).

I am often confused by progressive PF as the structure of the event seems to limit certain things that are otherwise facilitated by CX/LD. Trying to make some of the same nuanced Theory and K debates are incredibly difficult in a debate event structured by 2-3 mins speeches. Please don't ask me to weigh in on or use my ballot to help set a precedent about things like theory, disclosure, or other CX/LD arguments that seem to be spilling into PF. I am not an involved enough member of the PF community to feel comfortable using my ballot to such ends. If any of these things appear in round, I'm happy to evaluate them, but I guess be cautious in this area.

Please feel free to ask any further questions or clarifications before/after the round!- my email is enmatton@gmail.com if you have any specific questions or need to run something by me. Competitors: if communicating with me by email, please CC your coach or adult chaperone. Thank you!

Did policy debate throughout high school, and am pretty well versed in most literature out there. I'll just go over some general preferences I have, with the caveat that no matter what I like/dislike I will vote on anything if it's argued well enough.

Administrative stuff: Tag-teaming in cross is fine, yes I want to be on the email chain (camdenmead5562@gmail.com) I'm generally a believer that disclosure is good for debate, please time yourselves, and yes spreading is fine.

My judging style is truth>tech, but "truth" is rather ambiguous. Just don't try to convince me the sky is green or that Mexico is a part of the United States (yes, this did happen) and I shouldn't have a problem voting for the args you put in front of me

T/Theory: I do believe that there is a place for topicality and theory in debate and can make a round interesting, but make sure you do more analysis outside of repeating the 1NC shell over and over again.

K/K affs: I really enjoy a good K, but framing and link work here is crucial to me. Don't be lazy and run a one-off K with a super general link, because I'll be really bored. If you're running a K aff, just make sure you explain really well why the resolution is bad for debate, and I shouldn't have a problem following you.

Framework: I love framework debates, and am all for whatever you have here.

Impacts: make sure you do a good analysis throughout each speech you give. Don't wait until the rebuttals to remind me of why I'm voting for you.

feel free to ask me questions before/after the round! I have a significant research background on NATO and would love to help you in any way I can.

—College debater & policy debate captain @ Davis

—NDT Qualifier 2024

—Former Assistant Coach @ Sonoma Academy, graduated '22.

—Add me to the email chain: mateodebates@gmail.com

Background:

Did 4 years of debate at Sonoma, mostly went for Ks, qualled to TOC, coached for a year and coached mostly policy stuff, now lead UC Davis policy team.

General:

—Do whatever you're good at; I enjoy and am willing to judge nearly any type of round. I will likely vote for the team who is best able to isolate the central question of the round and explain why the arguments in the round mean they’ve won.

K + FW stuff:

—I have gone for the K in most of my debates. Specific Ks are always best, but read whatever you want.

—Link specificity is important, and will often win you the debate. My favorite K strategies are highly organized, structured, and specific.

—You can read K Affs in front of me. I ran K Affs throughout high school and now in college and wrote several dozen of them. Do whatever you want.

—I believe debate is a game with unique pedagogical values.

—Procedural fairness can be convincing to me if explained well with terminal impact calculus in the 2NR; however, I am more likely to vote on a model with limits and clash as the impacts

Background: I debated LD in HS for 4 years and was the State LD Champion my senior year. Since then, I have only engaged in occasional judging.

Overall Paradigm: I will flow your debate and look for clash in your overall arguments. I prefer quality to quantity when it comes to arguments and while I can flow for speed, I don't appreciate it or believe that it contributes to a quality debate. My belief is that a good debater can communicate to the average person and speaking either too fast or with a vocabulary above the heads of your audience detracts from your credibility as a speaker. Speed is a poor substitute for quality argumentation.

Core Cases: I look for a cohesive core case with clear points and either empirical evidence or statistics to back up your tag-lines. Off the wall/squirrely cases are great...if they are done well and broaden the thinking of the debaters and the audience, tongue in cheek arguments made for your personal amusement are better left out of rounds I'm judging.

Speaking Points: I will not necessarily give higher speaking points to the winner of the round. Clarity, enunciation, pacing and eye-contact are all things I will look for during speeches. Rushed endings to speeches or abrupt stops are big detractors for me. I won't mind a couple seconds going over time if the speaker completes the speech elegantly.

I have no judging experience. I prefer a slower pace and easy to understand arguments.

I am a lay judge. I am new to judging debate as a whole, this is my first year judging. I am learning as I judge rounds, so please don't read to fast and if i don't understand something please explain to me.

Add me to the chain - Aidin123@berkeley.edu

ASU LD: Do what you do best. Though within progressive-based arguments, I have a better understanding of some arguments over others; below is a quick look for prefs:

1 - Policy/Traditional

2 - Theory, Common K's (Cap, Set-col, etc..)

3 - Phil, Whacky K's (Need more explanation for me to evaluate fairly)

5/Strike - Non-T K Aff's, Tricks, Friv Theory (I do not have the background that I think I need to have to evaluate all arguments fairly and to the quality that you deserve, and friv theory is just an incredibly annoying nuisance)

- Scroll to the bottom for some additional specifics about things

- I haven't judged fast debate in like a year so please please start slow and build into it I need to adjust back.

LD at the bottom:

Just call me Aidin

UC Berkeley Chemistry 23' GO BEARS! BOO PINE TREES!

LD Coach Park City (2020 - Present)

TLDR;

I'm a very expressive person if my face says I hate it. It means I hate it. If I nod or smile, I like what you're saying. Follow the faces

I hate extinction level impacts! I think they create lazy debating where there is a convoluted link chain that will never remotely happen, BUT UTIL!!! So you can run extinction, but to your opponents say MAD.

Impact turns anything that isn't morally repugnant -- corruption, terrorism, oil prices -- because there are two sides to every story

I will say clear three times before I stop flowing altogether. Whatever is not on the flow is not going to be evaluated. PLEASE SIGNPOST!

Weigh, weigh, weigh, weigh a little more, and then after weighing, weigh again for good measure

Write the ballot for me in the last speech; the easier it is for me to vote for, the more likely you are to win

Utah Circuit: I debated a lot on the local circuit and now judge a lot. Have impacts and weigh.

- One rule: An extension is not an extension without an explanation and warranting behind it. I will not flow "Extend Contention 3," and that's it.

PF:

Follow my dearest friend Gavin Serr's paradigms for a more comprehensive look at how I would judge PF.

BIGGEST THINGS

- Don't steal prep - It's not hard to start and stop a timer.

- I default Neg. If there is no offense from either side, I'll stick with the status quo

- It's not an argument without a warrant

- A dropped argument is true, but that doesn't mean it matters. I need reasons why the extension matters. I'm not voting on something that I don't know the implications of it.

- Reading a card is part of the prep, without a doubt.

- If you want me to read a card indite, it's not my job as a judge to win you the round.

- If you will talk about marginalized people, framing and overviews are your friends.

- Please have link extensions in both the summary and FF

- Weighing requires a comparison and why the way you compare is better. Which is better, magnitude or timeframe? IDK, you tell me.

LD:

LARP

Solvency

DAs need to have solid internal links

Offense on the DA needs to be responded to even if kicked

Perms need to be contextualized

K's

A flushed-out link story is fabulous; do this every time you run a K.

line by line analysis is of the utmost importance

explanation and quality is better than quantity; I do not vote on things I do not understand, so take the safe route and spend a little more time explaining 5 arguments than dumping 15 that are all blippy

Use a framework and weighing case as your friend.

AFF - please extend and weigh case

Theory

I love the theory. Few caveats, however.

1) I hate frivolous theory. If you run condo bad on 1 or 2 off, I will likely drop your speaks because you're annoying. That being said, please respond to it, but the more frivolous it is, the lower my threshold for responses to it.

2) Disclosure is a MUST. Don't run disclosure theory if your opponent doesn't know what the wiki is. You don't need to disclose new aff's. 30 is enough time to prep.

3) Please WEIGH as much as possible I don't know the difference between an opponent winning time screw and another winning on the ground.

4) Competing interps - The less I intervene, the better for y'all, especially on the highest layer of debate where the round is won or lost. So I try to limit "gut checks" and reasonability unless otherwise told to in the round.

5) No RVI's default but can be changed with hearty effort

6) Please slow down on theory; it's hard to flow everything at top speed, especially if it's not carded and has 5 sub-points.

How I write my RFD's: “Sometimes I’ll start a sentence and I don’t even know where it’s going. I just hope I find it along the way.” - Michael Scott

How I give my RFDs: “I talk a lot, so I’ve learned to tune myself out.” - Kelly Kapoor

How I feel judging: “If I don’t have some cake soon, I might die.” - Stanley Hudson

What I want to do instead of judging: “I just want to lie on the beach and eat hot dogs. That’s all I’ve ever wanted.” - Kevin Malone

What happens when no one weighs: “And I knew exactly what to do. But in a much more real sense, I had no idea what to do.” - Michael Scott

Have questions about chemistry or Berkeley? Ask away

Debate is something to be proud of, win or lose, and have a smile on your face.

chocolatecookieswirl@gmail.com

West High 2020'

University of Utah 2024'

B.S Economics

B.S Political Science

One of my core principles about debate is accepting a variety of arguments, so I encourage that students have in their strategy whatever they are comfortable running and won't let any of my predispositions or bias of an argument affect my views of the debate, so I default to tech > truth unless told otherwise.

BUT over the few years I have encountered two positions that seem to be an uphill battle for me.

1) Conditionality -- I have a firm belief that conditionality is vital for negative teams to have an effective strategy in any debate. Please posit a reason why

2 Ks without ANY case defense -- Unless you are making you link you lose arguments on framework. I have a hard time evaluating the K when there is a huge risk of the aff.

Debate is a game at its core but can be easily convinced otherwise. I have run primarily k affs during my junior and sophomore year and only well versed in cap and security. I typically went for policy arguments and framework as a 2N. I enjoy watching the affirmative make clever counter interpretations to eliminate or at least minimize offense on framework, coupled with link or impact turns to the negative model of debate.

Labeling of arguments has become increasingly important to me. It is the clearest way to communicate what argument you are extending for me.

I try to follow this rubric for deciding speakers.

http://collegedebateratings.weebly.com/points-scale.html

Specifically, I look for line by line clarity and organization, overall argument deliberation, and awareness in the debate, in that order. I also reward good disclosure practices on your caselist and in round, so let me know if you believe you meet those criteria, so I can reward you. :)

I have not debated in years, and judge on and off, but I try my hardest, and I am not Michael Wimsatt BUT I do take Judge instruction VERY seriously.

darinparkdebate@gmail.com

please call me darin and not judge!

i really don't care what you do. mostly everything is grounds for debate barring blatantly problematic positions. the more your strategy rejoins the 1ac, the higher your speaks will be.

if the top of your final rebuttal does not tell me what i should repeat back to you in my rfd, do not pref me. offense-defense shapes how i render most decisions.

convincing me you should not have to read a plan will be an uphill battle and will require significant concessions from the negative team.

i vote on the k for the neg somewhat frequently. i prefer when things are said about the plan.

conditionality is nearly always good, but there is an alarming trend with how poorly 2n's handle aff extensions of theory.

limited functional intrinsicness is probably good. i can be persuaded otherwise.

if you say the phrase "fiat double bind" in your speech, your speaks are capped at 27.0.

you can't insert re-highlights.

do not talk about things that happened outside the round.

He/Him/His. Hi I'm Nik. I was LD captain at Arizona College Prep for 3 years, and now I’m a data engineer. It's really hard to get a 30 from me, but if you do you're probably my new best friend. Would I like to be on the email chain? Why, I thought you'd never ask! nikpearce1@gmail.com

TLDR: Tech > Truth, Pref me if you read Bostrom

Speed: Slow down if I'm not familiar with what you're reading. I'm fine with almost any speed, but if you start slurring or becoming incomprehensible in some manner, I will say clear. The more times I say clear, the more speaker points you'll probably lose.

Order: Theory/T > K > all else, unless you tell me otherwise.

Framing: I need to know how to weigh the round. Therefore, I need a good framework debate with a clear winner by the end of the 2AR in order for me to make a decision. You really don't want me to make this decision for you, as one of you probably won't be happy. This doesn't mean the framing debate needs to take forever (if it does, I probably won't be happy), but, 15-30 seconds at the top of the rebuttal wouldn't hurt.

Ks: I'll have an easier time understanding lit I'm familiar with, which includes Boudrillard, Foucault, Cap, Anthro, Citizenship, Militarism, Set Col. That doesn't mean you shouldn't run other lit in front of me, but if you do, make sure you lay out your links and impacts clearly so I can understand why your topic matters more than what your opponent is discussing.

Theory: I ran theory when I was a debater and I'm open to hearing theory in round, just make sure your definitions are very clear. I default to Theory > K, but it's easy to convince me otherwise.

Speaks: If you care about speaker points, pay attention, as my system for achieving good speaks is somewhat unorthodox.

30: Be the best debater I've ever seen, or sing to me the entire first verse of Lose Yourself, by Eminem.

29: Be an all around solid debater who I legitimately think can win the tournament, or make half of your case Bostrom/existential crisis impacts.

28: Be a solid debater who I definitely think should break, or make a quarter of your case Bostrom/existential crisis impacts.

27: Be a good debater with lot's of potential, I may have had to say clear a few times, or at least mention Bostrom/existential crisis impacts.

26: I probably had to say clear multiple times, but your case was alright.

25: You screwed up somewhere, switched sides, stumbled, sat down with 1 minute left to speak, etc.

20: You were objectively bigoted in some way shape or form to your opponent, myself, or really anyone.

Best of luck!

”Do I need to be liked? Absolutely not. I like to be liked. I enjoy being liked. I have to be liked, but it's not like this compulsive need to be liked, like my need to be praised.” -Michael Scott

Justin Peng (he/him)

Rowland Hall ‘20 -- Columbia '24

Add me to the email chain please: justinpeng15@gmail.com

I haven't judged any rounds on the NATO topic yet so please explain any topic-specific terminology or acronyms you use

What I say here isn't set in stone and can be subject to change depending on what happens in round.

TLDR:

Do whatever you do best. I’ll do my best to evaluate any arguments unless they’re racist/homophobic/sexist etc.

Tech > Truth

Clarity > Speed (although both at the same time is always a plus)

CX is binding

K affs/Framework:

I definitely think that K affs hold some strategical and pedagogical value in debate, but I think that debating the topic is probably a better model. That being said, if you do end up reading one it should be related to the topic somehow. Be prepared to defend your model of debate.

Framework should be well articulated and nuanced - I'm not a fan of teams who speed through blocks and dump 20 shallow DAs on framework or just impact turn everything

K v K:

I probably have the least experience with these types of debates.

I'm not a big fan of these debates in general, as a lot of the time, they get really messy. I think that there are definitely some strategic Ks to run against K affs like cap, but reading Baudrillard against Bataille gets you nowhere with me.

Theory/procedurals:

Condo is good and it’s also the only reason to reject the team. (Dropped theory is too and for me to vote on condo there has to be an egregiously unfair abuse of it)

You can go for a 2-second ASPEC blip you hid on T and didn’t flash in the 1NC, but I won't be a big fan I’ll be more lenient with new answers.

T:

Affs that are untopical should lose.

Affs that meet the neg’s interp should not lose. I think that just going for a we meet is cool.

Competing interps/reasonability - I’m 60/40 on the side of competing interps but that doesn’t mean don’t go for reasonability. Just convince me why it’s better.

CP:

No solvency advocate < generic solvency advocate < specific solvency advocate < solvency advocate from 1ac ev/author

Counterplans should be able to cheat at least a little, but the context of the round and literature determine how much they get.

I’ll judge kick a CP for you if you tell me to. The neg should start the debate in the 2nc/1nr and the aff should start it in the 1ar.

DA:

Zero risk possible but you have to prove it

I love case turns analysis when it’s nuanced and specific but don’t know what you mean when you tell me “the DA turns case because it causes nuclear war”

Impact calc/comparison is essential.

K:

Good Ks have links that are specifically contextualized to the aff.

Don’t rely on buzzwords. I probably don’t know what they mean and usually, you don’t either.

If you kick the alt you must definitively win framework and that the K turns case

Framework – I think that the aff probably should be able to weigh their impacts against the K and the neg should probably be able to read their K - this is what most framework debates resolve to - but you can convince me otherwise

I think impact turns are fantastic

FIAT double bind isn’t an argument

Hello all:

This is my second year as a tournament judge; my professional field is Medicine, so judging debate was and still is an uncharted territory for me.

With a year of experience on my back, I can say that the most important thing for me is that you talk clearly and at a reasonable speed so I can clearly understand your arguments and thought process. It is hard to follow all the different terminology, and even though I understand that due to time limits, debaters usually have to talk too fast (ie. spreading), that is usually a big problem given that I can't simply follow their arguments or their thought process. So please don't rush when talking: I prefer to clearly understand one or two points, rather than going over five or six from which I will barely comprehend anything. So please, if you want to have all my attention DO NOT SPREAD.

I know that all the competitors try very hard, invest a lot of time and give their best effort; therefore the least I can do and the right thing to do is to give you a fair warning.

Best luck to all of you.

Jose Pierrend (jpierrend@gmail.com)

Lowell '20 l UCLA '24

Yes, email chain: zoerosenberg [at] gmail [dot] com, please format the subject as: "Tournament Name -- Round # -- Aff School AF vs Neg School NG"

Background: I was a 2N for four years at Lowell, I qualified to the TOC my senior year and was in late elims of NSDA. I don't debate in college due to a lack of policy infrastructure. I judge somewhat frequently on the west coast so I have a good sense of arguments being read on the circuit.

GGSA/State Qualifier: I will still judge rounds technically, as one does for circuit debate. However, I believe adaptation is one of the most important skills one can get out of debate so I encourage you to speak slowly, especially with parents on the panel.

--

Tech before truth. It's human nature to have preferences toward certain arguments but I try my best to listen and judge objectively. All of the below can be changed by out-debating the other team through judge instruction and ballot writing. Unresolved debates are bad debates.

Speed is great, but clarity is even better. If I'm judging you online please go slightly slower, especially if you don't have a good mic. I find it increasingly hard to hear analytics in the online format.

Be smart. I rather hear great analytical arguments than terrible cards. I generally think in-round explanation is more important than evidence quality.

I'm very expressive, look at me if you want to know if I'm digging your argument!

Call me by my name, not "judge".

Debnil Sur taught me everything I know about debate so check: https://www.tabroom.com/index/paradigm.mhtml?search_first=debnil&search_last= for a better explanation of anything I have to say here.

Longer Stuff

What arguments does she prefer? I went for mostly policy arguments and feel more in my comfort zone judging these debates. That being said, I moved more to the left as my years in high school came to a close and am down to judge a well-defended kritikal affirmative. I think debate is a game but it's a game that can certainly can influence subjectivity development. Note: I would still prefer to judge a bad policy debate, over a bad kritikal debate.

Online Debate Adaptions

Here are some things you can do to make the terribleness of online tournaments a little less terrible.

1 - I really would like your camera to be on, wifi permitting. Debate is a communicative activity and your persuasion increases by tenfold if you are communicating with me face to face.

2 - Please use some form of microphone or slow down by 20%. It is really hard to catch analytics with poor audio quality.

3 - The benefits of sending analytics vastly outweigh the cons of someone having your blocks to a random argument.

4 - If it takes you more than a minute to send out an email chain I will start running prep. I genuinely don't understand how it can take up to five minutes to attach a document to an email chain lmao

K Stuff:

K Affs: I read a kritikal affirmative all of senior year but on the negative went for framework against most K affs. I don't have a definite bias toward either side. However, kritikal affirmatives that defend a direction of the topic and allow the negative to access core topic generics jive with me much more than simply impact turning fairness and skirting the resolution.

Framework: Fairness is an impact. By the 2NR please don't go for more than two impacts. Having a superior explanation why the TVA resolves their offense and doing impact comparison will put you in a good spot. Switch-side debate is a silly argument, but feel free to convince me otherwise.

Neg: I know the lit behind security, neolib, psychoanalysis, and necropolitics. Make of that which you will. I'm not going to be happy listening to your 7 minute overview. Explain the thesis of the kritik and contextualize the link debate to the aff and I will be quite happy. Winning framework means you probably win the ballot. And as Debnil puts it, "I believe I'm more of an educator than policymaker, which means representational critiques or critiques of debate's educational incentive structure will land better for me than most judges."

Competing interps or reasonability? Competing interps. Asserting a standard like limits needs to be warranted out, explain why your impacts matters. Have a clear vision of the topic under your interp, things like case-lists and a solid understanding of arguments being read on the circuit are important. T before theory. Also a good topicality debate is my favorite thing ever.

Is condo good? Yes, most of the time. Things like amending stuff in the block, kicking planks, fiating out of straight turns are sketchy. But in most debates, unless it's dropped or severely mishandled I lean neg. To win condo the affirmative must have a superior explanation why multiple advocacies made that debate unrecoverable. Going for condo only because you're losing on substance is not the move. Hard debate is good debate. Other theory preferences (I-Fiat, Process CPs, etc.) are likely determined by the topic. However, they're almost always reasons to reject the argument not the team.

Policy stuff? I like it. Link centered debate matters the most, so focus on uniqueness and link framing. Do comparative analysis of the warrants in your evidence. I really dislike bad turns case analysis, link turns case arguments will sit better with me. I think most types of counterplans are legitimate if the neg wins they are competitive. I'll judge kick if you tell me to do it.

Mike Shackelford
Head Coach of Rowland Hall. I debated in college and have been a lab leader at CNDI, Michigan, and other camps. I've judged about 20 rounds the first semester.

Do what you do best. I’m comfortable with all arguments. Practice what you preach and debate how you would teach. Strive to make it the best debate possible.

Key Preferences & Beliefs
Debate is a game.
Literature determines fairness.
It’s better to engage than exclude.
Critique is a verb.
Defense is undervalued.

Judging Style
I flow on my computer. If you want a copy of my flow, just ask.
I think CX is very important.
I reward self-awareness, clash, good research, humor, and bold decisions.
Add me to the email chain: mikeshackelford(at)rowlandhall(dot)org

Feel free to ask.

Want something more specific? More absurd?

Debate in front of me as if this was your 9 judge panel:

Andre Washington, Ian Beier, Shunta Jordan, Maggie Berthiaume, Daryl Burch, Yao Yao Chen, Nicholas Miller, Christina Philips, jon sharp

If both teams agree, I will adopt the philosophy and personally impersonate any of my former students:

Ben Amiel, Andrew Arsht, David Bernstein, Madeline Brague, Julia Goldman, Emily Gordon, Adrian Gushin, Layla Hijjawi, Elliot Kovnick, Will Matheson, Ben McGraw, Corinne Sugino, Caitlin Walrath, Sydney Young (these are the former debaters with paradigms... you can also throw it back to any of my old school students).

LD Paradigm

Most of what is above will apply here below in terms of my expectations and preferences. I spend most of my time at tournaments judging policy debate rounds, however I do teach LD and judge practice debates in class. I try to keep on top of the arguments and developments in LD and likely am familiar with your arguments to some extent.

Theory: I'm unlikely to vote here. Most theory debates aren't impacted well and often put out on the silliest of points and used as a way to avoid substantive discussion of the topic. It has a time and a place. That time and place is the rare instance where your opponent has done something that makes it literally impossible for you to win. I would strongly prefer you go for substance over theory. Speaker points will reflect this preference.

Speed: Clarity > Speed. That should be a no-brainer. That being said, I'm sure I can flow you at whatever speed you feel is appropriate to convey your arguments.

Disclosure: I think it's uniformly good for large and small schools. I think it makes debate better. If you feel you have done a particularly good job disclosing arguments (for example, full case citations, tags, parameters, changes) and you point that out during the round I will likely give you an extra half of a point if I agree.

rockwell.debate@gmail.com // Rocky, Rock, Rockwell, etc.// he/him // New Trier High School

- Studying Jazz Piano and Political Science at Johns Hopkins—if you have any questions about any of that, I love talking about myself.

- Please time your speeches because I won't, yes tag team cx, yes prep during cx, whatever u wanna do with that time.

- Despite considering myself pretty chill, I'm pretty punctual about time, so like, be on time

- Unpopular opinion: I'm sort of receptive to some level of post-rounding (if you're mean I'm going to be annoyed with you). I'm always down to improve as a judge, and the only way I can is if I receive feedback, but keep in mind the decision is final.

____________________

Read this if your round starts in 30 minutes:

• tech > truth, dropped = true, left is law, etc.

• assume I know nothing about the topic (especially on T <3)

• soft left, planless, and big stick affs are all good in front of me.

• i'm better at resolving a K debate than other stuff because that's where a lot of my debate experience lies, but for what its worth, as a 1a, i read exclusively policy strats

- that's not indicative of a bias towards Ks—in K v Policy rounds, I'd consider myself very impartial compared to other judges.

- I would much rather watch a good T debate than a bad K debate

• 2ac should send analytics

• i only judgekick if someone says so

• fairness is probably an internal link

• 0 risk exists

• condo is the only reason to reject the team

• extra thoughts on kritik/framework below

Notes for Kritiks:

Top level:

• In terms of familiarity, I'm most well-read on Marxism, Bio/Necropolitics, Cybernetics, and Anthropocentrism, but I understand most authors/arguments enough to adjudicate a debate at the high school level

• If by the end of the round I don't understand what your K is talking about, that's your fault for not explaining it well enough, not mine for not reading enough Lacanian post-colonial gender abolitionist authors

• If you don't want to line-by-line at all, don't be mad if I miss something or am not clear where exactly an argument belongs. My expectation isn't for the 1off Baudrillard team to stand up and be like "AT: 2AC 13", just like, roughly follow the 2AC order and signpost at the least.

Framework:

*Note: Generally, these are my opinions which demonstrate how I think about framework—you can win otherwise (see "tech > truth")

• At the end of the day, we can all admit that it's probably most fair to let the aff weigh the 1ac (or the inverse for T - USFG vs. planless affs). The framework debate should be about what fairness means and how it impacts us.

• Debate is an educational activity that uses a competitive game as an incentive structure to encourage better research, and has some limited capacity to shape/create subjectivities. I'm frustrated that many of us take "debate doesn't shape subjectivity" as a given.

- I don't think individual rounds are persuasive or can incite action (i.e. a revolution will not spill out of debate), but debate, which defines a particular approach to politics, has the possibility to influence the way we understand information and decision-making, and there may be different models of the activity which might produce more desirable thinkers. In short, "debate doesn't shape subjectivity" argument can be swapped with "school doesn't shape subjectivity" to realize how silly and reductive the argument is.

• I love philosophical/positional competition a lot, and it shapes the way I think about politics in the real world (what's that?), but I do recognize how it could be competitively unfair/problematic, so I could go both ways on it.

• I think fiating an alternative is awesome, but one should have its justification rooted in framework and not some abigious claim of "reciprocity to the affs model".

Other:

• Overdependenceon jargon is annoying (I recognize sometimes it's necessary, but this is a highschool activity): "ontology" is a good example. Google defines it as "n. the branch of metaphysics dealing with the nature of being", so it always begs the question: ontologyof what? Ontology of the state, the ontology of the oppressed, the ontology of settlers, etc. The point being: clarify things like these and don't rely on buzzwords to make the argument

Top Level:

Head-Royce '22, WFU '26

Topics I debated: Immigration, Arms Sales, Criminal Justice Reform, Water Resources, Legal Rights, Nukes

Add me to the chain, ask me before round

I debate on the college circuit and have been both a 2A and 2N at various times throughout my years of debate. I've read both policy affs and kritikal affs. On the neg, in high school, my partner and I primarily went for T or some other theory/the K vs policy affs and Cap/some theory argument vs K affs. In college, my partner and I primarily read a plan on the aff and k's on the neg.

Debate should be a safe activity for everyone. If you say or do anything offensive, I'll stop the round and give you a loss and zeros.

Short Version:

Do what you do best. I would much rather see teams who know what they are reading and talking about than teams who are trying to adapt to me but lack nuance. My knowledge is pretty flex, but more centered around kritiks. I will still vote for your CP/DA strategies though. I love a good T/Theory debate so if thats your jam, go for it. Writing my ballot for me at the top of the 2NR/2AR is key to get my vote.

Argument Specific:

FW: Can go either way, but I probably err aff. I have a much higher standard for fairness as an impact compared to clash. This doesn't mean I won't vote on it, it just means I prefer clash. The aff team has to clearly explain their interp and the world of the interp. Redefining words of the resolution is key for teams that want to go for the w/m. Implicating the framework DA's to the TVA and SSD is important and I will unlikely do that work for you.

K's: I am versed and experienced in most k lit, but that doesn't mean I'll hack for you. I love specific links to the aff and I like pushes on framework as well. In high school, the K was our go to, so take that info how you will. For aff teams, making sure that your 2AC blocks are responsive to the correct theory of K is a must. I don't have a preference between a case o/w strat and perm/link turn strat, just make sure you articulate and flag the args you want me to vote on in the 2AR.

K Aff's: I love kritikal affs and think they are really interesting and a great part of debate. I read a K aff my junior and senior year. Please clearly explain what your method/solvency does. I should be able to explain it back to you at the end of the debate, and if I can't, you probably don't have my ballot. K aff's get perms.

DA's: You have to have a clear link to the aff, and there has to be impact comparison. A good turns case analysis versus aff impact will make my ballot a lot easier to get.

CP's: I like a good counterplan debate, but I think that advantage cps with a ton of planks can be abusive. I am not the best in a competition debate. There has to be a net benefit to the permutation.

T/Theory: I love T and theory, so please read it. There needs to be a specific violation and impacts explained and warranted through the 2NR for me to vote for you. Plans should be clear and explain what the aff does, I will not be happy with vague plan texts and opens the door for potential theory arguments.

Case: This is the most underutilized part of debate. A good case debate can dismantle an aff, so please spend time on it.

Other things:

Disclosure: It should be 100% correct, and I am not afraid to drop a team for bad disclosure. This includes disclosing the wrong plan text or changing something without alerting the other team.

If you bring an ethics challenge, the round stops.

Please, please, please be nice to each other.

You have to read the card/rehighlight, not insert it.

For Policy I am largely a policy and stock issues judge. While I am not an absolutist (meaning if you're not 100% on these I reject your case) I do largely want your case to fulfill the burdens of the topic within a reasonable plausibility or ability. This means I want clear eloquent presentations and do not like arguments that are NOT related to the actual topic.

I then focus on the policy itself looking at the advantages and disadvantages of a case. This means that if you like to throw in "game theories" those will be entertained if they accept and help argue the topic and the team can prove that "blowing up the moon" will have a net positive impact on the case.

If you are going to spread, then you should email be a copy of your case so that I can look for the issues you are arguing.

Please try to make the arguments fact/evidence based. A team can ask for evidence during cross-ex, and please present the evidence after cross-ex. I accept theory too if it is not too far from all of your other arguments. Be confident and good luck!!

he/him/his

Pronounced phonetically as DEB-nil. Not pronounced "judge", "Mister Sur", or "deb-NEIL".

Policy Coach at Lowell High School, San Francisco

Email: lowelldebatedocs [at] gmail.com for email chains. If you have my personal email, don't put it on the email chain. Sensible subject please.

Lay Debate: I care deeply about adaptation and accessibility. I find "medium" debates (splits of lay and circuit judges) incredibly valuable for students' skills. I don't think I'd ever be in a setting where I'm the sole lay judge. In a split setting, please adapt to the most lay judge in your speed and explanation. I won't penalize you for making debate accessible. Some degree of technical evaluation is inevitable, but please don't spread.

Resolving Debates: Above all, tech substantially outweighs truth. The below are preferences, not rules, and will easily be overturned by good debating. But, since nobody's a blank slate, treat the below as heuristics I use in thinking about debate. Incorporating some can explain my decision and help render one in your favor.

I believe debate is a strategy game, in which debaters must communicate research to persuade judges. I'll almost certainly endorse better judge instruction over higher quality yet under-explained evidence. I flow on my laptop, but I only look at the speech doc when online. I will only read a card in deciding if that card was contested by both teams or I was told explicitly to and the evidence was actually explained in debate.

I take an above-average time to decide debates. My decision time has little relationship with the debate's closeness, and more with the time of day and my sleep deprivation. I usually start 5-10 minutes after the 2AR, so I can stretch my legs and let the debate marinate in my head. Debaters work hard, and I reciprocate that effort in making decisions. My decisions themselves are quite short. Most debates come down to 2-4 arguments, and I will identify those and explain my resolution. You're welcome to post-round. It can't change my decision, but I want to learn and improve as a judge and thinker too.

General Background: I work full-time in tech as a software engineer. In my spare time, I have coached policy debate at Lowell in San Francisco since 2018. I am involved in strategy and research and have coached both policy and K debaters to the TOC. I am, quite literally, a "framer", as a member of the national topic wording committee. Before that, I read policy arguments as a 2N at Bellarmine and did youth debate outreach (e.g., SVUDL) as a student at Stanford.

I've judged many excellent debates. Ideologically, I would say I'm 60/40 policy-leaning. I think my voting records don't reflect this, because K debaters tend to see the bigger picture in clash rounds.

Topic Background: I judge and coach regularly and am fully aware of national circuit trends. I'm less in the weeds as many other coaches. I don't cut as many cards as I did in the pandemic years, and I don't work at debate camp.

If you're reading the web3 UBI affirmative, I implemented one of the first CBDC pilots back in 2018/19. If you know what you're talking about, I'm the best possible judge. But if you don't, I'll be much more easily persuaded by the negative, especially on the case debate.

Voting Splits: As of the end of the water topic, I have judged 304 rounds of VCX at invitationals over 9 years. 75 of these were during college; 74 during immigration and arms sales at West Coast invitationals; and 155 on CJR and water, predominantly at octafinals bid tournaments.

Below are my voting splits across the (synthetic) policy-K divide, where the left team represents the affirmative, as best as I could classify debates. Paradigm text can be inaccurate self-psychoanalysis, so I hope the data helps.

I became an aff hack on water. Far too often, the 2AR was the first speech doing comparative analysis instead of reading blocks. I hope this changes as we return to in-person debate.

Water

Policy v. Policy - 18-13: 58% aff over 31 rounds

Policy v. K - 20-18: 56% aff over 38 rounds

K v. Policy - 13-8: 62% aff over 21 rounds

K v. K - 1-1, 50% aff over 2 rounds

Lifetime

Policy v. Policy - 67-56: 55% for the aff over 123 rounds

Policy v. K - 47-52: 47% for the aff over 99 rounds

K v. Policy - 36-34: 51% for the aff over 70 rounds

K v. K - 4-4: 50% for the aff over 8 rounds

Online Debate:

1. I'd prefer your camera on, but won't make a fuss.

2. Please check verbally and/or visually with all judges and debaters before starting your speech.

3. If my camera's off, I'm away, unless I told you otherwise.

Speaker Points: I flow on my computer, but I do not use the speech doc. I want every word said, even in card text and especially in your 2NC topicality blocks, to be clear. I will shout clear twice in a speech. After that, it's your problem.

Note that this assessment is done per-tournament: for calibration, I think a 29.3-29.4 at a finals bid is roughly equivalent to a 28.8-28.9 at an octos bid.

29.5+ — the top speaker at the tournament.

29.3-29.4 — one of the five or ten best speakers at the tournament.

29.1-29.2 — one of the twenty best speakers at the tournament.

28.9-29 — a 75th percentile speaker at the tournament; with a winning record, would barely clear on points.

28.7-28.8 — a 50th percentile speaker at the tournament; with a winning record, would not clear on points.

28.3-28.6 — a 25th percentile speaker at the tournament.

28-28.2 — a 10th percentile speaker at the tournament.

K Affs and Framework:

1. I have coached all sides of this debate.

2. I will vote for the team whose impact comparison most clearly answers the debate's central question. This typically comes down to the affirmative making negative engagement more difficult versus the neg forcing problematic affirmative positions. You are best served developing 1-2 pieces of offense well, playing defense to the other team's, and telling a condensed story in the final rebuttals.

3. Anything can be an impact---do what you do best. My teams typically read a limits/fairness impact and a procedural clash impact. From Dhruv Sudesh: "I don't have a preference for hearing a skills or fairness argument, but I think the latter requires you to win a higher level of defense to aff arguments."

4. Each team should discuss what a year of debate looks like under their models in concrete terms. Arguments like "TVA", "switch-side debate", and "some neg ground exists" are just subsets of this discussion. It is easy to be hyperbolic and discuss the plethora of random affirmatives, but realistic examples are especially persuasive and important. What would your favorite policy demon (MBA, GBN, etc.) do without an agential constraint? How does critiquing specific policy reforms in a debate improve critical education? Why does negative policy ground not center the affirmative's substantive conversation?

5. As the negative, recognize if this is an impact turn debate or one of competing models early on (as in, during the 2AC). When the negative sees where the 2AR will go and adjusts accordingly, I have found that I am very good for the negative. But when they fail to understand the debate's strategic direction, I almost always vote affirmative. This especially happens when impact turning topicality---negatives do not seem to catch on yet.

6. I quite enjoy leveraging normative positions from 1AC cards for substantive disadvantages or impact turns. This requires careful link explanation by the negative but can be incredibly strategic. Critical affirmatives claim to access broad impacts based on shaky normative claims and the broad endorsement of a worldview, rather than a causal method; they should incur the strategic cost.

7. I am a better judge for presumption and case defense than most. It is often unclear to me how affirmatives solve their impacts or access their impact turns on topicality. The negative should leverage this more.

8. I occasionally judge K v K debates. I do not have especially developed opinions on these debates. Debate math often relies on causality, opportunity cost, and similar concepts rooted in policymaking analysis. These do not translate well to K v K debates, and the team that does the clearest link explanation and impact calculus typically wins. While the notion of "opportunity cost" to a method is still mostly nonsensical to me, I can be convinced either way on permutations' legitimacy.

Kritiks:

1. I do not often coach K teams but have familiarity with basically all critical arguments.

2. Framework almost always decides this debate. While I have voted for many middle-ground frameworks, they make very little strategic sense to me. The affirmative saying that I should "weigh the links against the plan" provides no instruction regarding the central question: how does the judge actually compare the educational implications of the 1AC's representations to the consequences of plan implementation? As a result, I am much better for "hard-line" frameworks that exclude the case or the kritik.

3. I will decide the framework debate in favor of one side's interpretation. I will not resolve some arbitrary middle road that neither side presented.

4. If the kritik is causal to the plan, a well-executing affirmative should almost always win my ballot. The permutation double-bind, uniqueness presses on the link and impact, and a solvency deficit to the alternative will be more than sufficient for the affirmative. The neg will have to win significant turns case arguments, an external impact, and amazing case debating if framework is lost. At this point, you are better served going for a proper counterplan and disadvantage.

5. I will not evaluate non-falsifiable statements about events outside the current debate. Such an evaluation of minors grossly misuses the ballot. Strike me if this is a core part of your strategy.

Topicality:

1. This is about the plan text, not other parts of the 1AC. If you think the plan text is contrived to be topical, beat them on the PIC out of the topic and your topic DA of choice.

2. This is a question of which team's vision of the topic maximizes its benefits for debaters. I compare each team's interpretation of the topic through an offense/defense lens.

3. Reasonability is about the affirmative interpretation, not the affirmative case itself. In its most persuasive form, this means that the substance crowdout caused by topicality debates plus the affirmative's offense on topicality outweighs the offense claimed by the negative. This is an especially useful frame in debates that discuss topic education, precision, and similar arguments.

4. Any standards are fine. I used to be a precision stickler. This changed after attending topic meetings and realizing how arbitrarily wording is chosen.

5. From Anirudh Prabhu: "T is a negative burden which means it is the neg’s job to prove that a violation exists. In a T debate where the 2AR extends we meet, every RFD should start by stating clearly what word or phrase in the resolution the aff violated and why. If you don’t give me the language to do that in your 2NR, I will vote aff on we meet." Topicality 101---the violation is a negative burden. If there's some uncertainty, I almost certainly vote aff with a decent "we meet" explanation.

Theory:

1. As with other arguments, I will resolve this fully technically. Unlike many judges, my argumentative preferences will not implicate how I vote. I will gladly vote on a dropped theory argument---if it was clearly extended as a reason to reject the team---with no regrets.

2. I'm generally in favor of limitless conditionality. But because I adjudicate these debates fully technically, I think I vote affirmative on "conditionality bad" more than most.

3. From Rafael Pierry: "most theoretical objections to CPs are better expressed through competition. ... Against these and similar interpretations, I find neg appeals to arbitrariness difficult to overcome." For me, this is especially true with counterplans that compete on certainty or immediacy. While I do not love the delay counterplan, I think it is much more easily beaten through competition arguments than theoretical ones.

4. If a counterplan has specific literature to the affirmative plan, I will be extremely receptive to its theoretical legitimacy and want to grant competition. But of course, the counterplan text must be written strategically, and the negative must still win competition.

Counterplans:

1. I'm better for strategies that depend on process and competition than most. These represent one of my favorite aspects of debate---they combine theory and substance in fun and creative ways---and I've found that researching and strategizing against them generates huge educational benefits for debaters, certainly on par with more conventionally popular political process arguments like politics and case.

2. I have no disposition between "textual and functional competition" and "only functional competition". Textual alone is pretty bad. Positional competition is similarly tough, unless the affirmative grants it. Think about how a model of competition justifies certain permutations---drawing these connections intelligently helps resolve the theoretical portion of permutations.

3. Similarly, I am agnostic regarding limited intrinsicness, either functional or textual. While it helps check against the truly artificial CPs, it justifies bad practices that hurt the negative. It's certainly a debate that you should take on. That said, if everyone is just spreading blocks, I usually end up negative on the ink. Block to 2NR is easier to trace than 1AR to 2AR.

4. People need to think about deficits to counterplans. If you can't impact deficits to said counterplans, write better advantages. The negative almost definitely does not have evidence contextualizing their solvency mechanism to your internal links---explain why that matters!

5. Presumption goes to less change---debate what this means in round. Absent this instruction, if there is an advocacy in the 2NR and I do not judge kick it when deciding, I'm probably not voting on presumption.

6. Decide in-round if I should kick the CP. I'll likely kick it if left to my own devices. The affirmative should be better than the status quo. (To be honest, this has never mattered in a debate I've judged, and it amuses me that judge kick is such a common paradigm section.)

Disadvantages:

1. There is not always a risk. A small enough signal is overwhelmed by noise, and we cannot determine its sign or magnitude.

2. I do not think you need evidence to make an argument. Many bad advantages can be reduced to noise through smart analytics. Doing so will improve your speaker points. Better evidence will require your own.

3. Shorten overviews, and make sure turns case arguments actually implicate the aff's internal links.

4. Will vote on any and all theoretical arguments---intrinsicness, politics theory, etc. Again, arguments are arguments, debate them out.

Ethics:

1. Cheating means you will get the lowest possible points.

2. You need a recording to prove the other team is clipping. If I am judging and think you are clipping, I will record it and check the recording before I stop the debate. Any other method deprives you of proof.

3. If you mark a card, say where you’re marking it, actually mark it, and offer a marked copy before CX in constructives or the other's team prep time in a rebuttal. You do not need to remove cards you did not read in the marked copy, unless you skipped a truly ridiculous amount. This practice is inane and justifies debaters doc-flowing.

4. Emailing isn’t prep. If you take too long, I'll tell you I'm starting your prep again.

5. If there is a different alleged ethics violation, I will ask the team alleging the violation if they want to stop the debate. If so, I will ask the accused team to provide written defense; check the tournament's citation rules; and decide. I will then decide the debate based on that violation and the tournament policy---I will not restart the debate---this makes cite-checking a no-risk option as a negative strategy, which seems really bad.

IMPORTANT: I will only vote on an ethics violation about previously-read evidence (missing an author, missing a year, paragraph missing but no distortion, etc) if the team alleging the violation has evidence that they contacted the other team and told them about the issue. Clearly, you had the time to look up the article. As a community, we should assume good faith in citation, and let the other team know. And people should not be punished for cards they did not cut. But if they still are reading faulty evidence, even after being told, that's certainly academic malpractice.

Note that if the ethics violation is made as an argument during the debate and advanced in multiple speeches as a theoretical argument, you cannot just decide it is a separate ethics violation later in the debate. I will NOT vote on it, I will be very annoyed with you, and you will probably lose and get 27s if you are resorting to these tactics.

6. The closer a re-highlighting comes to being a new argument, the more likely you should be reading it instead of inserting. If you are point out blatant mis-highlighting in a card, typically in a defensive fashion on case, then insertion is fine. I will readily scratch excessive insertion with clear instruction.

Miscellaneous:

1. I'll only evaluate highlighted warrants in evidence.

2. Dropped arguments should be flagged clearly. If you say that clearly answered arguments were dropped, you're hurting your own persuasion.

3. Please send cards in a Word doc. Body is fine if it's just 1-3 cards. I don't care if you send analytics, though it can help online.

4. Unless the final rebuttals are strictly theoretical, the negative should compile a card doc post 2NR and have it sent soon after the 2AR. The affirmative should start compiling their document promptly after the 2AR. Card docs should only include evidence referenced in the final rebuttals (and the 1NC shell, for the negative)---certainly NOT the entire 1AC.

5. As a judge, I can stop the debate at any point. The above should make it clear that I am very much an argumentative nihilist---in hundreds of debates, I have not come close to stopping one. So if I do, you really messed up, and you probably know it.

6. I am open to a Technical Knockout. This means that the debate is unwinnable for one team. If you think this is the case, say "TKO" (probably after your opponents' speech, not yours) and explain why it is unwinnable. If I agree, I will give you 30s and a W. If I disagree and think they can still win the debate, you'll get 25s and an L. Examples include: dropped T argument, dropped conditionality, double turn on the only relevant pieces of offense, dropped CP + DA without any theoretical out.

Be mindful of context: calling this against sophomores in presets looks worse than against an older team in a later prelim. But sometimes, debates are just slaughters, nobody is learning anything, and there will be nothing to judge. I am open to giving you some time back, and to adding a carrot to spice up debate.

7. Not about deciding debates, but a general offer to debate folk reading this. As someone who works in tech, I think it is a really enjoyable career path and quite similar to policy debate in many ways. If you would like to learn more about tech careers, please feel free to email me. As a high school student, it was very hard to learn about careers not done by my parents or their friends (part of why I'm in tech now!). I am happy to pass on what knowledge I have.

Above all, be kind to each other, and have fun!

I am a parent judge with little experience. I would prefer it if the teams were to not use theory arguments or Ks or anything too abstract, DAs and CPs are fine. I rank team higher with original arguments and comparison. I would also like for the teams to speak with a slower speed than normal (almost conversational) for I won't be able to understand at the speed of a normal debater. I wish good luck to both teams, and hope they have a fun round! my email address is kkt1979@gmail.com

thanks for 10 years and 100 tournaments of judging

:)

For PF: Speaks capped at 27.5 if you don't read cut cards (with tags) and send speech docs via email chain prior to your speech of cards to be read (in constructives, rebuttal, summary, or any speech where you have a new card to read). I'm done with paraphrasing and pf rounds taking almost as long as my policy rounds to complete. Speaks will start at 28.5 for teams that do read cut cards and do send speech docs via email chain prior to speech. In elims, since I can't give points, it will be a overall tiebreaker.

For Policy: Speaks capped at 28 if I don't understand each and every word you say while spreading (including cards read). I will not follow along on the speech doc, I will not read cards after the debate (unless contested or required to render a decision), and, thus, I will not reconstruct the debate for you but will just go off my flow. I can handle speed, but I need clarity not a speechdoc to understand warrants. Speaks will start at 28.5 for teams that are completely flowable. I'd say about 85% of debaters have been able to meet this paradigm.

I'd also mostly focus on the style section and bold parts of other sections.

---

2018 update: College policy debaters should look to who I judged at my last college judging spree (69th National Debate Tournament in Iowa) to get a feeling of who will and will not pref me. I also like Buntin's new judge philosophy (agree roughly 90%).

It's Fall 2015. I judge all types of debate, from policy-v-policy to non-policy-v-non-policy. I think what separates me as a judge is style, not substance.

I debated for Texas for 5 years (2003-2008), 4 years in Texas during high school (1999-2003). I was twice a top 20 speaker at the NDT. I've coached on and off for highschool and college teams during that time and since. I've ran or coached an extremely wide diversity of arguments. Some favorite memories include "china is evil and that outweighs the security k", to "human extinction is good", to "predictions must specify strong data", to "let's consult the chinese, china is awesome", to "housing discrimination based on race causes school segregation based on race", to "factory farms are biopolitical murder", to “free trade good performance”, to "let's reg. neg. the plan to make businesses confident", to “CO2 fertilization, SO2 Screw, or Ice Age DAs”, to "let the Makah whale", etc. Basically, I've been around.

After it was pointed out that I don't do a great job delineating debatable versus non-debatable preferences, I've decided to style-code bold all parts of my philosophy that are not up for debate. Everything else is merely a preference, and can be debated.

Style/Big Picture:

• I strongly prefer to let the debaters do the debating, and I'll reward depth (the "author+claim + warrant + data+impact" model) over breadth (the "author+claim + impact" model) any day.

• When evaluating probabilistic predictions, I start from the assumption everyone begins at 0%, and you persuade me to increase that number (w/ claims + warrants + data). Rarely do teams get me past 5%. A conceeded claim (or even claim + another claim disguised as the warrant) will not start at 100%, but remains at 0%.

• Combining those first two essential stylistic criteria means, in practice, many times I discount entirely even conceded, well impacted claims because the debaters failed to provide a warrant and/or data to support their claim. It's analogous to failing a basic "laugh" test. I may not be perfect at this rubric yet, but I still think it's better than the alternative (e.g. rebuttals filled with 20+ uses of the word “conceded” and a stack of 60 cards).

• I'll try to minimize the amount of evidence I read to only evidence that is either (A) up for dispute/interpretation between the teams or (B) required to render a decision (due to lack of clash amongst the debaters). In short: don't let the evidence do the debating for you.

• Humor is also well rewarded, and it is hard (but not impossible) to offend me.

• I'd also strongly prefer if teams would slow down 15-20% so that I can hear and understand every word you say (including cards read). While I won't explicitly punish you if you don't, it does go a mile to have me already understand the evidence while you're debating so I don't have to sort through it at the end (especially since I likely won't call for that card anyway).

• Defense can win a debate (there is such as thing as a 100% no link), but offense helps more times than not.

• I'm a big believer in open disclosure practices, and would vote on reasoned arguments about poor disclosure practices. In the perfect world, everything would be open-source (including highlighting and analytics, including 2NR/2AR blocks), and all teams would ultimately share one evidence set. You could cut new evidence, but once read, everyone would have it. We're nowhere near that world. Some performance teams think a few half-citations work when it makes up at best 45 seconds of a 9 minute speech. Some policy teams think offering cards without highlighting for only the first constructive works. I don't think either model works, and would be happy to vote to encourage more open disclosure practices. It's hard to be angry that the other side doesn't engage you when, pre-round, you didn't offer them anything to engage.

• You (or your partner) must physically mark cards if you do not finish them. Orally saying "mark here" (and expecting your opponents or the judge to do it for you) doesn't count. After your speech (and before cross-ex), you should resend a marked copy to the other team. If pointed out by the other team, failure to do means you must mark prior to cross-ex. I will count it as prep time times two to deter sloppy debate.

• By default, I will not “follow along” and read evidence during a debate. I find that it incentivizes unclear and shallow debates. However, I realize that some people are better visual than auditory learners and I would classify myself as strongly visual. If both teams would prefer and communicate to me that preference before the round, I will “follow along” and read evidence during the debate speeches, cross-exs, and maybe even prep.

Topicality:

• I like competing interpretations, the more evidence the better, and clearly delineated and impacted/weighed standards on topicality.

• Abuse makes it all the better, but is not required (doesn't unpredictability inherently abuse?).

• Treat it like a disad, and go from there. In my opinion, topicality is a dying art, so I'll be sure to reward debaters that show talent.

• For the aff – think offense/defense and weigh the standards you're winning against what you're losing rather than say "at least we're reasonable". You'll sound way better.

Framework:

• The exception to the above is the "framework debate". I find it to be an uphill battle for the neg in these debates (usually because that's the only thing the aff has blocked out for 5 minutes, and they debate it 3 out of 4 aff rounds).

• If you want to win framework in front of me, spent time delineating your interpretation of debate in a way that doesn't make it seem arbitrary. For example "they're not policy debate" begs the question what exactly policy debate is. I'm not Justice Steward, and this isn't pornography. I don't know when I've seen it. I'm old school in that I conceptualize framework along “predictability”; "topic education", “policymaking education”, and “aff education” (topical version, switch sides, etc) lines.

• “We're in the direction of the topic” or “we discuss the topic rather than a topical discussion” is a pretty laughable counter-interpretation.

• For the aff, "we agree with the neg's interp of framework but still get to weigh our case" borders on incomprehensible if the framework is the least bit not arbitrary.

Case Debate

• Depth in explanation over breadth in coverage. One well explained warrant will do more damage to the 1AR than 5 cards that say the same claim.

• Well-developed impact calculus must begin no later than the 1AR for the Aff and Negative Block for the Neg.

• I enjoy large indepth case debates. I was 2A who wrote my own community unique affs usually with only 1 advantage and no external add-ons. These type of debates, if properly researched and executed, can be quite fun for all parties.

Disads

• Intrinsic perms are silly. Normal means arguments are less so.

• From an offense/defense paradigm, conceded uniqueness can control the direction of the link. Conceded links can control the direction of uniqueness. The in round application of "why" is important.

• A story / spin is usually more important (and harder for the 1AR to deal with) than 5 cards that say the same thing.

Counterplan Competition:

• I generally prefer functionally competitive counterplans with solvency advocates delineating the counterplan versus the plan (or close) (as opposed to the counterplan versus the topic), but a good case for textual competition can be made with a language K netbenefit.

• Conditionality (1 CP, SQ, and 1 K) is a fact of life, and anything less is the negative feeling sorry for you (or themselves). However, I do not like 2NR conditionality (i.e., “judge kick”) ever. Make a decision.

• Perms and theory always remain a test of competition (and not a voter) until proven otherwise by the negative by argument (see above), a near impossible standard for arguments that don't interfere substantially with other parts of the debate (e.g. conditionality).

• Perm "do the aff" is not a perm. Debatable perms are "do both" and "do cp/alt"(and "do aff and part of the CP" for multi-plank CPs). Others are usually intrinsic.

Critiques:

• I think of the critique as a (usually linear) disad and the alt as a cp.

• Be sure to clearly impact your critique in the context of what it means/does to the aff case (does the alt solve it, does the critique turn it, make harms inevitable, does it disprove their solvency). Latch on to an external impact (be it "ethics", or biopower causes super-viruses), and weigh it against case.

• Use your alternative to either "fiat uniqueness" or create a rubric by which I don't evaluate uniqueness, and to solve case in other ways.

• I will say upfront the two types of critique routes I find least persuasive are simplistic versions of "economics", "science", and "militarism" bad (mostly because I have an econ degree and am part of an extensive military family). While good critiques exist out there of both, most of what debaters use are not that, so plan accordingly.

• For the aff, figure out how to solve your case absent fiat (education about aff good?), and weigh it against the alternative, which you should reduce to as close as the status quo as possible. Make uniqueness indicts to control the direction of link, and question the timeframe/inevitability/plausability of their impacts.

• Perms generally check clearly uncompetitive alternative jive, but don't work too well against "vote neg". A good link turn generally does way more than “perm solves the link”.

• Aff Framework doesn't ever make the critique disappear, it just changes how I evaluate/weigh the alternative.

• Role of the Ballot - I vote for the team that did the better debating. What is "better" is based on my stylistic criteria. End of story. Don't let "Role of the Ballot" be used as an excuse to avoid impact calculus.

Performance (the other critique):

• Empirically, I do judge these debate and end up about 50-50 on them. I neither bandwagon around nor discount the validity of arguments critical of the pedagogy of debate. I'll let you make the case or defense (preferably with data). The team that usually wins my ballot is the team that made an effort to intelligently clash with the other team (whether it's aff or neg) and meet my stylistic criteria. To me, it's just another form of debate.

• However, I do have some trouble in some of these debates in that I feel most of what is said is usually non-falsifiable, a little too personal for comfort, and devolves 2 out of 3 times into a chest-beating contest with competition limited to some archaic version of "plan-plan". I do recognize that this isn't always the case, but if you find yourselves banking on "the counterplan/critique doesn't solve" because "you did it first", or "it's not genuine", or "their skin is white"; you're already on the path to a loss.

• If you are debating performance teams, the two main takeaways are that you'll probably lose framework unless you win topical version, and I hate judging "X" identity outweighs "Y" identity debates. I suggest, empirically, a critique of their identity politics coupled with some specific case cards is more likely to get my ballot than a strategy based around "Framework" and the "Rev". Not saying it's the only way, just offering some empirical observations of how I vote.

Peninsula '21, Cal '25

Email chain: nathan2web@gmail.com

For online debate: if I'm not in frame of the camera, don't start your speech.

Top level, debate is a competitive research activity where two teams compete to win. So, I will strive to be agnostic as to what strategy you choose to read, whether that's 10 off, 1 off, or hiding ASPEC (though your speaks will probably suffer for the last one). Tech > truth, although you'll have a hard time convincing me that our oceans are yellow.

Even so, these preferences are a set of ideologies that I've loosely maintained as I've judged--

T: I find that evidence quality is quintessential - I will lean towards a legally precise definition that reflects consensus.

DA: Actually debate the DA if you read a soft left aff. Riders are probably not legitimate.

CP: Solvency advocates aren't necessary, but coherent explanations of solvency are. I will default to kicking the CP for the neg if equally debated.

K: Good if they disprove why I should vote affirmative. I tend to dislike Ks that have a focus on 20 subpoints of framework (but if you win you win).

Non-traditional affs: Fairness is an impact, you can also go for others. Probably not the best judge for the aff teams. A lot of the time, I find it difficult to see how the ballot resolves aff impacts.

Theory: Condo is generally good. Most CP theory is probably a reason to reject the argument.

Other things--

My ideologies have been influenced significantly by these people: Dhruv Sudesh, Kevin Sun, and Scott Wheeler. If any part of this philosophy is confusing, you should look at theirs.

Card quality matters, I will always value smart analytics over terrible evidence—although a claim has much more significance/credibility when tied to an academic work.

If I can't understand you, I won't flow.

Don't egregiously re-highlight then "re-insert" an entire card, read it.

I don't about things that happened outside the round.

Be nice.

From Kevin Sun's Evidence Ethics:

"I have judged a handful of high stakes debates this year that were decided on evidence ethics. I’ve found that these decisions are inevitably unsatisfying as they will rely on my own subjective assessment of the argument in question.

I can safely say that I am completely unqualified to judge these debates. I am not on Twitter or Facebook, and I do not interact with debate people regularly outside of tournaments. I do not know what the community consensus is on certain authors, and I will feel uncomfortable rendering a personal judgement an author’s character after hearing 10 minutes of spreading on the subject.

In hopes of giving debaters some foresight, I would like to clarify my perspective on this genre of theory argument. High stakes evidence ethics challenges (e.g. “reject the team because they included the wrong author qualifications”, “reject the team because [author] is problematic”) will require a high burden of proof and an egregious violation. I have a strong predisposition against positioning these ethics challenges as reasons to fully disregard the rest of your opponents arguments, and I would prefer to just reject the argument in question rather than to hinge my decision on it.

In these circumstances, I would suggest clearly explaining which of your opponents arguments I should throw out if I resolve this challenge in your favor.

Would rejecting this author evaporate your opponent’s framework argument? Should the negative even be allowed to substitute this author with another that makes a similar argument? You’re likely to get further with me by detailing the implications of this ethics challenge in terms of the rest of the debate rather than relying on me to assume that I should automatically make it a gateway issue.

I would suggest finding other ways outside of a competitive debate argument to navigate this ethical challenge rather than placing it in my hands as a judge."

top level predispositions (Update 2024 Emory):

I'd truly prefer that you don't debate if you're sick. If you must debate, I travel to every tournament with headphones and a laptop sufficient to allow you to debate from a hotel room or space separate from other judges and debaters. If you are symptomatic (nausea, persistent cough, runny nose, etc.) I will stop the debate and politely ask your coach to see if we can set up a remote debate setup for the round.

I won't be reading along with you, and won't spot either team args from pieces of evidence that weren't made in speeches. I'll resolve comparative evidentiary claims, if necessary, after the round. If you feel so compelled my team's gmail is hrsdebatedocs.

Plan texts nowadays aren't really descriptive of what the aff will defend and I think negative teams don't take advantage of that enough. I will expect aff teams not to dodge simple questions about jobs they provide, how the plan is funded, etc. I will also tend to read the debate through answers to such questions in CX. Being forthcoming and orienting your strategy around what the aff does is a much better basis for a win in front of me than trying to hide your hand.

I don't like generic neg strategies, if you're going to do this don't pref me please - - this means nonspecific process counterplans, disads, CPs with only internal net benefits, etc.

No, CX can't be used for prep lol.

I'm not going to judge kick. You make a decision about the world you'll defend in the 2nr and I'll follow accordingly.

For many of you reading this, speaker point inflation is the probably norm. I think the standard for what makes a good speech is a. too low and b. disconnected from strategy. My average speaker point range is 28.3-28.7, average meaning you're not doing any work between flows, not making the debate smaller for the sake of comparative analysis, not reading especially responsive strategies, not punishing generic strategies with pointed responses. On the other hand, I reward teams that have ostensibly done the reading and research to give me concrete analysis.

Given the above (and oodles of macrohistorical reasons), we probably are already in the world that the PRL warned us about. I'm more persuaded by empirical analysis of models of debate than the abstract nowadays.

Longer meditations below:

I've found that the integrity in which some high school debaters are interacting with evidence is declining. Two things:

1. Critical affirmatives that misrepresent critical theory literature or misrepresent their affirmative in the 1ac. I'm very inclined to vote against a team that does this on either side of the debate, with the latter only being limited to the affirmative side. Especially in terms of the affirmative side, I believe that a floor level minimum prep for critical affs should be that the affirmative clearly has a statement of what they will defend in the 1ac and also that they stick to that stasis point throughout the debate. If a critical aff shifts drastically between speeches I will be *very* inclined toward to any procedural/case neg arguments.

2. Policy affs that have weak internal links. I understand that a nuclear war scenario is the most far fetched portion of any advantage, but I've been seeing a lot of international relations scenarios that don't really take into account the politics of really any other countries. If your international conflict, spillover, modeling, etc. scenario doesn't have a semblance of the inner workings of another party to the conflict, I'll be *very* inclined to solvency presses and presumption arguments by the negative in that scenario.

I don't want to be on the email chain. If I want to, I'll ask. You should debate as if I'm not reading a speech doc.

I almost exclusively view debate as an educational / democratic training activity. I think rules are important to that end, however. This is to say that I ground much of what I think is important in debate in terms of how skills critical thinking in debate rounds adds into a larger goal of pursuing knowledge and external decisionmaking.

i've been in debate since 2008. at this point i'm simultaneously more invested and less invested in the activity. i'm more invested in what students get out of debate, and how I can be more useful in my post-round criticism. I'm less invested in personalities/teams/rep/ideological battles in debate. it's entirely possible that I have never heard of you before, and that's fine.

you should run what will win you the round. you should run what makes you happy.

Impact scenarios are where I vote - Even if you win uniqueness/link questions, if I don't know who's going to initiate a war, how an instance of oppression would occur, etc. by the end of the round, I'll probably go looking elsewhere to decide the round. The same thing goes for the aff - if I can't say what the aff solves and why that's important, I am easily persuaded by marginal negative offense.

Prep time ends when you email the file to the other team. It's 2024, you've likely got years of experience using a computer for academic/personal work, my expectations of your email prowess are very high.

Competing methods debates don't mean no permutation, for me at least. probably means that we should rethink how permutations function. people/activists/organizers combine methods all the time.

I've found myself especially unwilling to vote on theory that's on face not true - for example: if you say floating PICs bad, and the alternative isn't articulated as a floating PIC in the debate, I won't vote on it. I don't care if it's conceded.

I think fairness is an independent impact, but also that non-topical affs can be fair. A concession doesn't mean an argument is made. your only job is to make arguments, i don't care if the other team has conceded anything, you still have to make the argument in the last speech.

Affs I don't like:

I've found myself increasingly frustrated with non-topical affs that run philosophically/critically negative stances on the aff side. The same is true for non-topical affs that just say that propose a framework for analysis without praxis. I'm super open to presumption/switch-side arguments against these kinds of affs.

Affs that simply restate a portion of the resolution as their plan text.

I'm frustrated by non-topical affs that do not have any sort of advocacy statement/plan text. If you're going to read a bunch of evidence and I have to wait until CX or the 2AC to know what I'm voting for, I'll have a lower threshold to vote on fw/t/the other team.

Finally, I have limited belief in the transformative power of speech/performance. Especially beyond the round. I tend to think that power/violence is materially structured and that the best advocacies can tell me how to change the status quo in those terms.

Negs I don't like:

Framework 2nr's that act as if the affirmative isn't dynamic and did not develop between the 2ac and the 1ar. Most affs that you're inclined to run framework against will prove "abuse" for you in the course of the debate.

Stale politics disadvantages. Change your shells between tournaments if necessary, please.

Theoretically inconsistent/conflicting K strats.

I don't believe in judge kicking. Your job is to make the strategic decisions as the debate continues, not mine.

if you have questions about me or my judge philosophy, ask them before the round!

he/him/his

updated 2/18/24

what's up! my name is nick (he/him), i'm a coach for new trier and you should put me on the chain: nwilson1744@gmail.com. in high school i competed regularly on the national circuit for new trier and qualed twice. now i'm a sophomore at cornell university's new york state school of industrial & labor relations, where i study union stuff (but don't debate).

i can evaluate debates on the level you would expect of a standard national circuit judge (in terms of speed, flowing, variety of arguments etc) -- i'll do my best to fairly evaluate almost* any argument you make, and the below is to give you a sense of my preexisting knowledge, aesthetic preferences, and implicit biases.

• do what you do best. i like fluent, passionate argumentation and usually went for args i agreed with when i was competing. you being fired up about your favorite aff, K, or tricky procedural whatever will definitely overwhelm any personal bias i may have against the argument.
• this is my third tournament on the topic-- i'm starting to come to grips with the topic but not fluent yet, so don't assume i understand most acronyms/references to topic vibes on T
• i've been told it's also worth noting on this topic that i'm not very good with neoclassical economics. you don't have to explain those args like i'm five, but you should explain them like i haven't ever been able to get better than a B in an econ class.
• i will default to judge kick if there isn't a 2AR argument against it because i think that's what most judges do, but can genuinely go either way on it if you have the debate, maybe lean 70/30 against allowing it.
• i am as good for the K as i am anything else,but i wouldn't say i have a preference for those debates. i went for cap most rounds senior year and am relatively in the lit. if it's what you do best and makes sense in the round, let it rip.
• i am fairly neutral on framework v planless affs -- i have voted for and against it a good amount. when i've voted aff, the aff has often had a clear & stable (as in, consistent from 1AC-2AR) criticism of the resolution or the debate space, tapped into a coherent literature base where 1AC authors actually agree with one another, incorporated a performance or artistic element, and had an aff-specific ballot key warrant. when i've voted neg, the neg has often gone for offense pertaining to real-world skills and research quality, strictly delineated arguments about models of debate from questions of substance, engaged meaningfully with aff offense, and adopted a tone of "we want the best model for good debates" rather than "they broke the rules!" i've always been especially persuaded by arguments about participation in debate and competing strategies for increasing it (or reasons that we shouldn't increase it, if that's your bag).
• i generally prefer debates over substance -- theory and intrinsicness were always weak points for me as a competitor -- not necessarily a bias towards either side in those debates, but going for it makes it more likely i'll get something wrong
• condo is fine i guess, the counterinterp matters infinitely more than how many off were actually read in the round, my only hard-and-fast opinion is that you should slooooooow down when reading your theory blocks

one more non-debate-related note: i have put the skills i learned from policy debate to work as a union organizer, and truly believe that more debaters should find careers within the labor movement. if you are interested in building a more just world and putting your unique skills to work, shoot me an email! i would love to chat about how you can get involved in the incredible resurgence of the labor movement currently going down nationwide.

*Do not read Death Good or the other abhorrent arguments usually listed alongside it in front of me. If you're unsure if your argument is that, feel free to send me a question in the preround. If someone in the debate is made to feel personally unsafe due to arguments or conduct during the debate, I will not hesitate to intervene as I see fit, and will take seriously any safety-related requests of me from competitors (i.e., asking that I stop the round). Your safety and comfort is more important that anything that could happen in-round.

Please add me to the email chain: lexyyeager02@gmail.com

I debated at Meadows for 4 years, qualifying to the TOC my junior and senior year. I'm currently pursuing my master's of public policy at the University of Virginia and continue to stay involved in debate - I've led labs at CNDI for the past two summers.

Top level: Be nice and debate arguments you are comfortable with! I especially don't appreciate being overly aggressive/rude in rounds. Debate is hard, and everyone is trying their best - so please be respectful. Judge instruction + impact calc + not re-reading blocks in the 2nr/2ar are key to my ballot.

Theory:

- Conditionality is good (but reading 4 cp's that don’t solve or compete with the aff doesn't help the neg)

- I am more likely to buy solvency advocate theory, multiactor fiat, etc than condo bad

- Both teams should point out when interps are arbitrary

- I think cps need to be functionally and textually competitive - cps that compete off certainty/normal means are probably cheating, but it's the aff's burden to prove that

- Word PICs - Read it as a K probably solves all your offense

- If you are actually considering going for theory at the end of the debate, don't just re-read 2ac theory shells. You need to engage with and answer the other team's offense

Topicality:

- I won't be familiar with every violation on the topic - so please clearly explain your interpretation and what a year of debating looks like under your interp

- Giving a case list of unpredictable affs that the aff's interp justifies is convincing

- Impact calc is really important. Just saying "limits" or "ground" isn't enough to convince me that I should vote down the other team

- Intent to define/exclude is important, but contextual evidence is also good

Ks:

- Almost all of my 2nrs were some version of cap/neolib/militarism/ideology/postpolitics k. Given that, I think generic ks that don't engage with the aff produce some of the least educational debates

- this includes teams that just make "state bad" or "reform bad" links

- Reading a k isn't cheating - I think it is better for the aff to make arguments like "weigh impacts the aff solves v impacts the alt solves" or "consequences outweigh epistemology" on fw

- I won't vote on a perm if I don't know what it is - aff teams should explain how a perm overcomes the links rather than reading 5 perms in the 2ac that aren't explained

- Winning framework isn't enough - k teams should have specific links to the aff (whether that's their plan, advantages, etc) and an alternative that resolves their links/impacts

- The aff should never ignore good root cause debating - I think it can serve as terminal solvency deficits to the aff and a reason why the alt is better

- K debates that are very specific to the 1AC are my favorite debates to watch - but if your 2nc or 2nr could be read for multiple different affs on the topic - that's a problem

CPs

- Cps that are competitive and actually solve the aff are great

- Aff teams should extend theory on cheaty cps more often

- Strong solvency deficits o/w a small risk of a net benefit

DAs

- DAs with strong link stories and good ev are great, but spending 4 minutes on impacts doesn't make sense if there isn't an i/L (this probably means topic da > politics)

- Aff teams - cross x of the 1nc is a good time to squash laughable da's

- Defensive arguments that are executed well can take out a da - uq overwhelms the link, no i/L, aff not key, etc are all good if you explain how those outweigh the neg's arguments

K Affs:

- I'm definitely open to planless affs, but you should be able to explain what you solve (otherwise presumption args can be very compelling)

- For the aff: the biggest problem I've noticed in the past few rounds I've judged is that the 2ar just re-reads 2ac/1ar blocks in the 2ar on framework - so make sure you are actually being responsive to the 2nr. I think impact turning the neg's standards is usually a good idea.

- For the neg: I think fairness can be an impact, but you should prove that your interp gives access to the type of education the aff advocates for (that's probably more of a portable impact). You should also explain how fairness is an i/L to other benefits that are unique to debate. I haven't been too convinced when teams go for fairness as an impact on its own. TVAs are good.

- I enjoy k v k debates, but only when both teams actually engage with each other's arguments. Strong links (about method, theory, or another aspect of the 1ac) are reasons why I'm less likely to buy a perm. Otherwise every k v k debate becomes both cap and racism are bad, etc. Explain how the alternative takes a different approach to resolving both team's impacts.

Speak clearly and coherently

Must have a good case

Show passion in your arguments

Utilize the time effectively

Advice to complain less in the debate

Summarize the argument at the end with emphasize on the big points

Email: djzhaistore@gmail.com

Was an average pf/policy k debater, non policy scroll to bottom

2023-24 season note: assume little to no topic knowledge especially regarding the meta/common args. Might change as season goes on. Have mercy… I spend very little time thinking about debate now…

Update: I think this topic is making me into a policy hack… I think k on this topic is not very strategic unless you cook up something insane… sry

You can probably ignore the stuff below, just keeping it for potential reference. I shouldn’t need to do mental gymnastics to judge rounds well. Good luck have fun ride the wave!

TLDR: do what you do, make my life judging easy and I will boost speaks/affect the ballot. I like to see good preround strategy and understanding of what arguments will win you the round. Flexibility is a double-edged sword, and I like to see debaters who fully commit to their strongest arguments. Open to some level of postrounding, but is intended to be productive for growth. I won't pretend to be a blank slate, but I doubt any reservations I strongly hold will affect my ballot. I am not good at sugarcoating rfds and I’m not a fan of inflation, sorry…

Everything below is how I perceive policy debate, take the implications for your round in particular with a grain of salt, I have a bad habit of being very fluid in my judging and it's hard to extrapolate judging intuition I’ve developed to concrete overarching views. I tend to shy away from debate jargon as much as possible, I think policy has evolved lots of metas that I hold my nose voting on. I think there's more interesting ways to debate beyond prewritten "fairness, clash, education" blocks. I think about interesting arguments beyond a single round etc. I dislike the trend of judges going out of their way to be neutral/the perfect judge, a lot of what I find annoying in debate now seems to have evolved from this trend.

Obligatory evidence ethics blip here. I may judgekick args dependent on egregiously read cards. It shouldn't be a burden of the other team to call out bad ev, but I will reward teams that do so. It really shouldn't be my responsibility either, if you haven't read your own cards beyond highlights, it's on you.

CPs:

I tend to think condo good. the winning aff on condo sufficiently points out to how neg limits the ability of aff to have any offense anywhere. This is a pretty high threshold to meet and usually aff teams seem to put out a 2ac that just responds anyways? Perms test competition, group redundant ones, it makes my life easier. I think the role of aff teams is distinct from neg teams, probably lean towards judge kicking 90% of the time. 1NC cardless cps annoy me.

K/fw:

I find the idea of judging k rounds less and less appealing now… I think aff and neg should actually be differentiable in some way and not just speech orders…

Link debate goes on top of K and if I don't see links in the 2ar/2nr something has probably gone quite wrong. Framework tends to be more boring to judge than link debate. “Make the K do the work, not fw.” The K should directly indict and answer questions typically debated on fw. Role of judge and role of ballot mostly go over my head tbh… I think I rarely hear one that does not come off as redundant/self serving because debate is inherently competitive…

I get irritated by affs that are wishy washy with the ballot. "Debate space" "model" args have gotten quite meta but I constantly get the feeling that debaters would rather debate about that than debate in said debate space. Ok! you want me to vote for you so you can debate this way? debate it then…

I don't judge performance affs that much, that said, I have no implicit reasons against voting for one. I don’t know if I would say the ones I’ve judged were particularly good, so impress me!

Don't give me a subpar 1000wpm philosophy lecture posing to be relevant to the ballot please. Keep it classy

T/theory:

My views towards T and theory are probably idealistic but bite me ig.

Run T like a DA, I like good T debate as much as the next guy. TVAs are fun, call out lazy K affs. That said when it comes to definition/contextual comparison please put in legwork to contextualize why I should take a certain card at face value. I personally spend too much time thinking about Wittgenstein/philosophy of language so I have strong notions on T. If you plan on reading theory ideally I should be able to just write my rfd then and there; I like efficient responses to trivial theory (E.g. running disclosure against a generic aff). I haven't yet dropped anyone on condo or disclosure absent it being completely dropped so if that's your "strats" maybe strike me. Sorry if I miss blippy theory args in later speeches…

Misc:

Jargon is the bane of persuasive debate. I’m not caught up on a lot of jargon and it is my belief that it shouldn’t matter. make the purpose of your argument clear, and anything else should be irrelevant. More and more I get the feeling that policy debaters are some of the least persuasive people…

I think spreading to some extent has become a necessary evil to lots of debaters. prewritten blocks/theory/T etc a lot of the time will feel like it misses the spirit of whatever type of argument. it seems to me a crutch to avoid adaptation to any round, although the better teams I’ve judged seem to have a good grasp on both. TLDR technical debate should not be treated as a crutch for understanding how to be persuasive. It is substantially easier to debate something that is true/you feel is true. I will usually not intervene on the ballot for truth level claims, but I will think about them.

Go fast if you must, but I may lose things time to time especially if things get tacked on during speeches out of order. Emphasize card transitions and which off well and I will be happy. Quality>Quantity of args. I like to feel like my flowing is productive, I love seeing debaters make strategic decisions early and decisively.

Not timing anything unless it’s an issue and any other questions you can just ask me. CX is very flexible, partners feel free to chime in. do whatever during your prep time and if everyone is ok with it, I have no issues.

I’m not a super finicky person about particulars like sending docs on time, missing x seconds of prep, etc. I find it hard to believe that teams doing this gain real advantages, and I’ve yet to judge a round where stealing time or trying to penny pinch small advantages really changes the debate in a substantial way. that said call out ridiculous violations and I’ll be all ears.

3 cards or less sent in body are fine unless super long, probably don't need a marked copy for <2 cards. I take evidence ethics seriously, arguments that depend on questionably cut cards will probably end up dropped unless you can justify it post round. I will rely on my potential circumstantial knowledge of current events if I hear something that sounds blatantly outdated and intervene if it is critical enough. Regarding kritikal args/theory/philosophy based arguments I am leaning more and more towards just evaluating arguments/logical flow. I see too many miscut cards and misunderstood theory so just putting it out there that my threshold for what counts as an adequate response has been getting lower and lower.

I'm not a speaks goblin, but I think they are arbitrary. >29 and I probably really liked how you debated in round. Anything less is probably just a placeholder/vaguely relevant to presentation/execution outside of the ballot. Differences of 0.1 are arbitrary and mostly bc I can’t input ties. 0.5 probably matters more. Usually winning team will also have higher speaks unless there was a tragic mistake somewhere.

Remember to have fun and be nice

OTHER EVENTS:

Assume no topic knowledge, well informed overall so probably will have some biases, very few relevant hard stances so persuade me otherwise. If something sounds contradictory to what I know about current affairs, I will probably go snoop in the cards or discard relevant analysis unless I am shown otherwise.

Will probably disclose out of habit unless tab tells me not to.

Make it clear what you think wins you the round and it’s probably an easy ballot, tech is for ceremony but understand that winning an argument technically may have 0 relevance to my ballot if there isn't legwork to explode it./missed point. some stuff in Misc: may apply.

LD:

I have no idea what order and times LD speeches go, feel free to remind me where you're at, especially if there's a timeskew/related voter floating around. Simplify jargon for me, if it doesn't make sense to me I won't vote on it. LD now gives me the impression of partnerless policy with weird speech times, theory isn't run as much in policy so make it simpler for me to understand. I also don’t judge theory much in Policy and also usually never vote on it so for your sake please make my life easy and convince me to vote on it…

PF:

I used to be a pf debater. Treat it half as a speech focused event. Presentation should matter, convince me of something. In the spirit of the event, I value technical aspects of debate much less than being consistent, credible, and reasonable. Be a little creative with world-building and rhetoric and keep it traditional. Make my ballot easy and I will be happy. If you run disclosure I will probably drop you and your speaks. I know prog when I see prog. Condense for me, FF is 2 minutes, wrap everything up. Easiest way to condense is to not bring along baggage.

I probably cannot judge PF the same way a parent/layperson would, but I think that is the core of what judging in PF should look like, do not take me as some “technical judge” that you can progwalk on or have a “tech round.” I'm personally calloused to presentation/rhetoric, but I will try my best.

Card/evidence sharing in PF is a nightmare, I don't care to look at cards unless someone points it out in specific. If a card is written in bad faith enough I may just kick it straight up or drop the violating team. I think you can get by a lot with general topic knowledge/analytics>delusions about current events or outdated cards.

Skip the "order is our case their case weighing" (and variations) roadmaps.