Table of Contents: PF, MS Parli, Congress, Policy/LD, BQ

If you remind me, I'll give you my email in round for email chains or feedback.

Coaches: Tim Scheffler, Ben Morris

(Former) PF Partner: Sorin Caldararu

Schools: Madison West '22, Swarthmore College '26 (econ/math), judging for Strath Haven now.

Qualifications: 3 TOC gold bids in PF, doubles at TOC, won Dowling, broke 3x at Wisconsin PF State (made finals once), finals in state Congress twice, almost competed in extemp a couple of times, judged a few MSPDP and BQ rounds, judged a lot of PF rounds.

Varsity PF (JV/Novice/Middle School is Below):

TL;DR: Standard flow judge. Tech over truth but I admire appeals to truth when done well. Proud hack for evidence ethics. Below are some areas where I may deviate from circuit norms.

- Fairness > Education > Winning. Anything you do that is discriminatory will get you dropped and get your speaks tanked. PLEASE READ THIS ARTICLE.

- LOCAL CIRCUIT: Disclo and parahrasing theory are not norms, so I'm going to need a pretty high bar of in-round abuse for me to justify a ballot. This is especially the case since local circuits tend to have much more extensive rules, including about evidence ethics, which could cover disclosure and paraphrasing if necessary. It is much easier to make rule changes in the local circuit. Thus, I need to know why the round, not coach meetings in the summer, should be where disclosure is made a norm.

- Now you know the wiki exists: https://opencaselist.com/hspf22. Not disclosing is now your choice. If you don't know what that means, ask me.

- If you're a small school and you're up against a team from a big prep school, I am a judge you want. I debated a lot on the national circuit, but I went to a public school that barely funds its debate program. Unlike a lot of judges who consider themselves "flow," I don't care if you use the same useless circuit buzzwords I use and I'm really not impressed by people that read 5 poorly warranted turns in rebuttal that one of their 15 coaches wrote for them in a prepout.

- If you go to a privileged school, are facing an underprivileged school, and spend the round commodifying the issues of underprivileged schools in an unnuanced disclosure/paraphrasing shell, your speaks will be capped at a 26 and I will be very tempted to drop you for it. If your entire strategy for winning rounds is to weigh extinction impacts over everything else, your speaks will be capped at a 28.5 unless you present some type of interesting nuance in the weighing debate. If I have to flow you off a speech doc, your speaks are capped at 28.5.

- I don't care if you provide an "alternative" in framework/theory debates (you need one in K’s though). I don't think second case ever needs to interact with first case, even in progressive debate.

- I reserve the right to intervene if I dislike your theory. That said, prefiat impacts almost always outweigh postfiat impacts. If prefiat debate is initiated, generally we're not gonna be debating substance. That doesn't make theory abusive – if you hit theory you can win by responding to it.

- Norms that DEFINITELY should be enforced through the ballot: not being ___ist, not misrepresenting evidence, not being rude. Norms that should be enforced through the ballot: disclosure, having cut cards, being able to share evidence efficiently, not stealing prep time, trigger warnings. Norm that should be encouraged through word of mouth but not the ballot: reading cards.

- Weighing should be done early. Don't wait until final focus. Metaweigh, too.

- Frontline in 2nd rebuttal. No sticky defense.

- I don't flow author names.

- Collapse early. To that end, don't read a whole new contention in rebuttal for no reason.

- If I have no offense on the flow, I default to the team that would win if I were a lay judge.

- You can ask me to call for evidence (from your side or your opponents' side) after the round in one of your speeches (or cross-ex if that floats your boat). I will probably not remember. After the round, say "remember when I asked you to look at the Caldararu card?" and I will look at it.

- Don’t misrepresent who wrote your evidence. If the article comes from the opinion section or is an academic study, you cannot cite it solely by institution. The New York Times does not publicly agree or disagree with what Ross Douthat or Bret Stephens writes for them (and I’m sure it would often vehemently disagree, as would I), so citing his op-eds by saying “the New York Times says...” is incorrect. You should say "Douthat of the New York Times says..." or "Douthat says..."

- "If you pronounce “Reuters” as 'rooters' or "nuclear" as 'nook-you-ler' I will be sad." –Sorin Caldararu, my brilliant debate partner.

- I'm going to Swarthmore College (one of the most left-leaning colleges in America), I live in Madison, Wisconsin (one of the most left-leaning cities in America), and my debate coach was a civil rights lawyer. This should give you a sense of my political views.

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JV/Novice/Middle School Paradigm:

I have judged some Middle School Parliamentary rounds before, and I have a lot of experience in novice/JV public forum.

- There are essentially three parts of debating: making arguments, responding to arguments, and weighing arguments (i.e. comparing your arguments and with those of your opponent). Ideally, you should start by mostly making arguments, and by the end you should mostly be weighing arguments that have already been made. You can make that very clear to me by saying things like "now I'm going to respond to my opponent's argument about ______."

- An argument usually has to involve saying something will cause something else. Say we're debating whether the government should create a single-payer healthcare system. If you are on the proposition, saying "healthcare is a right" isn't really an argument. Rather, it's a catchphrase that hints at a different argument: by making healthcare single-payer, the cost doesn't change whether you go to the doctor or not, making people more likely to get care that improves their quality of life and could even save lives. The difference between the first argument and the second is pretty subtle, but it's important for me as a judge: saying "healthcare is a right" doesn't tell me how single-payer gets people healthcare, and it also doesn't tell me who I'm actually helping by voting in favor of single-payer. The second argument answers those questions and puts those answers front and center. And that makes it much easier for me, as a judge, to vote for you.

- To that end, I'm not a fan of new arguments in late speeches. It makes the debate feel like whack-a-mole: a team makes one argument, but once it's rebutted, they present another argument, which then gets rebutted, and so on.

- Generally, I find logic to be more compelling than moral grandstanding. For example, if we're debating if it should be legal to feed kids McDonalds and you argue that it shouldn't because McDonalds is unhealthy, it doesn't help to say stuff like "they're basically stepping over the bodies of dead children" in a speech. It sounds like overkill and makes me not want to vote for you as much.

- Tell me your favorite animal to show me you've read this for an extra speaker point. The WDCA hates fun, so I sadly cannot give you your extra speaker point if you are in Wisconsin.

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Congress:

Short and sweet:

- I probably would rather judge PF. Try to change my mind. (just kidding)

- I was a huge fan of really weird yet hilarious intros, and had one for just about every speech freshman year. It was then squeezed out of me by a combination of tremendous willpower and coaching. (I once said that Saudi Arabia was acting like Calvin from Calvin and Hobbes).

- Don’t re-word a speech someone else just gave two minutes ago.

- I shouldn’t be able to tell if you have a background in policy or PF debate. Don’t speak like you would in a PF or policy round.

- If you give a late-cycle speech, you should have something valuable to say. If you don’t have something valuable to say, don’t speak.

- You should vote to call the question, but not if it will prevent someone who needs to speak from speaking. Basically, if you are bored of debating a given bill, call the question. If you believe that calling the question would be a good underhand ploy to prevent somebody from speaking, don't call the question.

- Don’t speak right after someone spoke on your side, unless you absolutely have to (you probably don't have to).

- Don’t use precedence/recency to give the first pro speech if the writer of the bill is in the chamber and wants to speak. I have no idea if writing a bill allows you to give the first pro speech regardless of precedence and recency, but that should be a rule. This should give you an indication of my level of experience with Congress.

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Policy/LD: If I am judging you in policy or LD, I might have a slight bias towards a more PF style of debate. Read my PF paradigm since most things will apply. I find the ideas and concepts in policy and LD interesting and worthwhile even though I'm not inclined to participate in those styles of debate. Just keep it under 300wpm, use PF-level lingo, and keep in mind I can flow spreading but I can't flow it as well as an actual policy or LD debater. I'm probably more down for progressive debate than most PF judges, especially in those events. I know I can be a hard judge to adapt to for circuit policy and LD, so I'll cut you some slack with speed and clear you like 10 times before I stop trying to flow.

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BQ:

I judge BQ exactly like I judge PF, but obviously framework matters more because it's philosophy. Just read the PF section. It all applies.

No talking fast.  No philosophical contentions.  No citing philosophers as evidence.  Persuade me with your excellent public speaking skills and a little bit of empirical evidence.

I am the head debate coach at James Madison Memorial HS (2002 - present)
I am the head debate coach at Madison West HS (2014 - present)
I was formerly an assistant at Appleton East (1999-2002)
I competed for 3 years (2 in LD) at Appleton East (1993-1996)

I am a plaintiff's employment/civil rights lawyer in real life. I coach (or coached, depending on the year) every event in both debate and IE, with most of my recent focus on PF, Congress, and Extemp. Politically I'm pretty close to what you'd presume about someone from Madison, WI.

Congress at the bottom.

PF

(For online touraments) Send me case/speech docs at the start please (timscheff@aol.com) email or sharing a google doc is fine, I don't much care if I don't have access to it after the round if you delink me or if you ask me to delete it from my inbox. I have a little trouble picking up finer details in rounds where connections are fuzzy and would rather not have to ask mid round to finish my flow.
(WDCA if a team is uncomfortable sharing up front that's fine, but any called evidence should then be shared).

If your ev is misleading as cut/paraphrased or is cited contrary to the body of the evidence, I get unhappy. If I notice a problem independently there is a chance I will intervene and ignore the ev, even without an argument by your opponent. My first role has to be an educator maintaining academic honesty standards. You could still pick up if there is a path to a ballot elsewhere. If your opponents call it out and it's meaningful I will entertain voting for a theory type argument that justifies a ballot.

I prefer a team that continues to tell a consistent story/advocacy through the round. I do not believe a first speaking team's rebuttal needs to do more than refute the opposition's case and deal with framework issues. The second speaking team ideally should start to rebuild in the rebuttal; I don't hold it to be mandatory but I find it much harder to vote for a team that doesn't absent an incredible summary. What is near mandatory is that if you are going to go for it in the Final Focus, it should probably be extended in the Summary. I will give cross-x enough weight that if your opponents open the door to bringing the argument back in the grand cross, I'll still consider it.

Rate wise going quick is fine but there should be discernible variations in rate and/or tone to still emphasize the important things. If you plan on referring to arguments by author be very sure the citations are clear and articulated well enough for me to get it on my flow.

I'm a fairly staunch proponent of paraphrasing. It's an academically more realistic exercise. It also means you need to have put in the work to understand the source (hopefully) and have to be organized enough to pull it up on demand and show what you've analyzed (or else). A really good quotation used in full (or close to it) is still a great device to use. In my experience as a coach I've run into more evidence ethics, by far, with carded evidence, especially when teams only have a card, or they've done horrible Frankenstein chop-jobs on the evidence, forcing it into the quotation a team wants rather than what the author said. Carded evidence also seems to encourage increases in speed of delivery to get around the fact that an author with no page limit's argument is trying to be crammed into 4 min of speech time. Unless its an accommodation for a debater, if you need to share speech docs before a speech, something's probably gone a bit wrong with the world.
On this vein, I've developed a fairly keen annoyance with judges who outright say "no paraphrasing." It's simply not something any team can reasonably adapt to in the context of a tournament. I'm not sure how much the teams of the judges or coaches taking this position would be pleased with me saying I don't listen to cards or I won't listen to a card unless it's read 100% in full (If you line down anything, I call it invalid). It's the #1 thing where I'm getting tempted to pull the trigger on a reciprocity paradigm.

Exchange of evidence is not optional if it is asked for. I will follow the direction of a tournament on the exchange timing, however, absent knowledge of a specific rule, I will not run prep for either side when a reasonable number of sources are requested. Debaters can prep during this time as you should be able to produce sources in a reasonable amount of time and "not prepping" is a bit of a fiction and/or breaks up the flow of the round.

Citations should include a date when presented if that date will be important to the framing of the issue/solution, though it's not a bad practice to include them anyhow. More important, sources should be by author name if they are academic, or publication if journalistic (with the exception of columnists hired for their expertise). This means "Harvard says" is probably incorrect because it's doubtful the institution has an official position on the policy, similarly an academic journal/law review publishes the work of academics who own their advocacy, not the journal. I will usually ask for sources if during the course of the round the claims appear to be presented inconsistently to me or something doesn't sound right, regardless of a challenge, and if the evidence is not presented accurately, act on it.

Speaker points. Factors lending to increased points: Speaking with inflection to emphasize important things, clear organization, c-x used to create ground and/or focus the clash in the round, and telling a very clear story (or under/over view) that adapts to the actual arguments made. Factors leading to decreased points: unclear speaking, prep time theft (if you say end prep, that doesn't mean end prep and do another 10 seconds), making statements/answering answers in c-x, straw-man-ing opponents arguments, claiming opponent drops when answers were made, and, the fastest way for points to plummet, incivility during c-x. Because speaker points are meaningless in out rounds, the only way I can think of addressing incivility is to simply stop flowing the offending team(s) for the rest of the round.

Finally, I flow as completely as I can, generally in enough detail that I could debate with it. However, I'm continually temped to follow a "judge a team as they are judging yours" versus a "judge a team as you would want yours judged" rule. Particularly at high-stakes tournaments, including the TOC, I've had my teams judged by a judge who makes little or no effort to flow. I can't imagine any team at one of those tournaments happy with that type of experience yet those judges still represent them. I think lay-sourced judges and the adaptation required is a good skill and check on the event, but a minimum training and expectation of norms should be communicated to them with an attempt to comply with them. To a certain degree this problem creates a competitive inequity - other teams face the extreme randomness imposed by a judge who does not track arguments as they are made and answered - yet that judge's team avoids it. I've yet to hit the right confluence of events where I'd actually adopt "untrained lay" as a paradigm, but it may happen sometime. [UPDATE: I've gotten to do a few no-real-flow lay judging rounds this year thanks to the increase in lay judges at online tournaments]. Bottom line, if you are bringing judges that are lay, you should probably be debating as if they are your audience.

CONGRESS
The later in the cycle you speak, the more rebuttal your speech should include. Repeating the same points as a prior speaker is probably not your best use of time.

If you speak on a side, vote on that side if there wasn't an amendment. If you abstain, I should understand why you are abstaining (like a subsequent amendment contrary to your position).

I'm not opposed to hearing friendly questions in c-x as a way to advance your side's position if they are done smartly. If your compatriot handles it well, points to you both. If they fumble it, no harm to you and negative for them. C-x doesn't usually factor heavily into my rankings, often just being a tie breaker for people I see as roughly equal in their performance.

For the love of God, if it's not a scenario/morning hour/etc. where full participation on a single issue is expected, call to question already. With expanded questioning now standard, you don't need to speak on everything to stay on my mind. Late cycle speeches rarely offer something new and it's far more likely you will harm yourself with a late speech than help. If you are speaking on the same side in succession it's almost certain you will harm yourself, and opposing a motion to call to question to allow successive speeches on only one side will also reflect as a non-positive.

A good sponsorship speech, particularly one that clarifies vagueness and lays out solvency vs. vaguely talking about the general issue (because, yeah, we know climate change is bad, what about this bill helps fix it), is the easiest speech for me to score well. You have the power to frame the debate because you are establishing the legislative intent of the bill, sometimes in ways that actually move the debate away from people's initially prepped positions.

In a chamber where no one has wanted to sponsor or first negate a bill, especially given you all were able to set a docket, few things make me want to give a total round loss, than getting no speakers and someone moving for a prep-time recess. This happened in the TOC finals two years ago, on every bill. My top ranks went to the people who accepted the responsibility to the debate and their side to give those early speeches.