Last changed on
Mon June 12, 2023 at 10:39 AM EDT
I competed in PF at Nova High School in South Florida from 2014 to 2019. I just graduated from Duke University and am finishing up my fourth year coaching PF at Durham Academy.
For Nats 2023, please put me on the email chain- smith.emmat@gmail.com.
How I make decisions-
I tend to vote on the path of least resistance. This is the place on my flow where I need to intervene the least as a judge in order to make a decision. Explicitly identifying your cleanest piece of offense in the round, winning that clean piece of offense, completely extending that clean piece of offense (uniqueness, links AND impacts in BOTH summary and final focus), and then telling me why your cleanest piece of offense is more important than your opponents' cleanest piece of offense is usually an easy way to win my ballot.
General Stuff-
- Do all the good debate things! Do comparative weighing, warrant your weighing, collapse, frontline, etc.
- Please preflow before the round. Holding up the tournament to take 15 min to preflow in the room is really annoying :(
- Warrants and full link chains are important! I can only vote on arguments I understand by the end of the round and won't do the work for you on warrants/links. Please do not assume I know everything just because I've probably judged some rounds on the topic.
- I won't read speech docs, so please don't sacrifice speed for clarity.
- I have a really low threshold and 0 tolerance for being rude, dismissive, condescending, etc. to your opponents. I'm not afraid to drop you for this reason. At the very least, I'll tank your speaks and write you a kindly worded educational ballot about making rounds unnecessarily hostile.
Evidence-
- I personally feel that calling for evidence as a judge is interventionist. I will only do it if 1- someone in the round explicitly tells me to in a speech or 2- reading evidence is literally the only way that I can make a decision (if this happens, it means both teams did a terrible job of clarifying the round and there is no clear offense for me to vote on. Please don't let this happen).
Progressive Stuff-
- I'll vote on Kritiks if they are clearly warranted, well explained, and made accessible to your opponents. (I am admittedly not a fan of K's but will vote on them if I absolutely must.)
- I will also vote on theory that is clearly explained, fleshed out, and well warranted. I believe that theory should ONLY be used to check egregious instances of in-round abuse and reserve the right to drop you for frivolous theory. I won't buy paraphrase or disclosure theory.
- HUGE DISCLAIMER: My biggest pet peeve in PF right now is the use of progressive args to make rounds inaccessible to teams who don't know how to handle them. Reading progressive args against a clearly inexperienced team to get a cheap win is an easy way to auto lose my ballot. ALSO I am really not confident in my abilities to evaluate progressive arguments. If you choose to run them, you take on the risk of me making the wrong decision despite doing my best. Proceed with caution!
- If you plan on reading arguments about sensitive topics, please provide a content warning before the round.