My Background:

My name is Mr. Barton and I was previously the head coach of the Blue Valley Northwest Debate Squad from the Fall of the 2021 school year through the Fall of the 2022 school year. I graduated from Park Hill High School, in Kansas City, Missouri, where I participated in three years of debate & forensic events. The events I competed in were primarily: Lincoln-Douglas Debate, Public-Forum Debate, Congressional Debate, Policy Debate, Domestic Extemporaneous Speaking, and International Extemporaneous Speaking. I competed in a few other events, but those were the main events I competed in. In my time competing in high school, I earned the rank of "outstanding distinction" in the National Speech & Debate Association and received numerous accolades as well.

I am also a passionate social studies educator. Debate is a very valuable/noble activity because of the skills it teaches students. Critical thinking, learning to cite sources properly, learning to build arguments, and learning to appeal to specific audiences are just a few of the amazing skills that debate imparts to students.

My Paradigm:

In order for the affirmative team to win, the plan must defend and retain all of the stock issues, which are Inherency, Harms, Solvency, and Topicality. For the negative to win, they need to prove that the affirmative fails to meet one of the stock issues. At the end of the round, I will compare the affirmative plan with either the negative counter-plan or the negative's status-quo position. Whichever side of the debate better explains their position and their arguments will be the winner of the round. Quality of evidence is very important in terms of making credible arguments. I consider rebuttals to be the most significant opportunity to show off your refutation prowess. In the rebuttals, focus on the big picture, that is, the most significant, hard-hitting arguments you/your opponents have made in the round. I don't place an enormous amount of importance on the quantity of your arguments, rather, the quality of them and the degree to which you were clear or unclear when making your arguments. Remember, debate is ultimately an exercise in communication. Please enunciate. I want to hear well reasoned, logical arguments backed up with solid evidence, presented in an aesthetically appealing fashion. In addition to this, please be a polite. It's certainly fine to be disagreeable in a debate round, but don't cross the line and become mean or degrading to your opponents in any way. If you do cross that line, that will certainly translate into a deduction from your speaker points and more than likely a loss of the round.

Important Notes:

Your quality of argumentation will determine whether you win or lose the round. Your arguments need to be comprised of a compelling claim, relevant data, a logical warrant, and a believable impact. Additionally, you need to weigh impacts. Speed is not preferred, and you need to be understandable. If you are not understandable, you will risk losing the round. Kritiks are not preferred. I find that Kritiks are often designed to stifle debate, not encourage it. I see the stifling of debate as an incredibly destructive force in our society and in the world at large. No clipping: follow proper evidence ethics please. Please be in control of your emotions at all times during the debate. No racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, or otherwise abusive behavior/rhetoric will be tolerated. Above all, be a good person. The best way to boost your ethos in any debate is to simply be a kind, compassionate, and courteous person, especially to your opponents, who you will be debating with. Please note that the above mentioned traits are not the same thing as signaling virtue or being fake. I will be able to tell the difference. Thanks in advance for striving to appeal to my judging paradigm.

Judge Paradigm: Steven Davis

• Retired teacher of 40 years, the past 15 years offering assistance at Washburn Rural High School, Topeka, Kansas
• “Yes” – old enough to be your grandparent (and then some maybe); and for those in the know, "Yes" -- I dodrive the school bussesthat get us from the school to tournaments, etc.
• I have re-developed -- for me -- a genuine enjoyment of judging in recent years, and I strive to be as fair as possible.
• I hope that my love for all things speech and debate has been evident throughout these so many decades of involvement with these activities.

FORENSICS: If possible, I PREFER PUBLIC ADDRESS EVENTS

I do enjoy listening to and evaluating speech rounds. More often than not, rounds are close and final rankings (especially when points are not awarded) do not show how close some rounds are.

When I finally resolve rounds, I place a premium on those that speak clearly, are organized, and convince me that they care about what they are talking about. In all Public Address events, speakers make choices and thus should "sell" those messages because they do care.

Extemp ...I expect to hear a very well organized speech, with clear analysis and, in the end, support for assertions made. The most important component of extemp is that the speaker provides his or her answer to the question posed. If no answer is clearly provided, and explained, I will not typically rank that speaker very high in the round. Additionally, I do listen for sources and appropriate citations. I am pretty sure I believe that the source — if quoted or paraphrased — provides you a basis for most (if not all) your internal conclusions. I don’t count sources per se, but I expect there to benumeroussources cited and incorporated into your assertions, analysis, and conclusions.

Oratory ...should be presented with some passion, you should really be selling me your message and there should be some semblance of speaking from the heart present. In some ways, I am a traditionalist and prefer the oratory that sets out to identify a problem and then offers me solutions for that problem. I understand that today a lot of oratory is “dramatic” in its presentational form, but this is often over-killed and does not impress me.

Informative ...should likewise be presented in a way that makes the audience truly believe you care about the topic selected. Organization is very important . . . and internal analysis and development is critical to ultimate success. If visual aids are a component of the speech, I need to be able to see them, and they should support the message. Visual aids for mere glitz do not always make the point the speaker desires, AND too many visuals actually get in the way of the good speech.

Impromptu ...a lot depends on the topic area and topic chosen. I do not believe that impromptu is stand up comedy, but do appreciate a speaker that can present his/her/their speech in a conversational manner during which the speaker is enjoying themselves. Not to be forgotten, the better organized speech will be highly regarded by this evaluator.

In all of the above events, I do believe that movement must be natural and supportive of the speech. Movement offers needed transitional support, and too much movement really hurts the overall effort. Additionally, I believe that too many gestures do more harm than good in that they just distract from the message. Use gestures to reinforce your message AND make them as natural and spontaneous as possible. Finally, your delivery needs to be clearly presented so that you are heard AND understood. As is sometimes difficult for the debater to understand, in the Public Address events "Speed TRULY Kills" . . . and conversational styles more often prevail than not.

I hope that each entry in a speech event enjoys his/her/their presentations. "Fun" may not be the exact word I am looking for, but you can truly tell when the speaker is in the communicative zone . . . and not just going through the motions.

ONE ADDITIONAL NOTE:

Although, "Yes," I prefer judging Public Address events . . . but when asked to evaluate interp or acting events, I will strive to do my very best. It is not that I can't, it is just that I prefer the speech events.

Thus, REGARDING JUDGING Interp Rounds:

I have worked with interp students over the years. Fortunately, I have always been in a situation where there was a unique interp coach available as well.

When asked what I would like in interp . . . I think it comes down to the following:

1. I look for a piece that is presented in an interesting manner. The content needs to flow and the cutting needs to make sense.
2. I look for consistency of characters. Are they believable? Are they relatively easy to follow throughout the presentation.
3. I look for a presentation where the combination of facial expressions, gestures, and vocal development blends together to provide believable characters.
4. I am not opposed to movement, but I prefer that the presentation be confined to a limited area. In a sense, I still believe that except for Duo, these are INTERPRETATION events, and the primary presentation should be focused and confined to a small area in front of one's audience.
5. A note about PRO/POE/POI. After judging at nationals last two years ago, I had an epiphany. This really regards the use of your notebook as a prop. I still hope that the notebook is somehow incorporated to suggest you are "reading" material, but I also understand and accept the notebook as a potential prop to be used during your performance.
6. In the end, I believe I know what I like, and I will rank student performances accordingly; and when the situation presents itself, I will try to explain why I ranked students as I did. Please understand that I know with 100% accuracy that my views and another judge’s views may not coincide. And that is OK by me! It is, in part, the reason why we have multiple judges in a round.
7. AND in situations where we rank performances without any other type of evaluation (like points), I hope that all competitors understand that the section will no doubt have numerous very, very good performances, yet I have no option to give a tie, I must rank top to bottom. This is the way it is! I can only promise performers that I will try to do my very best in making my final ranking decisions.

Good luck! The best to you in your future forensic endeavors! I truly hope you enjoy yourself during your presentation!

Lawrence Free State '25 -- Junior.

Email -- gilead.falin@gmail.com

he/him

Speechdrop or email chain are both fine, whatever you are most comfortable with!

I am the parent of a debater and have a few years of judging experience. I don't have any personal debate experience, but it is a fun activity, so above all, I hope you have fun during the round. 

Please make sure that you slow down and enunciate so that I can hear and comprehend your arguments. I don't have any preference towards arguments on either side, but please make sure that you explain them clearly so that I can understand them. 

Be respectful to your opponents and to your partner!

I am a 3rd year debater at Lawrence Free State, and put the H in LFS HF, I use she/they pronouns

Email chain: cooperhefty@gmail.com

I had written a very long explanation of my opinions on different arguments, but I thought it would be more helpful to just tell you all to do what you want to do. Below are some very general thoughts that will mostly likely influence how i judge, but it should not change your strategy at all —

The negative has 3 ways to win, they must prove the aff is undesirable, worse than a competitive alternative, or theoretically invalid. The affirmative wins if they disprove all of those three points — I can be shifted away from this view if you say I should, but you need reasons

Tech > Truth – Run whatever you want, if you 'win it' I'll vote on it. concession means it is a true argument — this means that line-by-line is important

Clarity > Speed – go extra slow on tags/analytics, especially T and Theory and please signpost, I might be a debater but I am NOT a good flower. If you are going faster, I often miss authors — if you are talking about a card, tell me what it says first, dont just say 'our Lee card answers this', explain the warrant and WHY it answers that argument

Judge instruction + impact calc

please have an order to your speech (i.e DA, CP, Case, then do those things in that order)

Case debate is underutilized by the neg — good case debate will get you good speaks

I am known as a 'K Hack' by many, though this does not mean I will just vote for you if you are running a K — funny enough I often find myself agreeing with more policy stances than critical stances — though I do love watching K debates and am very willing to help to you understand how to run them

If you have questions ask before the round.

Be smart, have fun, but if you have to choose, choose to have fun

Make clear, concise, well planned argument for you case.  Quality over quantity and speed.  Quality, relevance and date of sources is important.

Put me on the email chain brett.krambeer@gmail.com

four years in high school at Hutchinson High School (KS)

two years in college at The University of North Texas

Currently debating at Emporia Sate University (Stingers Down!)

Assistant coach for Lawrence High School (KS) for two years

Current assistant coach for Emporia High School (KS)

This happens more often than anyone wants to admit: If anyone in the room has made an offensive comment of a severe degree I will automatically vote against you. If an argument is not made in the debate about the comment, I will still vote against you if I subjectively decide it warrants that response. Your speaks will suffer regardless. I will only stop the debate if I am asked to by a debater, if I am I will.

Other than that, have fun and be nice to each other. You should do what you do, I'll adapt to you. I am comfortable with most everything. With that being said, I wish people did a better job of starting off slower, give me a sec to adjust to your voice by starting off at like 85% speed or so.. Especially if you're starting off with a theory or T argument.

An argument is a claim and a warrant. You need to win an argument AND a reason why that argument means I should vote for you. Don't just throw a bunch of cards at me, it makes me sad. I think the most important speeches are the rebuttals, write my ballot for me.. I like to be lazy, tell me what I'm voting on and why. I don't like reading evidence after a debate, I won't unless I have to or am told to.

I tend to be swayed by well-explained turns case arguments. Tell me how different flows and arguments interact with each other. I wish more people read impact turns.

Making choices is good.. I wont judge kick an alt or CP unless I am told to.

Specific arguments

Kritiks: I am most likely to vote for a K with a specific link and a well explained alternative (Do not assume I understand your alternative) and how it solves the aff/affs impacts. Furthermore, I think impact framing arguments are also very important and needs to be clearly extrapolated because I will use that to frame the rest of the debate.

Planless Aff’s: You do you, I have less experience with this style of affirmative. Yes, I will vote on impact turns to T.

Be respectful to everyone in the room, otherwise I have no problem voting against you

Adaption - Teams------------------x--Judge

I'm not too techy, so cross-x is very important for me

On the DA, explain the link clearly and walk me through the chain that leads to the existential (or non-existential) impact. A short o/v on the DA helps out.

CP needs to have a clear benefit that the aff is not able to access through their plan.

Not too familiar with Ks, but am willing to vote on them. I am not the best judge for you if you like running abstract kritikal arguments, but if you explain it clearly, anything's fair game.

I find it better to have a link unique to the case, but general links work.

Clash is very important, this has vanished to a great degree in my time judging

Note: You may see another Tyler Slinkard paradigm on tabroom, use this one. The other is from an old account. There is no major difference between the two other than I have updated some info for Highschool competitors.

Background:

4 years of policy and LD in High School (Fort Scott Sr. High)

4 years of NFA-LD in College (University of Central Missouri)

1.5 years of coaching speech/debate in College (UCM)

General In-Round Info:

Keeping the flow clean is the easiest way to win my ballot. I have based the info below on my previous decisions. Note the points where I have found the analysis in round was most effective in making me vote aff/neg.

LD (Highschool):

Value/Criterion-not necessary but if you are not engaging with the traditional structure of the event then at least make it clear what you are doing and why I should (or should not) vote one way.

LD (College) CX (Highschool):

*Speed* If you keep the flow clean, you can go as fast as you want. I will say "clear" if I cannot understand your rate of delivery. Please note, I am slightly bad of hearing. The wonderful result of growing up in a rock-musician's house.

Topicality-an a priori until a counter framework is presented. The negative needs to show me how their definition directly relates to the affirmative case. If you want my ballot on T; explain the violation.

Ks and all manner of dark sorcery-My wheelhouse in college was the Cap K, but near the end I started to venture into feminist literature and I have since fallen into a wide array of different perspectives that I now generally, at least in part, embrace. That said, in the following section I have included my general view of debate's relationship to the individual and society because I think that is the best way to explain my understanding of Kritiks.

Debate is a performance like any other event. Policy presentations have their place and are not inherently contradictory to critical evaluation. However, policy debate is a social associate of power in the status quo. For me, that is true for psychic, bio, and material power within the American system. That said, debate, as a collective idea, is not a state of counter/anti-fascist praxis, but it can be a space.

Debating as a practice of evaluation by means of competitive information processing is important because debate questions (i.e. resolutions) are not only an attempt at examining competing positions and placing one over another, but also the reassertion of a primary mode of processing. A traditionalist would contend that primary mode is policy. Indeed, the most recent NFA rules for Lincoln-Douglas maintain the event should be a "policy-oriented dialogue." That places policy discussions inherently above alternative mechanisms from the outset. Thus, in my mind, the Kritik is about rejecting not only a previous position but also the recognition of the inherent bias of organized debate.

I myself am game for any rejection of status quo politics. I just like clash.

That is a very general synopsis of my view on critical debate. Please feel free to ask more specific questions before rounds.

Impact Calculus-While my background would indicate a desire for a clear, concise line-by-line, I've found the BP style of rebuttals has a greater capacity for keeping my attention. I also recommend that people collapse to as few arguments as possible. Use your time efficiently.

I find systemic (violence) implications far more compelling than existential/terminal ones. That said, I have voted for extinction many times.

Hi, I’m Will Soper. He/him/his. Wsoper03@gmail.com.

I did NDT/CEDA debate for four years at the University of Kansas. I'm currently coaching for Blue Valley North. I worked with a lab at Michigan for a little while this summer and judged a lot of practice debates.

Grumpy stuff. Do not ask for a marked document. If the number of cards marked in a speech is excessive, I will ask for a marked document. Asking what cards were read is either CX time or prep time. Prompting needs to stop. Past the first time, I will not flow the things your partner prompts you to say. Send the email before you stop prep.

I dislike bad arguments. I think most debaters understand what these are: hidden aspec in the 1NC, reading paradoxes as solvency arguments, counterplans which assassinate anyone, etc. If your ideal negative strategy involves more nonsense than specific discussions of the affirmative, we probably don't think about debate the same way.

Presumption/Vagueness. I am willing to (and have) voted negative on vagueness and that the affirmative has not met its stock issues burdens. Similarly, if the negative is reading a CP with an internal net benefit and doesn't have evidence demonstrating that the inclusion of the plan prevents the net benefit, I am willing to vote on "perm do both" even if the aff doesn't have a deficit to the CP. I am willing to dismiss advantage CP planks which are overly vague or not describing a policy.

Evidence matters a lot. Debaters should strive to connect the claims and warrants they make to pieces of qualified evidence. If one team is reading qualified evidence on an issue and the other team is not, I'll almost certainly conclude the team reading evidence is correct. I care about author qualifications/funding/bias more than most judges and I'm willing to disregard evidence if a team raises valid criticisms of it.

Kritiks. The links are the most important part of the kritik. If I have a hard time explaining back exactly what bad thing the 1AC did or assumed, I will have a hard time voting for you. Here are some things to increase your win percentage in front of me if you're extending a kritik. 1. Make link arguments that are specific to the affirmative. If debaters spent even 5 minutes before the debate reading through the 1AC, identifying themes or premises that are kritik-able, and made those into link arguments, their win percentage in front of me would skyrocket. 2. Rehighlight aff evidence to make these arguments. 3. Tell me how your link arguments disprove the case or make affirmative advantages irrelevant. I cannot remember the last time an "ontology" argument was relevant to my decision.

Planless affs. I basically always vote for the team that slows down and starts comparing their impact to the other team's first. The more a team reads blocks into their computer, the less likely I am to vote for them. I am a poor judge for fairness/clash/debate bad.

Topicality against plans. I am more willing than other judges to take a "you know it when you see it" approach to topicality. Overly limiting interpretations that most affs at the tournament would violate are not very persuasive to me. For example, I have voted that adopting medicare for all is not Social Security. I have not, however, heard a compelling reason aff's can't deficit spend. I'm not immovable on either issue, but your debating should be as aff-specific as possible.

Things which will make your speaker points higher: exceptional clarity, numbering your arguments, good cross-x moments which make it into a speech, specific and well-researched strategies, developing and improving arguments over the course of a season, slowing down and making a connection with me to emphasize an important argument, not being a jerk to a team with much less skill/experience than you. I decide speaker points.

You're welcome to post-round or email me if you have questions or concerns about my decision.

Arguments I am a very good judge for (this is a continuously growing list):
The security K
Vagueness
Stock issues
"Permutation do both" against process CPs

About me

KU '25. I debate in college. Currently coach the Quarry Lane School. Previously coached Lawrence Free State ('22-23) and the Ascent Academy.

jspiersdebate@gmail.com

Most Important

I think I am equally good for policy and critical debates - which is reflected in judging history. I vote on the words that are on my flow. The implication of tech>truth is that I can't write out arguments no matter how much I disagree with them, so much to my dismay I will be judging hidden aspec 'til the end of time. I judge based on the relative risk of positions unless given an alternative impact frame.

Bad for "they said something else in another debate and should lose," and for "my opponent is bad for interpersonal reasons." Don't care about falsifiability, I think the first contravenes the nature of debate (switching sides inev) and the second is just awkward to be in (wins and losses aren't good for conflict mediation).

I don't read docs after the 1NC until a card doc is sent, I don't fill in gaps if they're your fault and not mine, and I really like numbering. I flow on computer, I type rather fast, and I used to line everything up, but realized the sisyphean nature of this task and it doesn't really change my decision.

Clarity is a substantive constraint. If I do not understand the functional utility of the arguments you're making while I am flowing (or at least based off of the words I have on my flow) it is unlikely that my decision from reading the cards is going to dramatically shift that functional understanding. Ex. if you are extending like a turns case argument on one part of a DA as a uniqueness argument for a part of a case turn and you don't say that I'm likely just going to be confused and not going to psychoanalyze your decision and instead try to simplify as much as possible.

Burden of proof precedes burden of rejoinder- making an incomplete argument justifies blowing it off/ new answers when the argument is complete (this also applies to recontextualizations that dramatically shift understanding, revealing unclear tricks, etc...) If you're worried that forcing your opponents to play minesweeper with bad args is going to lose to truthy args, make the better and complete one earlier. If "late-breaking debates favor aff" is true (which it is), wouldn't it be best to vertically proliferate ASAP?

Reasonability will take an above average amount of explanation to make sense as a method to evaluate debates. It is far more likely that you beat T or any other theory argument by assuming that competing interps is true rather than going for reasonability. I think this way because the justification for reasonability is often question begging for me. How can I determine that an interp is "sufficient" or "good enough" if not comparative to another interp? I think you are better served to make the argument "their interp is arbitrary/unpredictable" as an offensive reason to prefer instead of an impact framing argument.

Everything is or is not an impact - fairness, clash, fun, etc...

In a theory debate with no impact calculus:
---Neg on PICs
---Aff on Process (for perms)
---Predictability > everything else for T

You may think, paradigm is short - agreed, but find basically everything else has little utility in prefs. I like everyone else like debate that is more specific and deep, find debates over the topic enjoyable, and want to vote for the team who is nicer to their opponents.

I am a community member judge with no personal debate experience beyond that as the parent of a debater. I know how much time and effort goes into these debate tournaments, and I am honored to get to listen.

Please talk slowly enough that I can hear and comprehend. I really want to be able to understand your arguments, and I can't do that if you're racing through material.

I don't have preferences on the type of arguments made, but please clearly explain your arguments so that I understand why they are meaningful and relevant to the overall debate.

Finally, please be respectful, and remember to have fun! I am excited to hear you debate!