I am a parent judge new to debate, expecting students to speak slowly and clearly. Please only assume that I would sometimes know about the topic beforehand. In addition, I might need students to explain their voting issues clearly.

Background:

Tawfique Elahi is currently pursuing MSc Information Systems at Lund University, Sweden. He got his bachelor's degree in computer science from NSU. He is an early-career researcher in Human-Computer Interaction.

He served as a debate coach at BL Debate Academy, Vancouver; and Debate Spaces Academy, Boston. In terms of leadership experience, he is currently serving as the Head of the Lund University Debating Society, and Chairperson at the United Asian Debating Council. Previously, he was the Secretary of the World Universities Debating Council (WUDC) and the Asian BP Debating Council. He brings a wealth of debate experience to the table. He has judged elimination rounds at ~100 debate championships on five continents (Asia, Africa, Australia, Europe, and North America), served on ~25 Chief Adjudication Panels, 3 Equity Panels, ~40 Grand Finals, and chaired ~20 elimination rounds. Among his major successes are serving as Chief Adjudicator at the McMaster High School Tournament and judging final series rounds at the World Championship of Debating (Korea WUDC), Hart House IV, and Canadian BP Championships. He is experienced with the WSDC, IPDA, CNDF, BP, CP, PF, LD, Policy, Asians, Australs, and Easters formats.

Certifications:

• NFHS Protecting Students from Abuse

• NFHS Cultural Competence Course

General Notes for speakers:

• I really admire teams that are well-structured and can clearly express the implications of evidence and properly tie back the evidence to their position.
• While you’re going to use evidence, it's preferable that you also explain the underlying trend/core issue associated with it.
• Engagement is important. Direct comparison and weighing make the lives of judges easier. It's preferable that you also illustrate how the advantages on your side outweigh theirs, and how their disadvantages outweigh their advantages.
• If you argue a comparative advantage, be prepared to justify it with proof that explicitly links to that piece of proof that your opposition used.
• If you’re presenting counter-plans, be prepared to analyze why your counter-plan is a better approach, for example, you reach the resolution faster/easier and take fewer resources.
• Please don’t present any point that will not be understandable to an average intelligent voter. If you do so, that piece of material will be discounted.
• Please don't use any offensive language that leads to equity violations.
• Roadmaps are appreciated.
• Speaking fast is fine, but please use clarity.
• Any kind of Style is fine with me as long as you're fairly understandable. I acknowledge that different debaters come from different backgrounds, and thus have different styles.
• I reasonably flow during speeches. During the crossfire, I take notes for the most important questions raised and how they're answered.

My email is brianylee2003@yahoo.com. I am a parent judge. I have no prior debate experience, but my child has competed in PF for the past year. You should assume that I am knowledgeable about the topic if it is PF.

Evidence: I am not tech > truth, so if you want to argue the sky is green, I won't buy it. But I am open to reasonable interpretations of evidence (e.g., sky is purple, pink, orange, blue, a mixture of hues, etc.), particularly if your opponent fails to contest your interpretation.

Please be honest about your evidence. Your credibility matters A LOT. If your opponent points out a weakness in your evidence, you can try to dodge it by diversion, etc., but don't outright lie about it. If you're caught in an outright lie, you WILL lose your round.

Moreover, I want to reward the team that has done its research and can back up their contentions with solid evidence. That's why it is not uncommon for me, especially during elimination rounds, to request to examine cards that I think are crucial to how I might decide the debate.

Spreading/Speaker Score: Don't speak at a supersonic speed. My upper limit for comprehension is about 200 words per minute. So if your speech exceeds 800 words in a 4-minute speech, consider shortening it. Competitive debate may be the only activity where confusing your opponent through mumbling is allowed. I accept it as the reality, but I don't want to reward it. Spread at your own risk.

Beyond your mastery of language and confident articulation, I'm also looking for the ability to explain complex ideas simply and logically. Clarity is crucial in getting a high speaker score from me. Be careful about tossing around jargons. While I may understand it, excessive use of jargons in lieu of plain speaking may lower your speaker score.

During cross, I want to see polite, but assertive examination. Being passive may lower your speaker score.

Constructive: During this phase, I'm looking for debaters to (a) describe a problem, (b) explain to me precisely how the resolution you're advocating for will help solve the problem, and (c) tell me the impacts.

Too often I see debaters unable (or perhaps unwilling) to describe the problem beyond vague, general terms. For example, if you want to argue Chinese hegemony, tell me what specific behavior of China you want to stop or counter. Simply throwing around fancy labels like "hegemony" or "multi-polarity" won't do it for me.

The same goes for (b). To convince why your proposal will work, you need to cite either a credible expert explaining how it will work, or a historical example showing how it has worked, or at least logical reasoning and common sense why it will help. If, after four minutes, I struggle to connect the dots, it would be challenging for me to lean in your favor.

When it comes to impacts, I don't always go with the biggest one. I measure magnitude of an impact along with likelihood as well as timeframe. More importantly, if you don't do (a) and (b) well, I can't give you (c). In other words, accessing (c) is a direct function of doing (a) and (b) well.

Cross-examination: I know some judges don't pay too much attention to this. I REALLY do. To me cross is the essence of debate . During cross, I am looking for you to probe the weaknesses of your opponent's contentions to set up your rebuttals and to defend your own positions. I expect lively exchanges involving vigorous attacks and robust defenses. I will also look to see which team can establish perceptual dominance. Your performance in cross is often a key factor in how I decide speaker scores and possibly the round.

Rebuttal, Summary, and Final Focus. Rebuttal is straightforward, so I won't elaborate. For summary and final focus, I'm looking for debaters who can bring CLARITY (yes, that word again). That often means collapsing if you have three or more contentions and telling me how the contentions interact with each other. Tell me what I need to focus on, why your contention wins, and why your impacts outweigh. Clarity is the key to earning my vote.

Good luck!

I am a fellow parent and has a very little experience judging PF and speech tournaments. Expecatations are very less to speaking clearly and slowly , explaining key points or terms as understandable to common audiences . Stating your sides politely . Good contentions and tactful rebuttals are a value add .

Expecting a good decorum among debaters!

Email: astorbredhead@gmail.com

Glenbrooks Update

If you want my ballot you need to effectively write my ballot for me. There are a few things that I mention in my paradigm that I love to see that people seem to forget about. Namely extending and weighing. You need to extend the warranting for whatever argument you are going for and extend the impact. If your opponent does not do this PLEASE point it out because in my opinion with 3 minute summaries you do not have offense unless you give some extensions. With that said, to avoid losing my ballot please signpost your extensions. Say to me "Judge please extend our first contention where we say ____ which leads to ___ which gives us our impact of ____". If only one team extends, as long as that team has some access to their argument they will probably win. This also goes for weighing. I as a judge do not want to intervene. Weighing is the easiest way for me to compare your arguments, so please weigh. If only one team weighs, as long as they have some access to their arg they are probably going to win because it doesn't matter how hard you are winning your argument if you do not tell me how to compare it to your opponents arg. In an ideal world both teams have a couple pieces of weighing by summary and then both do meta weighing in FF. Same thing goes for weighing in terms of signposting. Please directly tell me you are about to weigh and please tell me where to weigh it.

CSUF/LD UPDATE

I have not ever judged LD and really do not know much about it. Please treat me as a flay judge. You can read prog arguments in front of me, but realize that I likely do not really know how evaluate them. I can handle some speed, but definitely not a lot. If you have circuit and trad cases please read the trad ones. Even if you aren't going fast I would appreciate getting put on the email chain. Please let me know if you have any questions before the round.

TW - IMPORTANT (Specifically for PF)

If you are reading something that is potentially triggering please read a TW, and give your opponents the opportunity to opt out. If you read an argument that could obviously trigger someone like sexual assault without a TW I will be mad and not like you. I understand that some people may feel this is a stupid rule because they think that it is unreasonable to force debaters to have multiple cases, but I would say it is a lot worse to force someone to relive trauma.

Parli

I think Parli rounds are typically either really good, or quite disappointing, mainly because I think there is a big divide between teams that know how to prep, and teams that don't. Parli is not a debate about who has the best cards the way that Policy, PF, and LD are, HOWEVER, that doesn't mean that I as a judge don't value cards, I think that I have an obligation to. In my opinion the best cards to try and find in Parli by far are impact cards. You can use logic to make link chains, and you don't need evidence to define basic political facts, but you can't just assert that the electrical grid being damaged kills X many people. Having quantifiable impacts is such a huge help especially in the weighing side of the debate.

In terms of progressive debate, I am not opposed to it, but know that I am not the best judge for it.

I think weighing is incredibly important when you don't have cards, as such I think weighing should be like your main focus in Parli. You should probably start weighing as early as you can. I am also a huge sucker for meta weighing because I think that it is super under utilized, so if you do that I will be quite happy.

Although I don't think most Parli rounds should be judged on a strictly line by line level, that doesn't mean that you should abandon the flow. In fact chances are if you go line by line you are a lot more likely to get my ballot than if you don't.

A lot of my PF paradigm applies as well, so probably read that if you have time. Otherwise if you have any other questions just ask me.

PF

I did PF. I can flow moderately fast but don't go too fast. If you spread I will insta drop you (please be aware I define spreading very liberally so to be safe just go slower). I am definitely not opposed to hearing K's or theory debates, but please be aware that I do not have a lot of experience in that realm of debate and as such I am definitely not the best judge for it. With that said, please be aware that I come from a school that did not have any support for debate and as such, although I do recognize the positive change that can run from running progressive arguments (especially against other good teams who know how to handle those arguments), I also recognize the inherent inaccessibility that prog arguments possess. I mention this so you know that I support you running prog arguments, but also am subconsciously more likely to support and vote for the team not running those args.

You need to weigh, if only one team weighs I will default to them.

Extend warrants and not just authors.

2nd rebuttal should probably frontline, but prioritize turns. Defense is sticky in 1st summary.

For the most part I am only going to call for cards if either one of the debaters tells me to, or if the card seems kind of outrageous. If I call for a card just because it seems outrageous I will only check to see if it is blatantly fake, all other evidence analysis should be done by the debaters. Any other questions just ask me.

One last thing. PLEASE EXTEND. I have had to drop multiple teams now that were dominating the round simply because they only extended their impact. You need to extend the warranting. To be safe signpost your extending. Don't just frontline and extend somewhere in your frontlining. At some point in Summary or FF say to me now extend my whatever contention.

DROPPED DEFENSE DOES NOT NEED TO BE EXTENDED IN SUMMARY

But it does need to be in FF

Dropped offense must be extended.

SIGNPOST I want to know where I'm flowing your arguments. Jumpy responses confuse me. If I’m confused by your speech you are less likely to win.

WARRANT I need you to explain why your turn is a turn to extend it. Tell me, “extend the turn on their C2, where we tell you _______ according to _______.” I won't vote on a turn without warranting.

COLLAPSE Don't make the round about 10 different arguments. Narrow it down to something you can flesh out at the end of the debate. This has become a huge issue. If the other team doesn’t collapse and you do, I’ll be more likely to vote for you because I’ll have a better comprehension of your case.

WEIGH Tell me why I prefer your argument PLEASE! SEVERITY, REVERSIBILITY, MAGNITUDE, TIMEFRAME; USE IT. If you weigh and your opps don’t; guess what? You win. Weigh.

Things that will ding your speaks/get you dropped:

1. Bad evidence ethics. If you very blatantly misrep evidence then at best I will drop your points by 1. If your opponents call for your card and then tell me to read it and drop you for bad evidence, there's a chance I'll drop you for it. Bad evidence undermines education.

2. Sexism, racism, and general excessive rudeness with get you L20ed instantly.

When giving my rfd, I am not opposed to clarifications of the debate from both teams (like postround me, hard (this doesn’t mean you get to argue with me. I’m for postrounding to clarify my decision, not to continue the debate.)). Hopefully this clarifies the debate and prevents any team from feeling like they got screwed. A judge should be able to explain their decision. I'll ask questions if I think I'm missing something.

For the most part I will support anything you run, but just ask me about it before the round.

If are going to do an email chain please put me on it: astorbredhead@gmail.com (To be clear, although I want to be on the email chain for convenience sake just in case I need to look at a card, I do not plan on/want to have to be looking through your cards)

P.S. If something happens during the round that you don't feel comfortable talking about publicly (i.e. misgendering) send me a dm in zoom, an email, or any other way of conversation.

As a fellow parent and experienced judge who has presided over more than 30 rounds, may I respectfully recommend that you speak slowly and clearly during your presentation? It would be greatly appreciated if you could begin by defining key terms, stating your standards, and presenting your contentions in a well-organized manner. When explaining your arguments and analysis, please use language that is accessible to a wider audience and keep the round as straightforward as possible.

My email is venkatesan.ramkumar@gmail.com