I'm a parent judge with minimal experience. Clarity in communciation/articulating the info will help me digest the info better.

I have done policy debate, LD and Congress, competing at State (CA) and Nationals when I was in high school.

I am truth over technical putting a premium on understanding your argument and on the logic both teams use to explain why the evidence and the expert is relevant to the argument. Bad evidence loses to good logic and common sense. Good evidence plus logic wins. Stated another way, in making your arguments around impacts, I listen carefully for logical fallacies -- while I won't vote against you if I hear a slippery slope, or a correlation/ causation fallacy, I will keenly listen to see how your opponent responds. I share this because as you develop your speaking skills for life (amazing by the way), your goal will be to persuade whether in business, law, medicine, science or politics -- few things undermine one's credibiilty more than arguments that tend to extremes based on unsubstantiated logical or reasoning errors, so it's good to start to learn and practive now how to build structurally and logical sound arguments, relying on evidence, early in your journey.

Debate is about testing logic and evidence to communicate a Point of View that can be understood and is compelling, so expect me to be a critical judge who will weight what each team tells me about the arguments presented; I vote for the argument I find most persuasive. I will look to frame my assessment against the main stock issues, unless you convince me another standard should be used. Also, if I can't understand the argument, I can't very well score it in your favor.

Beyond my debate experience, my perspective on policy is shaped by being involved in lobbying the Federal Government for Procter and Gamble and time at a leading think tank, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). I worked as a management consult for Booz Allen & Hamilton, where I created business facts and strategies for the Mayo Clinic and NYH Cornell. I have an undergraduate degree in History and a MBA degree, so I feel very comfortable listening to arguments that weight and test the quality of the expert as well as the merits of the evidence; I will even accept your use of common sense or logic to call out logical fallacies, and to sanity test or refute a piece of evidence that just doesn’t make sense.

Finally, effective persuasion includes respectful disagreement, so I will notice rude, sarcastic or condesending behavior and that will detract heavily from the weight I attribute to your argument or position. Please enjoy a spirited discussion and I will do my best to flow and follow.

Leland '23

Michigan ‘27

they/them

Chain: ngaodebate@gmail.com

Tech > Truth, read whatever you want. My opinions on debate are still very malleable and good debating comes prior to anything I believe outside of round.

Little topic knowledge – I’ve looked at a few chains and camp files but you should assume I know nothing.

I will not adjudicate debates over issues that occurred outside of the round.

Policy v Policy

Send perm texts.

You should slow down in competition rounds. My experience here isn’t the best and my comprehension will not be fantastic. No real other preferences for which CPs are legitimate.

I have a horrible understanding of legal processes and the economy.

Policy v K

Fine with whatever lit base you read so long as you explain it.

I think most Ks (and AFF framework arguments) are better executed with exclusive framework interps. I will only vote for interps made by either team.

K AFFs

Like above, I think exclusive framework arguments are often more strategic than counterinterps.

Fairness is an impact but you need the impact explanation to accompany it.

You should explain why the TVA and SSD solve beyond just saying that it solves.

KvK – do ballot instruction and please defend something. I think AFFs get perms but I think strong links can generate a sufficient opportunity cost.

T/Theory

You should probably have a caselist.

Condo is probably good and probably also the only reason to reject the team.

Like with competition, you should probably slow down.

hi folx—welcome to novice debate! I'm excited to see you begin your journey into NSDA—it's a rocky but fulfilling road and so many people are here to guide you through an experience that will change your life.

my pronouns are she/they

please put me on the email chain: xnmuix@gmail.com

TLDR for all events

Direct clash (LINE BY LINE responding to arguments ie "they said x, but y" and defending your argument), impact analysis and judge direction are the most important things to me. I think that evidence quality is very important in rounds—but more important is the performance of that evidence and your contextualization to the round as well as why i should vote on it.

I am a policy debater—which means my biggest preferences are those of quality evidence, clear explanation of arguments and voting issues. Do this and you'll do very well.

make sure to TIME ALL YOUR SPEECHES. I will cut you off if you go over but you should not be making me keep track of things—that's your job.

any racist, sexist, homophobic, etc arguments or demeanor is unacceptable—be respectful in round!

I think something that can hurt you in round is using a lot of buzzwords, debate terms of tech talk and presuming I know what it means. Even though I have debate experience I prefer you to treat me like a new judge with no experience—needing lots of explanation, a slower pace and construction of arguments with good structure. Be patient with me!

also make things easy to flow :)) i love flowing and a good structure of arguments is great

POLICY

some general guidelines:

tech--x------truth

line by line--x------embedded clash

impact calculusx--------no impact calculus

you do you! these are just my general preferences but i love to see a creative debate where you argue what you are passionate about and refute the other side's arguments. the most IMPORTANT THING is to properly extend arguments and develop them in your speeches—if a piece of evidence was read in the 1NC/1AC, i want to hear some recollection of it (claim, author, qual, warrants) in later speeches so it's clear why it's important in the round.

i learned lay debate through stock issues + net benefits ---using general things like inh/sh/solvency/t/da/cp is good with me

PARLI, LD AND PF

I have read through the judging packet and guidelines for all three of these events, so i have a limited scope of rules like speech times, norms and objectives of each speech. The tldr stuff should work fine--I will keep a rigorous flow for everything in the round and do the best I can, but note that I probably will forget a lot and get confused so please go slower and explain things more.

I am a parent judge, do not spread. Present yourself confidently and be organized. Don't interrupt each other in cross-examination.

"I am a parent, please speak clearly and slowly and avoid technical jargon." -Yongjin Lee.

I am a lay judge, so whenever you talk about anything, please make sure that you explain it thoroughly. I know little to nothing about this topic so just keep that in mind.

How I will vote.

1. The first thing that I will take into consideration is whoever proves more convincing to me, whoever proves that the benefits outweigh the harms or that the harms outweigh the benefits.

2. Whoever debates better. I would also vote for a team that refutes all of their opponents points compared to a team that drops all of their opponents points. Whoever keeps their case alive at the end, and destroys their opponents or whoever convinces me to vote for them in this way will definitely earn my ballot.

Not as important but I may include some of this in my decision

1. PLEASE TIME YOURSELVES. For example: If you take like a minute of prep extra and YOUR OPPONENTS POINT THIS OUT TO ME, this will affect my decision. Please use your respective amount of time for speeches, there is a 10 second grace period after every speech, and 3 minutes for prep.

2. PLEASE BE RESPECTFUL. Although this is competitive, it is still done for fun. There shall be no disrespect shown to anyone else, as this is a formal setting and must be looked upon as.

3. PLEASE NO SPREADING. IF you do so, I may not catch everything which will affect my decision.

Hi! First of all, good luck and have fun! For novice debate, do whatever you practiced! Don't worry about the more techy parts of the debate!

A little bit about myself: I've done high school policy for 4 years now and a bit of public forum in middle school. I will flow your arguments so try not to drop any! I can tolerate speed, but please do not start spreading unless it is a circuit tournament (but I probably won't be judging that).

Be kind to everyone. I will not tolerate any rudeness or offensive comments.

General (updated for Novice Debate):

- I probably don't understand all the details/ins and outs of the resolution of your event (LD, PF, or Parli) - try not to use debate jargon that someone not well versed in the topic area might not understand (unless it was under the cjr/water/NATO/econ ineq topics)

- Try your best! You'll do fine <3

- I won't flow cx unless you bring it up in one of your speeches

- Read offense! if you only read defense, I'll be sad :(

- Weigh your impacts!

For policy (!!!):

- I will be flowing and this is the most familiar debate format to me, so please try to elaborate on your arguments.

- Give an offtime roadmap before you start (aka an order) so I can flow your arguments, otherwise I will just write them down based on how I hear them (and the debate might get messy and I might miss one of your arguments).

- Read AT LEAST the author and date of publication before reading cards.

- Signpost!

- Frame the debate for me! Make it clear to me how you want me to vote, otherwise, I will vote based on arguments and what I think is a better argument.

• net benefits?
• stock issues?
• any other f/ws?

- Make it clear what your plan is! I will try to only vote on arguments brought up in the debate, and if I don't know your plan, I cannot vote for you.

- I love smart solvency takeouts, but be sure to elaborate on how the plan links to that though!

- CPs should have a counterplan text and clear net benefit. DAs should have AT LEAST a link and an impact. I will buy uniqueness if worded well. T should have a definition, standards/violation, impact, AND why your definition is better. Ks are cool but I personally don't know too much about each k :(

If you walk up with a legit BQ case and make me listen to it, you get an auto 25.