Here's the best ways to avoid losing a round that I am judging: DON'T read fast. DON'T be rude to your opponents in crossfire. DON'T cite just a name and date without any other information. For example, if you say "Baker 2017 argues ______" what am I supposed to do with that if I don't know who the person is, why they are qualified, who they are writing for and so on? For all I know you could be citing your uncle, but maybe your uncle is qualified to speak on the subject matter. But how would I know without a more complete citation than just a name and a number? If you speak at a reasonable pace, are generally pleasant and have great evidence, you'll sound like a winner to me.

Hi My name is is Swati Chakraborty. Im a former debater, I used to do parliamentary debate. While I could be considered a lay judge I have judged for quite some time now and do know basic debate vocabulary and the ins and outs of this activity.

If you have me as a judge PLEASE keep a few thing in mind

1. Tech > Truth
2. Don't spread while I'm comfortable with you talking fast if I miss something on my flow its up to you make sure that I end up catching it before its too late within the round. To prevent this from happening feel free to send your cases before the round starts.
3. I want to be included on the evidence chain.
4. No tricks please .
5. Please make sure you signpost throughout.
6. Make sure you clearly outline your voters for me.
7. If you run theory I will drop you.

Overall be respectful to you opponents and have fun!

Email: rinkiswati@yahoo.com

1. I am generally predisposed to teams that feel like they are attempting to persuade me, the judge, vs. exclusively their opponent. Many debates get too deeply into the weeds and fail to provide some kind of clear, overarching narrative — similarly, individual arguments are too often under warranted, with no analysis, and without a clear resolution of existing clash. Debate, to me, feels the most valuable and enjoyable when the skills demonstrated seem transferable / relevant to real-life argumentation and discourse — this means accurately tagged arguments that are developed throughout the round and rebuttals that show clear engagement with the content of opponent’s arguments. I prefer summaries that are not pseudo-rebuttals and that clearly explicate the narrative of the team while also providing offensively-minded voters and substantive weighing.

2. Evidence / in-round ethics are both extremely important to me. If at any point it becomes clear that a team is mis-representing, mis-labeling or otherwise abusing evidence, there will be a severe reduction in speaker points. I am also open to dropping the team if it seems like it’s given them an unfair competitive advantage. Because of all this, I am generally against paraphrasing unless the paraphrased content absolutely adheres to the content of the original source.

3. In-round civility is extremely important to me. Teams that are overly aggressive in crossfire, steal prep, go well over on time, or take forever when pulling up evidence will have reduced speaker points. Teams that cross over from rudeness into racism, sexism, homophobia, classism, etc… will be dropped (this includes arguments that contain racist, sexist, etc...warranting)

4. I understand the necessity for speed and heavily truncated argumentation in some rounds but generally have an overwhelming preference for a conversational pace and clear analysis. As such, I dislike the use of debate jargon and overuse of debate community patter (“A couple problems here” “This evidence is really, really clear!” “Recognize -”).

5. I will do my best to vote strictly off the flow but even within that paradigm it’s impossible to remain absolutely divorced from some degree of subjective decision-making over the course of a round. Thus, as with any judge, whether explicitly stated or not, I’m going to be heavily predisposed to the arguments that make coherent sense to me, starting from the constructive. Too many rebuttals and cases feel like ransom notes in which two or three words from thousands of evidence sources have been copy and pasted together to form something borderline incoherent. To put it another way — I’m not against surprising or novel argumentation but if something seems fake, it’ll feel weaker to me in a round. That being said, I want to limit judge intervention as much as possible and will do everything possible to not incorporate things external to what’s been argued in the round.

The best debates I’ve seen always seem to leave both debaters feeling like they’ve had fun. I’m confident that fulfilling these five preferences will lead to a strong round more often than not. Thank you!

Addition: I’m open to Ks and other kinds of experimental debate. I haven’t had a lot of experience judging them and the ones I’ve seen have generally been deeply unconvincing but I’m not against them at all

Hello! My name is Payton Clark and I'm excited to be judging your round. All you need to know about me is that I'm a former PF debate coach and I love this event.

These are my expectations during rounds:

• I do not disclose the results of my rounds.
• Do not spread. In my experience, this often leads to loss of tone and disorganization. Quality over quantity.
• Be respectful to your opponents.
• Be clear about what contention you are addressing and the impact of your evidence. If the structure of your argument is messy and unclear, it will appear weak and hard to provide feedback on.

If you have any further questions, please ask me prior to the beginning of the round. Thank you!

David Coates

Chicago '05; Minnesota Law '14

For e-mail chains (which you should always use to accelerate evidence sharing): coat0018@umn.edu

2023-24 rounds (as of 4/13): 89

Aff winning percentage: .551

("David" or "Mr. Coates" to you. I'll know you haven't bothered to read my paradigm if you call me "judge," which isn't my name).

I will not vote on disclosure theory. I will consider RVIs on disclosure theory based solely on the fact that you introduced it in the first place.

I will not vote on claims predicated on your opponents' rate of delivery and will probably nuke your speaker points if all you can come up with is "fast debate is bad" in response to faster opponents. Explain why their arguments are wrong, but don't waste my time complaining about how you didn't have enough time to answer bad arguments because...oh, wait, you wasted two minutes of a constructive griping about how you didn't like your opponents' speed.

I will not vote on frivolous "arguments" criticizing your opponent's sartorial choices (think "shoe theory" or "formal clothes theory" or "skirt length," which still comes up sometimes), and I will likely catapult your points into the sun for wasting my time and insulting your opponents with such nonsense.

You will probably receive a lecture if you highlight down your evidence to such an extent that it no longer contains grammatical sentences.

Allegations of ethical violations I determine not to have been proven beyond a reasonable doubt will result in an automatic loss with the minimum allowable speaker points for the team introducing them.

Allegations of rule violations not supported by the plain text of a rule will make me seriously consider awarding you a loss with no speaker points.

I will actively intervene against new arguments in the last speech of the round, no matter what the debate format. New arguments in the 2AR are the work of the devil and I will not reward you for saving your best arguments for a speech after which they can't be answered. I will entertain claims that new arguments in the 2AR are automatic voting issues for the negative or that they justify a verbal 3NR. Turnabout is fair play.

I will not entertain claims that your opponents should not be allowed to answer your arguments because of personal circumstances beyond their control. Personally abusive language about, or directed at, your opponents will have me looking for reasons to vote against you.

Someone I know has reminded me of this: I will not evaluate any argument suggesting that I must "evaluate the debate after X speech" unless "X speech" is the 2AR. Where do you get off thinking that you can deprive your opponent of speaking time?

I'm okay with slow-walking you through how my decision process works or how I think you can improve your strategic decision making or get better speaker points, but I've no interest, at this point in my career, in relitigating a round I've already decided you've lost. "What would be a better way to make this argument?" will get me actively trying to help you. "Why didn't you vote on this (vague claim)?" will just make me annoyed.

OVERVIEW

I have been an active coach, primarily of policy debate (though I'm now doing active work only on the LD side), since the 2000-01 season (the year of the privacy topic). Across divisions and events, I generally judge between 100 and 120 rounds a year.

My overall approach to debate is extremely substance dominant. I don't really care what substantive arguments you make as long as you clash with your opponents and fulfill your burdens vis-à-vis the resolution. I will not import my own understanding of argumentative substance to bail you out when you're confronting bad substance--if the content of your opponents' arguments is fundamentally false, they should be especially easy for you to answer without any help from me. (Contrary to what some debaters have mistakenly believed in the past, this does not mean that I want to listen to you run wipeout or spark--I'd actually rather hear you throw down on inherency or defend "the value is justice and the criterion is justice"--but merely that I think that debaters who can't think their way through incredibly stupid arguments are ineffective advocates who don't deserve to win).

My general default (and the box I've consistently checked on paradigm forms) is that of a fairly conventional policymaker. Absent other guidance from the teams involved, I will weigh the substantive advantages and disadvantages of a topical plan against those of the status quo or a competitive counterplan. I'm amenable to alternative evaluative frameworks but generally require these to be developed with more depth and clarity than most telegraphic "role of the ballot" claims usually provide.

THOUGHTS APPLICABLE TO ALL DEBATE FORMATS

That said, I do have certain predispositions and opinions about debate practice that may affect how you choose to execute your preferred strategy:

1. I am skeptical to the point of fairly overt hostility toward most non-resolutional theory claims emanating from either side. Aff-initiated debates about counterplan and kritik theory are usually vague, devoid of clash, and nearly impossible to flow. Neg-initiated "framework" "arguments" usually rest on claims that are either unwarranted or totally implicit. I understand that the affirmative should defend a topical plan, but what I don't understand after "A. Our interpretation is that the aff must run a topical plan; B. Standards" is why the aff's plan isn't topical. My voting on either sort of "argument" has historically been quite rare. It's always better for the neg to run T than "framework," and it's usually better for the aff to use theory claims to justify their own creatively abusive practices ("conditional negative fiat justifies intrinsicness permutations, so here are ten intrinsicness permutations") than to "argue" that they're independent voting issues.

1a. That said, I can be merciless toward negatives who choose to advance contradictory conditional "advocacies" in the 1NC should the affirmative choose to call them out. The modern-day tendency to advance a kritik with a categorical link claim together with one or more counterplans which link to the kritik is not one which meets with my approval. There was a time when deliberately double-turning yourself in the 1NC amounted to an automatic loss, but the re-advent of what my late friend Ross Smith would have characterized as "unlimited, illogical conditionality" has unfortunately put an end to this and caused negative win percentages to swell--not because negatives are doing anything intelligent, but because affirmatives aren't calling them out on it. I'll put it this way--I have awarded someone a 30 for going for "contradictory conditional 'advocacies' are illegitimate" in the 2AR.

2. Offensive arguments should have offensive links and impacts. "The 1AC didn't talk about something we think is important, therefore it doesn't solve the root cause of every problem in the world" wouldn't be considered a reason to vote negative if it were presented on the solvency flow, where it belongs, and I fail to understand why you should get extra credit for wasting time developing your partial case defense with less clarity and specificity than an arch-traditional stock issue debater would have. Generic "state bad" links on a negative state action topic are just as bad as straightforward "links" of omission in this respect.

3. Kritik arguments should NOT depend on my importing special understandings of common terms from your authors, with whose viewpoints I am invariably unfamiliar or in disagreement. For example, the OED defines "problematic" as "presenting a problem or difficulty," so while you may think you're presenting round-winning impact analysis when you say "the affirmative is problematic," all I hear is a non-unique observation about how the aff, like everything else in life, involves difficulties of some kind. I am not hostile to critical debates--some of the best debates I've heard involved K on K violence, as it were--but I don't think it's my job to backfill terms of art for you, and I don't think it's fair to your opponents for me to base my decision in these rounds on my understanding of arguments which have been inadequately explained.

3a. I guess we're doing this now...most of the critical literature with which I'm most familiar involves pretty radical anti-statism. You might start by reading "No Treason" and then proceeding to authors like Hayek, Hazlitt, Mises, and Rothbard. I know these are arguments a lot of my colleagues really don't like, but they're internally consistent, so they have that advantage.

3a(1). Section six of "No Treason," the one with which you should really start, is available at the following link: https://oll-resources.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/oll3/store/titles/2194/Spooner_1485_Bk.pdf so get off your cans and read it already. It will greatly help you answer arguments based on, inter alia, "the social contract."

3a(2). If you genuinely think that something at the tournament is making you unsafe, you may talk to me about it and I will see if there is a solution. Far be it from me to try to make you unable to compete.

4. The following solely self-referential "defenses" of your deliberate choice to run an aggressively non-topical affirmative are singularly unpersuasive:

a. "Topicality excludes our aff and that's bad because it excludes our aff." This is not an argument. This is just a definition of "topicality." I won't cross-apply your case and then fill in argumentative gaps for you.

b. "There is no topical version of our aff." This is not an answer. This is a performative concession of the violation.

c. "The topic forces us to defend the state and the state is racist/sexist/imperialist/settler colonial/oppressive toward 'bodies in the debate space.'" I'm quite sure that most of your authors would advocate, at least in the interim, reducing fossil fuel consumption, and debates about how that might occur are really interesting to all of us, or at least to me. (You might take a look at this intriguing article about a moratorium on extraction on federal lands: https://www.americanprogress.org/article/the-oil-industrys-grip-on-public-lands-and-waters-may-be-slowing-progress-toward-energy-independence/

d. "Killing debate is good." Leaving aside the incredible "intellectual" arrogance of this statement, what are you doing here if you believe this to be true? You could overtly "kill debate" more effectively were you to withhold your "contributions" and depress participation numbers, which would have the added benefit of sparing us from having to listen to you.

e. "This is just a wrong forum argument." And? There is, in fact, a FORUM expressly designed to allow you to subject your audience to one-sided speeches about any topic under the sun you "feel" important without having to worry about either making an argument or engaging with an opponent. Last I checked, that FORUM was called "oratory." Try it next time.

f. "The topic selection process is unfair/disenfranchises 'bodies in the debate space.'" In what universe is it more fair for you to get to impose a debate topic on your opponents without consulting them in advance than for you to abide by the results of a topic selection process to which all students were invited to contribute and in which all students were invited to vote?

g. "Fairness is bad." Don't tempt me to vote against you for no reason to show you why fairness is, in fact, good.

5. Many of you are genuinely bad at organizing your speeches. Fix that problem by keeping the following in mind:

a. Off-case flows should be clearly labeled the first time they're introduced. It's needlessly difficult to keep track of what you're trying to do when you expect me to invent names for your arguments for you. I know that some hipster kid "at" some "online debate institute" taught you that it was "cool" to introduce arguments in the 1N with nothing more than "next off" to confuse your opponents, but remember that you're also confusing your audience when you do that, and I, unlike your opponents, have the power to deduct speaker points for poor organization if "next off--Biden disadvantage" is too hard for you to spit out. I'm serious about this.

b. Transitions between individual arguments should be audible. It's not that difficult to throw a "next" in there and it keeps you from sounding like this: "...wreck their economies and set the stage for an era of international confrontation that would make the Cold War look like Woodstock extinction Mead 92 what if the global economy stagnates...." The latter, because it fails to distinguish between the preceding card and subsequent tag, is impossible to flow, and it's not my job to look at your speech document to impose organization with which you couldn't be bothered.

c. Your arguments should line up with those of your opponents. "Embedded clash" flows extremely poorly for me. I will not automatically pluck warrants out of your four-minute-long scripted kritik overview and then apply them for you, nor will I try to figure out what, exactly, a fragment like "yes, link" followed by a minute of unintelligible, undifferentiated boilerplate is supposed to answer.

6. I don't mind speed as long as it's clear and purposeful:

a. Many of you don't project your voices enough to compensate for the poor acoustics of the rooms where debates often take place. I'll help you out by yelling "clearer" or "louder" at you no more than twice if I can't make out what you're saying, but after that you're on your own.

b. There are only two legitimate reasons for speed: Presenting more arguments and presenting more argumentative development. Fast delivery should not be used as a crutch for inefficiency. If you're using speed merely to "signpost" by repeating vast swaths of your opponents' speeches or to read repetitive cards tagged "more evidence," I reserve the right to consider persuasive delivery in how I assign points, meaning that you will suffer deductions you otherwise would not have had you merely trimmed the fat and maintained your maximum sustainable rate.

7: I have a notoriously low tolerance for profanity and will not hesitate to severely dock your points for language I couldn't justify to the host school's teachers, parents, or administrators, any of whom might actually overhear you. When in doubt, keep it clean. Don't jeopardize the activity's image any further by failing to control your language when you have ample alternative fora for profane forms of self-expression.

8: For crying out loud, it is not too hard to respect your opponents' preferred pronouns (and "they" is always okay in policy debate because it's presumed that your opponents agree about their arguments), but I will start vocally correcting you if you start engaging in behavior I've determined is meant to be offensive in this context. You don't have to do that to gain some sort of perceived competitive advantage and being that intentionally alienating doesn't gain you any friends.

9. I guess that younger judges engage in more paradigmatic speaker point disclosure than I have in the past, so here are my thoughts: Historically, the arithmetic mean of my speaker points any given season has averaged out to about 27.9. I think that you merit a 27 if you've successfully used all of your speech time without committing round-losing tactical errors, and your points can move up from there by making gutsy strategic decisions, reading creative arguments, and using your best public speaking skills. Of course, your points can decline for, inter alia, wasting time, insulting your opponents, or using offensive language. I've "awarded" a loss-15 for a false allegation of an ethics violation and a loss-18 for a constructive full of seriously inappropriate invective. Don't make me go there...tackle the arguments in front of you head-on and without fear or favor and I can at least guarantee you that I'll evaluate the content you've presented fairly.

NOTES FOR LINCOLN-DOUGLAS!

PREF SHORTCUT: stock ≈ policy > K > framework > Tricks > Theory

I have historically spent much more time judging policy than LD and my specific topic knowledge is generally restricted to arguments I've helped my LD debaters prepare. In the context of most contemporary LD topics, which mostly encourage recycling arguments which have been floating around in policy debate for decades, this shouldn't affect you very much. With more traditionally phrased LD resolutions ("A just society ought to value X over Y"), this might direct your strategy more toward straight impact comparison than traditional V/C debating.

Also, my specific preferences about how _substantive_ argumentation should be conducted are far less set in stone than they would be in a policy debate. I've voted for everything from traditional value/criterion ACs to policy-style ACs with plan texts to fairly outright critical approaches...and, ab initio, I'm fine with more or less any substantive attempt by the negative to engage whatever form the AC takes, subject to the warnings about what constitutes a link outlined above. (Not talking about something is not a link). Engage your opponent's advocacy and engage the topic and you should be okay.

N.B.: All of the above comments apply only to _substantive_ argumentation. See the section on "theory" in in the overview above if you want to understand what I think about those "arguments," and square it. If winning that something your opponent said is "abusive" is a major part of your strategy, you're going to have to make some adjustments if you want to win in front of me. I can't guarantee that I'll fully understand the basis for your theory claims, and I tend to find theory responses with any degree of articulation more persuasive than the claim that your opponent should lose because of some arguably questionable practice, especially if whatever your opponent said was otherwise substantively responsive. I also tend to find "self-help checks abuse" responses issue-dispositive more often than not. That is to say, if there is something you could have done to prevent the impact to the alleged "abuse," and you failed to do it, any resulting "time skew," "strat skew," or adverse impact on your education is your own fault, and I don't think you should be rewarded with a ballot for helping to create the very condition you're complaining about.

I have voted on theory "arguments" unrelated to topicality in Lincoln-Douglas debates precisely zero times. Do you really think you're going to be the first to persuade me to pull the trigger?

Addendum: To quote my colleague Anthony Berryhill, with whom I paneled the final round of the Isidore Newman Round Robin: " "Tricks debate" isn't debate. Deliberate attempts to hide arguments, mislead your opponent, be unethical, lie...etc. to screw your opponent will be received very poorly. If you need tricks and lying to win, either "git' good" (as the gamers say) or prefer a different judge." I say: I would rather hear you go all-in on spark or counterintuitive internal link turns than be subjected to grandstanding about how your opponent "dropped" some "tricky" half-sentence theory or burden spike. If you think top-loading these sorts of "tricks" in lieu of properly developing substance in the first constructive is a good idea, you will be sorely disappointed with your speaker points and you will probably receive a helpful refresher on how I absolutely will not tolerate aggressive post-rounding. Everyone's value to life increases when you fill the room with your intelligence instead of filling it with your trickery.

AND SPECIFIC NOTES FOR PUBLIC FORUM

NB: After the latest timing disaster, in which a public forum round which was supposed to take 40 minutes took over two hours and wasted the valuable time of the panel, I am seriously considering imposing penalties on teams who make "off-time" requests for evidence or needless requests for original articles or who can't locate a piece of evidence requested by their opponents during crossfire. This type of behavior--which completely disregards the timing norms found in every other debate format--is going to kill this activity because no member of the "public" who has other places to be is interested in judging an event where this type of temporal elongation of rounds takes place.

NB: I actually don't know what "we outweigh on scope" is supposed to mean. I've had drilled into my head that there are four elements to impact calculus: timeframe, probability, magnitude, and hierarchy of values. I'd rather hear developed magnitude comparison (is it worse to cause a lot of damage to very few people or very little damage to a lot of people? This comes up most often in debates about agricultural subsidies of all things) than to hear offsetting, poorly warranted claims about "scope."

NB: In addition to my reflections about improper citation practices infra, I think that evidence should have proper tags. It's really difficult to flow you, or even to follow the travel of your constructive, when you have a bunch of two-sentence cards bleeding into each other without any transitions other than "Larry '21," "Jones '21," and "Anderson '21." I really would rather hear tag-cite-text than whatever you're doing. Thus: "Further, economic decline causes nuclear war. Mead '92" rather than "Mead '92 furthers...".

That said:

1. You should remember that, notwithstanding its pretensions to being for the "public," this is a debate event. Allowing it to degenerate into talking past each other with dueling oratories past the first pro and first con makes it more like a speech event than I would like, and practically forces me to inject my own thoughts on the merits of substantive arguments into my evaluative process. I can't guarantee that you'll like the results of that, so:

2. Ideally, the second pro/second con/summary stage of the debate will be devoted to engaging in substantive clash (per the activity guidelines, whether on the line-by-line or through introduction of competing principles, which one can envision as being somewhat similar to value clash in a traditional LD round if one wants an analogy) and the final foci will be devoted to resolving the substantive clash.

3. Please review the sections on "theory" in the policy and LD philosophies above. I'm not interested in listening to rule-lawyering about how fast your opponents are/whether or not it's "fair"/whether or not it's "public" for them to phrase an argument a certain way. I'm doubly unenthused about listening to theory "debates" where the team advancing the theory claim doesn't understand the basis for it.* These "debates" are painful enough to listen to in policy and LD, but they're even worse to suffer through in PF because there's less speech time during which to resolve them. Unless there's a written rule prohibiting them (e.g., actually advocating specific plan/counterplan texts), I presume that all arguments are theoretically legitimate, and you will be fighting an uphill battle you won't like trying to persuade me otherwise. You're better off sticking to substance (or, better yet, using your opposition's supposedly dubious stance to justify meting out some "abuse" of your own) than getting into a theoretical "debate" you simply won't have enough time to win, especially given my strong presumption against this style of "argumentation."

*I've heard this misunderstanding multiple times from PF debaters who should have known better: "The resolution isn't justified because some policy in the status quo will solve the 'pro' harms" is not, in fact, a counterplan. It's an inherency argument. There is no rule saying the "con" can't redeploy policy stock issues in an appropriately "public" fashion and I know with absolute metaphysical certitude that many of the initial framers of the public forum rules are big fans of this general school of argumentation.

4. If it's in the final focus, it should have been in the summary. I will patrol the second focus for new arguments. If it's in the summary and you want me to consider it in my decision, you'd better mention it in the final focus. It is definitely not my job to draw lines back to arguments for you. Your defense on the case flow is not "sticky," as some of my PF colleagues put it, as far as I'm concerned.

5. While I pay attention to crossfire, I don't flow it. It's not intended to be a period for initiating arguments, so if you want me to consider something that happened in crossfire in my decision, you have to mention it in your side's first subsequent speech.

6. You should cite authors by name. "Princeton" as an institution, doesn't conduct studies of issues that aren't solely internal Princeton matters, so you sound awful when you attribute your study about Security Council reform to "Princeton." "According to Professor Kuziemko of Princeton" (yes, she's a professor at Princeton who wrote the definitive study of the political economy of Security Council veto power) doesn't take much longer to say than "according to Princeton," and has the considerable advantage of accuracy. Also, I have no idea why you restrict this type of "citation" to Ivy League scholars. I've never heard an "according to Fordham" citation from any of you even though Professor Dayal of Fordham is a recognized expert on this issue, suggesting that you're only doing research you can use to lend nonexistent institutional credibility to your cases. Seriously, start citing evidence properly.

7. You all need to improve your time management skills and stop proliferating dead time if you'd like rounds to end at a civilized hour.

a. The extent to which PF debaters talk over the buzzer is unfortunate. When the speech time stops, that means that you stop speaking. "Finishing [your] sentence" does not mean going 45 seconds over time, which happens a lot. I will not flow anything you say after my timer goes off.

b. You people really need to streamline your "off-time" evidence exchanges. These are getting ridiculous and seem mostly like excuses for stealing prep time. I recently had to sit through a pre-crossfire set of requests for evidence which lasted for seven minutes. This is simply unacceptable. If you have your laptops with you, why not borrow a round-acceleration tactic from your sister formats and e-mail your speech documents to one another? Even doing this immediately after a speech would be much more efficient than the awkward fumbling around in which you usually engage.

c. This means that you should card evidence properly and not force your opponents to dig around a 25-page document for the section you've just summarized during unnecessary dead time. Your sister debate formats have had the "directly quoting sources" thing nailed dead to rights for decades. Why can't you do the same? Minimally, you should be able to produce the sections of articles you're purporting to summarize immediately when asked.

d. You don't need to negotiate who gets to question first in crossfire. I shouldn't have to waste precious seconds listening to you ask your opponents' permission to ask a question. It's simple to understand that the first-speaking team should always ask, and the second-speaking team always answer, the first question...and after that, you may dialogue.

e. If you're going to insist on giving an "off-time road map," it should take you no more than five seconds and be repeated no more than zero times. This is PF...do you seriously believe we can't keep track of TWO flows?

Was sich überhaupt sagen lässt, lässt sich klar sagen; und wovon man nicht reden kann, darüber muss man schweigen.

I'd consider myself a lay judge. My sister Maddie Cook coaches PF for Lakeville North & Lakeville South in Minnesota, and she's roped me into judging. So, basically, this. This is my second year judging, and I've mostly judged novice and a little JV PF. Here are some thoughts I have based on the debates I've judged so far:

• I like it when link chains are explicitly clear and when you clearly state what the impact is.
• Go slower than you would in front of a coach.
• I may miss a few technical things.
• Probably don't read theory or K's...

pronouns: she/her/hers

email: madelyncook23@gmail.com & lakevilledocs@googlegroups.com (please add both to the email chain) -- if both teams are there before I am, feel free to start the email chain without me so we can get started when I get there

PLEASE title the email chain in a way that includes the round, flight (if applicable), both team codes, sides, and speaking order

Experience:

• PF Coach for Lakeville South & Lakeville North in Minnesota, 2019-Present
• Speech Coach for Lakeville South in Minnesota, 2022-Present
• Instructor for Potomac Debate Academy, 2021-Present
• University of Minnesota NPDA, 2019-2022
• Lakeville South High School (PF with a bit of speech and Congress), 2015-2019

I will generally vote for anything if there is a warrant, an impact, and solid comparative weighing, and as long as your evidence isn't horribly cut/fake. Every argument you want on my ballot needs to be in summary and final focus, and I will walk you through exactly how I made my decision after the round is over. I’ve noticed that while I can/will keep up with speed and evaluate technical debates, my favorite rounds are usually those that slow down a bit and go into detail about a couple of important issues. Well warranted arguments with clear impact scenarios extended using a strategic collapse are a lot better than blippy extensions. The best rounds in my opinion are the ones where summary extends one case argument with comparative weighing and whatever defense/offense on the opponent’s case is necessary.

General:

• I am generally happy to judge the debate you want to have.
• The only time you need a content warning is when the content in your case is objectively triggering and graphic. I think the way PF is moving toward requiring opt-out forms for things like “mentions of the war on drugs” or "feminism" is super unnecessary and trivializes the other issues that actually do require content warnings while silencing voices that are trying to discuss important issues.
• I will drop you with a 20 (or lowest speaks allowed by the tournament) for bigotry or being blatantly rude to your opponents. There’s no excuse for this. This applies to you no matter how “good at technical debate” you are.
• Speed is probably okay as long as you explain your arguments instead of just rattling off claims. For online rounds, slow down more than you would in person. Please do not sacrifice clarity for speed. Sending a doc is not an excuse to go fast beyond comprehension - I do not look at speech docs until after the round and only if absolutely necessary to check
• Silliness and cowardice are voting issues.

Evidence Issues:

• Evidence ethics in PF are atrocious. Cut cards are the only way to present evidence in my opinion. At the very least, read direct quotes.
• Evidence exchanges take way too long. Send full speech docs in the email chain before the speech begins. I want everyone sending everything in this email chain so that everyone can check the quality of evidence, and so that you don’t waste time requesting individual cards.
• Evidence should be sent in the form of a Word Doc/PDF/uneditable document with all the evidence you read in the debate.
• The only evidence that counts in the round is evidence you cite in your speech using the author’s last name and date. You cannot read an analytic in a speech then provide evidence for it later.
• Evidence comparison is super underutilized - I'd love to hear more of it.
• My threshold for voting on arguments that rely on paraphrased/power-tagged evidence is very high. I will always prefer to vote for teams with well cut, quality evidence.
• I don't know what this "sending rhetoric without the cards" nonsense is - the only reason you need to exchange evidence is to check the evidence. Your "rhetoric" should be exactly what's in the evidence anyway, but if it's not, I have no idea what the point is of sending the paraphrased "rhetoric" without the cards. Just send full docs with cut cards.
• You have to take prep time to "compile the doc" lol you don't just get to take a bunch of extra prep time to put together the rebuttal doc you're going to send.

Speech Preferences:

• Frontline in second rebuttal. Dropped arguments in second rebuttal are conceded in the round. You should cover everything on the argument(s) you plan on going for, including defense.
• Defense isn't sticky. Anything you want to matter in the round needs to be in summary and final focus.
• Collapse in summary. It is not a strategy to go for tons of blippy arguments hoping something will stick just to blow up one or two of those things in final focus. The purpose of the summary is to pick out the most important issues, and you must collapse to do that well.
• Weigh as soon as possible. Comparative weighing is essential for preventing judge intervention, and meta-weighing is cool too. I want to vote for teams that write my ballot for me in final focus, so try to do that the best you can.
• Speech organization is key. I literally want you to say what argument I should vote on and why.
• The way I give speaker points fluctuates depending on the division and the difficulty of the tournament, but I average about a 28 and rarely go below a 27 or above a 29. If you get a 30, it means you debated probably the best I saw that tournament if not for the past couple tournaments. I give speaker points based on strategic decisions rather than presentation.
• I generally enjoy and will vote on extinction impacts, but I'm not going to vote on an argument that doesn't have an internal link just because the impact is scary - I'm very much not a fan of war scenarios read by teams that are unable to defend a specific scenario/actor/conflict spiral.

Theory:

I’ve judged a lot of terrible theory debates, and I do not want to judge more theory debates. I generally find theory debates very boring. But if you decide to ignore that and do it anyway, please at least read this:

• Frivolous theory is bad. I generally believe that the only theory debates worth having are disclosure and paraphrasing, and even then, I really do not want to listen to a debate about what specific type of disclosure is best.
• I probably should tell you that I believe disclosure is good and paraphrasing is bad, but I will listen to answers to these shells and evaluate the round to the best of my ability. My threshold for paraphrasing good is VERY high.
• Even if you don’t know the "technical" way to answer theory, do your best to respond. I don't really care if you use theory jargon - just do your best.
• "Theory is bad" or "theory doesn't belong in PF" are not arguments I'm very sympathetic to.
• I will say that despite all the above preferences/thoughts on theory, I really dislike when teams read theory as an easy path to ballot to basically "gotcha" teams that have probably never heard of disclosure or had a theory debate before. I honestly think it's the laziest strategy to use in those rounds, and your speaker points will reflect that. I have given and will continue to give low point wins for this if it is obvious to me that this is what you're trying to do.

Kritiks:

I have a high threshold for critical arguments in PF because I just don’t think the speech times are long enough for them to be good, but there are a few things that will make me feel better about voting on these arguments.

• I often find myself feeling a little out of my depth in K rounds, partly because I am not super well versed on most K lit but also because many teams seem to assume judges understand a lot more about their argument than they actually do. The issue I run into with many of these debates is when debaters extend tags rather than warrants which leaves the round feeling messy and difficult to evaluate. If you want to read a kritik in front of me, go ahead, but I'd do it at your own risk. If you do, definitely err on the side of over-explaining your arguments. I like to fully understand what the world of the kritik looks like before I vote for it.
• Any argument is going to be more compelling if you write it yourself. Probably don't just take something from the policy wiki without recutting any of the evidence or actually taking the time to fully understand the arguments.
• I think theory is the most boring way to answer a kritik. I'll always prefer for teams to engage with the kritik on some level.
• I will listen to anything, but I have a much better understanding and ability to evaluate a round that is topical.

Pet Peeves:

• Paraphrasing.
• I hate long evidence exchanges. I already ranted about this at the top of my paradigm because it is by far my biggest pet peeve, but here’s another reminder that it should not take you more than 30 seconds to send a piece of evidence. There’s also no reason to not just send full speech docs to prevent these evidence exchanges, so just do that.
• I don’t flow anything over time, and I’ll be annoyed and potentially drop speaker points if your speeches go more than 5 or so seconds over.
• Pre-flow before you get to the room. The round start time is the time the round starts – if you don’t have your pre-flow done by then, I do not care, and the debate will proceed without it.
• The phrase "small schools" is maybe my least favorite phrase commonly used in debate. I have judged so many debates where teams get stuck arguing about whether they're a small school, and it never has a point.
• The sentence "we'll weigh if time allows" - no you won't. You will weigh if you save yourself time to do it, because if you don't, you will probably lose.
• If you're going to ask clarification questions about the arguments made in speech, you need to either use cross or prep time for that.

Congress:

I competed in Congress a few times in high school, and I've judged/coached it a little since then. I dislike judging it because no one is really using it for its fullest potential, and almost every Congress round I've ever seen is just a bunch of constructive speeches in a row. But here are a few things that will make me happy in a Congress round:

• I'll rank you higher if you add something to the debate. I love rebuttal speeches, crystallization speeches, etc. You will not rank well if you are the fourth/fifth/sixth etc. speaker on a bill and still reading new substantive arguments without contextualizing anything else that has already happened. It's obviously fine to read new evidence/data, but that should only happen if it's for the purpose of refuting something that's been said by another speaker or answering an attack the opposition made against your side.
• I care much more about the content and strategy of your speeches than I do about your delivery.
• If you don't have a way to advance the debate beyond a new constructive speech that doesn't synthesize anything, I'd rather just move on to a new bill. It is much less important to me that you speak on every bill than it is that when you do speak you alter the debate on that bill.

If you have additional questions, ask before or after the round or you can email me at madelyncook23@gmail.com.

Treat me as a flay judge. I pay attention to what is going on in the flow but at the same time, I prefer the lay appeal and narrative style of argument.

Weigh, Weigh, Weigh. Make the ballot easy for me to write and weigh your cases and impacts and show me that they are better than your opponents.

As for speed, I can handle speed but at the same time, I'm not gonna be happy to hear full-out policy spreading in a PF round.

I would not suggest running theory on me but if warranted properly and the theory itself is not abusive then I will consider it in a round. If you run disclosure theory, say goodbye to your speaks.

I fully believe in truth over tech.

This is my fourth year judging as a parent, peak slowly, clearly, and no spreading. I try my best to flow, the slower you speak the easier it is for me to get your points down.

I expect teams to time themselves and use prep time properly.

Occasionally I will call out evidence at the end of the round, if it seems questionable or misused. In that case, email me the card at prasad.gunturi@gmail.com.

Be respectful to each other.

This is my fourth year judging. My judging is based on quality and accuracy. Students should be respectful and argue in a way that demonstrates this. I enter each debate with no opinion on the subject. It is up to you to convince me to side with your argument. 

These are the criteria that I typically judge:

clarity of case

clearly stated opening argument

use of facts and examples in the correct order - source then evidence

overall clarity of presented argument

crossfire - well constructed questions and answers

I was told to write something here

Dont be rude and debate well!

THIS IS A COMMUNICATION ACTIVITY.  Your goal is to effectively communicate your arguments to me.  If you are talking too fast to be intelligible, you are not effectively communicating.

If you make my hand cramp taking notes, I'll be crabby. I am a visual person and my notes are how I will judge the round. If I miss an argument because you were talking at light speed, that's your fault, not mine! :)

Attitude / Aggressiveness

100%, above all, you are human beings and citizens of the world. I expect you to act like it. I HATE rudeness or offensive behavior in any debate format. Be kind, be inclusive. By all means, be aggressive, but don't be rude.

Public Forum: I am a huge framework fan. You have the evidence, frame the story for me. If you give me a framework and explain why, under that framework, your evidence means I vote for you, I will. Don't make me do summersaults to get to a decision. If only one team gives me a framework, that's what I'll use.

Re: Summary / FF - I expect the debate to condense in the summary / final focus - and I expect you to condense the story accordingly. Look for places to cross-apply. I do need arguments to extend through every speech to vote for them - but I do not expect you to reiterate all evidence / analysis. Summarizing and weighing is fine for me. No new arguments during ff.
WEIGH arguments for me. Especially if we're talking apples and oranges - are we comparing money to lives? Is there a Risk-Magnitude question I should be considering?

• I would consider myself a lay judge, but will be flowing the round
• Please implicate your arguments so I know how your case applies to theirs
• I understand that talking fast can be advantageous, but please don't spread
• Signpost!
• Debate will come down to warranting and weighing
• Be respectful to your opponents in cross

Hello! I’m an assistant coach in PF at Eagan High School. I debated PF for 4 years in high school.

I use they/them pronouns. Please check your emails from Tabroom for your opponents' pronouns and don't purposefully misgender people.

I prefer fewer, well-explained arguments to ten poorly warranted contentions. Please explain your warrants logically as well as just stating evidence. I won't easily vote for an argument that I don't understand; although I ultimately vote off the flow, the clarity and reasonability of an argument will help you a lot, especially if it's close.

Don’t be rude. I’m not impressed by how loudly you can talk over your opponent in crossfire. Try to have fun (it’s just debate, guys) but failing that, don’t stop your opponent from having fun.

Do not speak or whisper during anyone else's speech. If you want to talk to your partner, write it down or message them, but it's rude to speak or whisper while someone else is talking and I don't know how it became such a norm. Additionally, do not speak to your partner during your own speech. I will dock speaks every single time I see this happen and it will be cumulative.

Please weigh. Weighing means comparing your impact to your opponent's, and specifically telling me why yours is more important. For example, don't just say "We outweigh on magnitude because our impact is 900 million people in poverty." I know that 900 million people in poverty is bad, but so is nuclear war. Tell me that you outweigh on probability because a recession is significantly more likely than a nuclear war. Bonus points if you weigh weighing mechanisms (for example, tell me why I should vote based on probability instead of timeframe).

I’m honestly not that fast at flowing, and I often don’t get authors/sources. I’ll do my best, but if you just say “Remember Feinstein” and move on, I probably don’t remember Feinstein, and I can’t vote off something I don’t remember. Explain stuff to me in every single speech.

I will not vote on disclosure theory. I will most likely not vote on any other kind of theory. I don't understand it and even if I did try to evaluate it, my decision would probably not make sense. If the round has an accessibility issue (ex. your opponent is using harmful/discriminatory language), you can point it out to me in a speech and/or respectfully ask your opponent to change their behavior in crossfire, you don't need all the fancy formatting.

When your time is up, finish your sentence (in a reasonably concise way) and be done. If you go 5sec over, I’ll stop flowing. Once you hit 20sec over, I will verbally cut you off. Please don’t make me do that. If your opponents are consistently going 10+ seconds over, I’m probably gonna be more lenient with you on speech times, but don’t take it too far either.

Anyways, don’t stress, don’t be rude, you’ll do great :)

My name is Dave Pitts and by trade I am a Management Consultant with a large public accounting and consulting firm. My job requires me to helping large companies to grow and operate more efficiently to improve outcomes for their shareholders and importantly, their customers.  To succeed, myself and the staff that I work with have to be effective storytellers. We need to make clear-cut points, supported by tangible facts and figures, to convince a diverse group of executives, staff, and maybe even their customers, to work a different way... together.  It's not an easy task!

Hi! You can call me Clarice, Peachy, and/or Judge. I debated in high school and now I judge primarily PF and LD but have experience in Congress as well. Here are some things to know about me:
- I go by they/them pronouns. I am a Mx (pronounced "mix"), not a "Miss" or "Ma'am". Even if you see me wearing a skirt or makeup or any other traditionally feminine clothing/cosmetics, I am not a woman. Please don't use she/her with me. I understand that sometimes mistakes happen and the incorrect pronoun may slip out once in awhile, so I don't dock points for misgendering me unless it's egregious, but please try to pay attention and correct yourself if a mistake does happen. There are very few cases in which you would need to refer to me or any other judge with gendered language anyway, but please keep this in mind.

- I am COVID-conscious and still mask religiously around others. While I respect your freedom to choose whether or not to mask at the tournament as long as they are optional, I greatly appreciate when debaters I'm judging wear masks (over the nose and mouth) during the round. I'm very happy when I see debaters masking, but I won't dock points from those who don't mask and I won't award additional points to those who do.

- My main career is in the mental health field and I care very much about mental health and disability accommodations. When I was a competitor in debate, I was often too nervous and stressed to have fun. I want every debater to have fun and learn from their experiences during tournaments above all else, regardless of their mental health or neurodiversity status. If you feel particularly stressed/nervous/bad before a round, please feel free to tell me and we can take a deep breath together.

- Adding to my previous point, if you have a condition that may affect your communication (such as autism, ADHD, anxiety) or anything along the lines of that you feel I should know, feel free to notify me before the round if you feel comfortable doing so and I will keep it confidential. You don't have to say a diagnosis necessarily, but knowing more about how you communicate will help me know what to expect. I have ADHD myself so I understand how your performance can be influenced. How I give points won't be changed if you disclose something to me before the round--that is, I won't dock points or award extra points if you disclose a concern, condition, communication style, etc to me. 

Here are some things to know about how I judge and my preferences:
- I don't like excessive spreading. Speaking a bit faster than conversational pace is fine, especially for PF, but if I can't understand what you're saying I can't judge your rhetoric and performance accurately. Have diction and enunciate your words.

- Try to keep your voice at a volume slightly above conversational volume. I know during speeches you can get really wrapped up and passionate during your performance, but please don't yell. We're usually not that far away from each other so there's no need.

- Maintaining decorum/being professional, polite, and kind is extremely important to me. If you interrupt or speak over the other team during crossover, I will bring it up in the notes and, depending on how egregious it is, may dock points. If you are rude or sarcastic when asking questions during crossfire or asking for a card/source from the other team, I will bring it up in the notes and dock points (although I understand that sometimes what you say comes out sounding harsher than you intended). If you speak to your partner, giggle/laugh, roll your eyes, make faces, or do any other visible display of contempt during the other team's speeches, I will bring it up in the notes and DEFINITELY dock points. Show respect to each other and keep in mind that while debate is a competition, its ultimate goal is for competitors to have fun and learn. Nothing constructive comes from being disrespectful and I WILL notice it. By all means, be assertive and have clash, but don't be mean.

- I don't like when debaters read speeches directly off of their screens/papers. I find it hard to pay attention to your flow when you are only focused on reading a speech word-for-word and have a monotone reading voice with no interactivity. It makes you sound more knowledgeable about the topic and more compelling if you're able to speak mostly extemporaneously while using your speech outline just enough to keep you on track and keep track of sources. I'm a little more lenient with PF debaters when it comes to this, but please try your best.

- In addition to my former point, I like eye contact and skilled speaking performance (sounds rehearsed, few-to-none filler words such as "like" and "umm"/"uhh", appropriate gestures, no distracting fidgeting). However, I expect these skills to be less developed in novice/JV level debaters. Also, I understand that conditions that influence communication such as the ones I listed above (autism, ADHD, anxiety) can often influence someone's speaking performance. For example, neurodivergent people often find it difficult to make eye contact while speaking and people with anxiety/ADHD may fidget, use filler words, and jump from topic-to-topic more often. I am sympathetic to this and recommend debaters who struggle with this to do practice rounds with those they are comfortable with. For those who struggle with eye contact, looking at someone's ear/forehead or just above their head has the same effect. I won't dock points for underdeveloped speaking skills unless it is particularly distracting, but in the notes I will mention unconscious habits I see so that you can work on it during practice.

- Please signpost and lay out the argument/contentions in your speeches. It makes it so much easier for me to flow and understand your argument. I'm fine with off-clock roadmaps before speeches.

- I vote for whichever side shows the most in-depth understanding of the topic and most convincing points--that is, while I discussed performance skills being preferred, I try to judge mostly on the quality of your flow. Being able to understand and refute the other side's points is a really good look and shows me that you were listening to the other team and can explain why their side is inferior/has more flaws than yours.

- Once your time is up, I will hold my hand up. You can conclude your point quickly but please don't start another contention. If you haven't finished up after 15-20 seconds or you start another contention, I will cut you off. I hate interrupting people, so please try to finish up within the time provided.

I usually score in .5 increments. I have never given a 30 point score since there's usually always something to improve on. My scores most often range from 26.5-28. This is how I think of my scoring:

• 25 points = You used a slur or said something bigoted/You were otherwise extremely rude/I couldn't understand you whatsoever
• 26 points = Your flow needed a lot of work/(for PF) Your teamwork was very poor/You had distracting speaking habits that detracted from your argumentation/Your flow was fine but you had some instances of being rude, too quiet, too loud, couldn't understand, etc
• 27 points = Your performance was average and had both strong and weak points/Your flow was cohesive and understandable
• 28 points = Your speaking skills are above average/Your flow was very convincing/You displayed understanding of the topic and respect for the other team
• 29 points = Your performance was overall very high quality and compelling/Your flow was overwhelmingly convincing and well thought out/You displayed an impressive amount of understanding of the topic, how to argue it well, the other team, and the other team's arguments
• 30 points = A perfect performance with no weak points or advice needed

BLAKE UPDATE: If you are reading this and in LD, full disclosure, it has been a minute since I have judged LD and I have yet to do so online! Just be mindful of speed so that you don't get cut off by the tech

if you're going to not read cards or you paraphrase , you should probably strike me. In addition, it shouldn't take you longer than 30 seconds to find evidence. After 30 seconds, I will begin your prep. If it takes you longer than a minute and 30 seconds, all you can bring up is a 30 page PDF, or you cannot produce the evidence at all, you will lose the round. Please send the email chain to both cricks01@hamline.edu and blakedocs@googlegroups.com

• TL;DR- I was primarily an LD debater in high school, debating for Whitefish Bay HS in Wisconsin. I am now an assistant coach at The Blake School in Minnesota. I have different paradigms for different events, so read for the event that pertains to you and all should be fine!

  LD

  Speed: Typically, I can understand most speeds. However, i have let to judge online LD, so going a bit below your top speed may be beneficial to you. Slow down for tags, CP/Plan Texts, and if you’re reading unusual kritiks or frameworks. I want to make sure I spend more time conceptualizing what you’re talking about as opposed to figuring out what you just said. I will say “clear” or “slow” three times before beginning to dock speaks.

  Plans and Counterplans: Follow your dreams. I find these debates to be very interesting and a great way for debaters to creatively attack the topic. Make sure to make your advocacy very clear though.

  Kritiks: While I do love a good Kritik, make sure you’re running it well. Understand your kritik, don’t just pull one out of your backfiles and hope for the best. Again, make your advocacy clear. If you’re kritik is weird, please explain it well.

  Theory: I will vote on theory, but I do have questions about frivolous theory. That said, use your best judgement within the context of the round.

  Philosophy: Yes please! Explain it well and you should be golden!

  PF

  • I will pretty much listen to, flow, and vote off of anything. Have fun :)

  • I do have a high threshold for extensions. Blippy extensions are not my favorite thing, so extend your warrants as well

  • The inability to produce a piece of evidence that you have introduced into the round ends the round in an L-25 for your team

  • theory is lovely. I genuinely believe disclosure is good and that paraphrasing is bad.
  • Provide impact calc throughout the round
  • I will not vote on arguments that are dropped in summary, even if you bring them up in final focus, be warned. I may consider them if the warranting is a little bit blippy in summary, and better explained in final focus, but it has to 1) have been in rebuttal as well and 2) basically the only clean place to vote
  • CLASH IS KEY

  • Please read cards. Paraphrasing is becoming a problem in debate and often leads to some kind of intellectual dishonesty. Let's just avoid that.

  • Try to avoid Grand Cross becoming Grand Chaos in which there's just yelling. It isn't at all productive.

  • 2nd rebuttal should rebuild!

  • extending over ink makes me very sad :(

• Miscellaneous:

  • Do not be a terrible person. Don’t be sexist/homophobic/racist etc. If I see this, not only will I be sad, but so will your speaker points

  • Please please please weigh your arguments.

  • Also- please please please give voters!! If you don’t tell me what you think is important in round, I’ll have to decide for myself and you may not enjoy that.

  • please please please time yourselves and your opponent. I do however have a 10 second grace period to finish arguments you are already in the process of making, but I won't evaluate entirely new args after the speech time

  • Yes- I want to be on the email chain. My email is cricks01@hamline.edu

Last update: December 2022; a few clarifications, a few additions based on things that have come up recently, removed bullets that were specific to virtual debates (long may they remain unnecessary)

Debate Background and General Info:

I did PF for four years in high school (I graduated in 2014). I consider myself a flow judge, but I will still drop for offensive or inappropriate behavior or rules/ethics violations even if you "win" on the flow. Details on my preferences below, I'm also happy to answer questions before the round.

Details

1. Frontlining: In most rounds you should probably be spending at least a minute on your side of the flow if you are giving the second rebuttal, but I'm willing to be a little more generous in how I flow a "response" given the time constraint (e.g. I would view saying "cross-apply Card XYZ from my response to their C2" without the full level of analysis/impact as a full response, assuming you did actually give a full response to their C2). A good rebuttal that covers the entire flow will be rewarded with higher speaker points.

2. I like to see the round start to condense in Summary, but I understand that in some rounds you need to cover at least part of the flow line-by-line. I leave it up to your strategic discretion how to balance those two approaches; similar to above I will reward you with higher speaker points if you can effectively respond to key points made in the rebuttals but also start to crystallize the round.

3. I like creative arguments, I don't like non-resolutional arguments (and I won't vote for non-topical arguments). If you aren't sure how I would categorize the argument you are planning to run I'm happy to answer questions before the round.

4. If you are giving me "voters" still tell me where you are on the flow.

5. You should be responding to the specific warrants within your opponent's contentions, not just to the taglines.

6. Signpost. Extend arguments fully. Weigh. Impact. Don't be rude.

7. I'll assume CBA if neither side has an alternative framework. Don't introduce a new framework out of nowhere late in the round.

8. I don't flow CX, so you should mention important points in your next speech. I am still paying attention though, so don't lie and say something was said in crossfire that wasn't.

9. I'm really not a fan of offensive overviews in the first rebuttal that don't relate to anything said in the constructives. I'll still flow it, I might even vote on it, but you will probably get lower speaker points if you're doing this.

10. My default speaker point score is 27; I will move up or down from that based on if you impress or disappoint me relative to my expectations for the tournament/pool (i.e. a Novice 29 is not equivalent to a Varsity 29).

11. I don't usually have an issue with speed in PF, so unless you are an outlier you are probably fine. That being said, if your entire speech consists of blippy, one-sentence cards I am probably going to miss some of them if you are going fast.

12. I hate evidence exchanges that take forever. At a minimum you should be able to show them the card immediately because you just read it. I get it might take a minute to pull up the article, but part of your prep should be organizing your evidence in a way that makes it easy to find in round. We shouldn't be sitting around for 5 minutes waiting for you to find something.

13. If you are doing an email chain, I'd like to be on it, BUT I will probably only look at it if there is a question raised in the round as to what a card actually says. I don't view the email chain as a substitute for a clear flow, and I don't want to spend a ton of time reading through your cards if I don't have to.

Personal Pet Peeves: (I won't drop you for doing something on this list. But if you want a 30 these are some things to avoid):

1. I seem to judge a lot of teams that are rolling their eyes or openly scoffing at things their opponents say. Don't do this. Maybe their argument really is bad, but that's my job to decide, not yours. I will dock your speaks if you do this.

2. Spending significant time in all speeches and crossfires on a framework debate and then using an unrelated framework (or no framework at all) to weigh the round in FF.

3. Yelling. I've really never understood why people think this is necessary.

4. Having one mega-contention with a bunch of unrelated subpoints. If your subpoints don't relate to each other they should be separate contentions.

5. Saying "Partner ready?" before you start your speech. If you are stopping prep it's assumed your partner is ready.

6. Talking to or passing notes to your partner during speeches and/or solo crossfires. You have prep time for a reason, you should make sure you are on the same page before you start speaking.

7. Speeches that go over time, especially in Varsity. I will stop flowing once time is up, so trying to squeeze in one more card when you are 10 seconds over isn't going to help you and I will dock speaks for this.

I am a head debate coach at East Ridge High School in Minnesota with 10 years of debate under my belt and 15+ years of speech coaching / judging experience as well. I love both activities, and I love seeing creative / unique approaches to them. I've sent several students to Nationals in both speech and debate categories for the past several years.

In 'real life' I'm an intellectual property attorney. I love good arguments in all types of debate. But I will NOT make logic jumps for you. You need to do the legwork and lay out the argument for me, step by step. I LOVE legal arguments, but most of all I love a good Story. Frame your arguments for me. Make the impacts CLEAR. (e.g. in PF / LD - WEIGH them.) Tell me how and why to write my ballot for you and I probably will!

Voting Values
I vote on topicality in any type of debate that I judge. If your arguments are non-topical, and you get called on it, they will be struck from my flow. Everyone got the same resolution / bills, that's what I want to hear arguments about.

I am NOT a fan of Kritiks - you got the resolution ahead of time. Debate it.

SPEED

THIS IS A COMMUNICATION ACTIVITY. Your goal is to effectively communicate your arguments to me. If you are talking too fast to be intelligible, you are not effectively communicating.

If you make my hand cramp taking notes, I'll be crabby. I am a visual person and my notes are how I will judge the round. If I miss an argument because you were talking at light speed, that's your fault, not mine! :)

Attitude / Aggressiveness

100%, above all, you are human beings and citizens of the world. I expect you to act like it. I HATE rudeness or offensive behavior in any debate format. Be kind, be inclusive. By all means, be aggressive, but don't be rude.

Public Forum: I am a huge framework fan. You have the evidence, frame the story for me. If you give me a framework and explain why, under that framework, your evidence means I vote for you, I will. Don't make me do summersaults to get to a decision. If only one team gives me a framework, that's what I'll use.

Re: Summary / FF - I expect the debate to condense in the summary / final focus - and I expect you to condense the story accordingly. Look for places to cross-apply. I do need arguments to extend through every speech to vote for them - but I do not expect you to reiterate all evidence / analysis. Summarizing and weighing is fine for me.
WEIGH arguments for me. Especially if we're talking apples and oranges - are we comparing money to lives? Is there a Risk-Magnitude question I should be considering?

Re: new arguments in GC/FF - I won't weigh new ARGUMENTS, but I will consider new EVIDENCE / extensions.

Re: Argument / Style - I'm here to weigh your arguments. Style is only important to the extent you are understandable.

I generally don't buy nuclear war arguments. I don't believe any rational actor gets to nuclear war. I'll give you nuclear miscalc or accident, but it's a HIGH burden to convince me two heads of state will launch multiple warheads on purpose.

Lincoln-Douglas: If you give me a V/C pairing, I expect you to tie your arguments back to them. If your arguments don't tie back to your own V/C, I won't understand their purpose. This is a values debate. Justify the value that you choose, and then explain why your points best support your value.

Congress: This is debate. Beautiful speeches, alone, belong in Speech categories. I expect to see that you can speak well, but I am not thrilled to listen to the same argument presented three times. I expect to see clash, I expect to see good Q&A. I love good rebuttal / crystallization speeches.

I DO rank successful POs - without good POs, there is no good Congressional Debate. If you PO well in front of me, you will be ranked well.

World Schools: This actually is my favorite form of debate. I want to see respectful debate, good use of POIs, and organized content. I've judge WSD at Nationals for the last several years and I do adhere to the WSD norms. Please do not give me "regular debate" speed - I want understandable, clear speeches.

I was a varsity debater for Eagan High School, and I did a public forum. Overall I'm pretty chill with most things.

PUBLIC FORUM GPC TOPIC STUFF:

WE ARE NOT DEBATING TO GET RID OF GPC OR CONTINUE, ITS A COST BENEFIT ANALYSIS

Round stuff:
Collapse towards summary for voters in final focus, makes it easier for me to flow your arguments

I like off-time roadmaps and voters a lot, if you keep my flow clean then I can easily associate winning arguments for you side.

Cross-fire is your time, and I do not write down anything that happened during it. If something round-winning appears in cross, its the job of the debaters to bring it up and use it towards their case. Also if something round winning comes during grand cross it's hard for me to vote on it since it's too late in the round, that is unless it directly ties into an existing argument and it an application of an existing argument already made or clarification of something in the summary speech.

Speed:

I'm fine with faster-paced speech, but doing it abusively (spreading or overwhelming the opponent by providing arguments they will not have time to answer) is not going to win you the round.

Evidence:

Warrant your arguments well with sources. Not carrying sources between speeches means the card will not show up on my flow, so make sure you extend card name/authors. I will prioritize evidence with credible sources versus those based on paraphrasing.

Theory:

I have no experience debating theory, so I wouldn't recommend doing so in your speeches (its PF btw). If you do a well-enough job where you warrant the argument/K/theory/thing properly, then I will allow it.

Speaker points:

You will lose points if you don't properly fill the time in your speeches, act rude/condescending to opponents, or just any form of hate during the round.

Speed is fine (but must be crystal clear for high speaks), jargon is fine. Whatever you put on the flow I will evaluate but prefer evidence to analytics.

I have judged for 10+years on the local Minnesota circuit and competed in LD before that. My knowledge of specific higher level national circuit strategies is limited as I haven't judged many national circuit rounds but I am confident that I can follow as long as you keep the round clear.

Please add me to any email chains: alsmit6512@gmail.com

If you have specific questions, feel free to ask before the round.

I'm a parent judge with no prior experience to formal debate until becoming exposed to it as a parent of a debater. However, I really enjoy listening to what you have to say! Bottom line, I'm a lay judge though my daughter says that I'm 'flay'. However much I try, I guarantee novices flow better than me.

If you spread or go too fast, I won't understand you, and that really puts you at a disadvantage. Please make sure you're understandable. K's or Theory at your own risk. I likely won't know what to do with that.

The whole point of debate is mastering the art of persuasion. I try to follow flow but may miss technical details. Don't rely on technicalities to determine if you think you won the round. Persuade me to vote for you. Make me buy your argument. I will vote based off of who holistically convinces me to affirm or negate. If the round gets muddy I go for the path of least resistance. Don't overthink it, just do your best.

I expect teams to keep and police the timing of their own rounds. I'll only interject if I think it's egregious, but poor time management may negatively impact my impression.

Be genuine and show your personality. If you tell a joke that makes me laugh I may give you an extra speaker point.

Low speaker points are generally from low energy, an extreme lack of eloquence or an abundance of ummms and uhhhs.

Abusive behavior, racism, sexism and homophobia etc. will be reported to your coaches, and I reserve the right to drop you on the spot.

Have fun and good luck!

Stop asking me if I can handle speed. The question is can you handle speed? If you are clear and persuasive that is what matters. If you speak fast and don't articulate that is not an indictment on my ability to handle speed it is a lack of clarity.

Hope that helps everyone answer the question.

I was a HS policy debater from 1993-1997 for Bloomington Jefferson. My coaches and influences considered themselves "Dinosaurs" at the time, which was my training and shaped experience. I attended summer camps at colleges for three years including Northwestern my senior year. I have a current debater, so I debated and I am engrossed in the current with my own student at Blake.

General

Please add me to the email chain! k.stiele@gmail.com AND blakedocs@googlegroups.com. The first speaking team should initiate the email chain. Label it along the lines of 'Tournament Round number aff speaking team + speaking order vs. neg speaking team + speaking order. I understand that you are not advocating for your personal views and it would be unfair of me to inject mine. I try to be tabula rasa, however I acknowledge that it is impossible to be truly without biases.

I don't care whether you sit or stand, or what you wear.

In general, if you take more than two minutes to send evidence I will start your prep time (and if it is a persistent issue your speaks will decline). And decline is a euphemism. Similarly, rudeness will also tank your speaker points.

I don't believe in sticky defense. If you want something to matter in the round than it should be in every speech. You have time.

If you want to win the round, the main thing you should be doing is weighing the most important arguments in the round and extending them throughout speeches. I will not be voting for a bunch of blippy arguments you make throughout the round but rather a few arguments that are properly warranted, compared through weighing and extended throughout all speeches. I will not evaluate new arguments in ff and you shouldn't be introducing new evidence after 1st summary.

Ks and theory are fine, I ran Ks during my policy career (specifically orientalism). I do prefer actual topicality over Ks, however. I also default to reasonability on Ks, don't run wack Ks in one of my rounds, I will be very disappointed

I dislike IVIs. I would probably intervene before you got the chance to read an IVI if this is genuinely an issue.

On theory, I default to reasonability > competing interpretations. In public forum there aren't a lot of reasons for the competing interpretations, and at a certain point you just have to gut check. I would vote on competing interpretations if you convince me why I should.

I vote on what is in the round, so if you don't say it, I don't weigh it. If you think "I should just know" something don't assume that say it. Please weigh in summary and final focus, and it's even better if you set it up in earlier speeches.

I was a policy debater, so the idea of an RVI is really silly to me, RVIs are bad and it's not a reason to vote for you if there was a genuine violation.

Warranted Cards > warranted analytics > unwarranted cards > unwarranted analytics

I will disclose and give a RFD after the round if you ask me to. I generally don't give high speaker points, a 30 would have to be basically perfect.

Have fun!!!

Hello !

This is my second year as a parent Judge. I am a lay judge that will vote for the team presenting me strong arguments supported by accurate, convincing and relevant evidence and outweighing the impacts

1. I would prefer you state a source with more information while reading cards. For example: John Apple reports from the brooking institute in 2022, instead of Apple 22, this way it gives your source credibility and I will know that it is not from some random angry Reddit user’s post.

1. Please speak at a reasonable pace. Remember, this is not a speed reading competition. ABSOLUTELY NO SPREADING. If I get lost in your speech because you're reading too fast, I won't be able to judge your case fairly.

2. Please be mindful of the time limit. If you are 5 seconds over the time limit, I will stop to flow your speech.

PLEASE NO RUNNING THEORY, KRITIKS OR FRAMEWORK I will immediately Vote against you.

Above all else, PLEASE TREAT YOUR OPPONENTS AND JUDGE WITH RESPECT.

I am excited to be your judge and I can’t wait to listen to your debate. Best of luck to both teams!