My Background

I competed for two years in collegiate NPDA, LD, IDPA, Impromptu, and Extemporaneous Speaking.

I am an NPDA National Champion, IPDA National and International Champion, and Extemporaneous Speaking National Champion.

Structure, Organization, and Delivery

I believe that the best debates are highly organized. Arguments should be structured and delivered such that they are easy to flow and understand. Competitors should use tags, roadmaps, and signposts as necessary throughout the debate.

Arguments should be clearly articulated. Speaking in a manner that prioritizes speed over clarity is probably not a good strategy, especially when neither the judge nor your competitors can understand what you're trying to say.

I am blank slate, tabula rasa. What I hear is how I judge.

I want to understand you while speaking (I’m in sales) and I want you to debate each other for the topics presented in the round. I will not read any files unless there is a clear distinction of misunderstanding.

Hello competitors,

My name is Chitra Jayaraman and I have been judging speech for a few years now, so I am pretty familiar with most categories.

For original events, writing and solutions are just as important as how good of orators you are. I appreciate good cadence and tech, but I would also like to see good writing with well thought out solutions and sources when those are applicable.

For interpretation events, your piece selection does matter, however I am more looking at gauging your skill set. Tonal variation, emotional variation, show me that you are able to become a character. I would also like to see clean characters popping. This is so important especially in events like POI when you are constantly changing.

While planning out your tech is important, it should still seem like it is natural. Movement shouldn’t seem robotic or over rehearsed.

Good luck orators, I look forward to seeing your pieces!

I am pretty much a debate judge, I can follow along and flow a debate really well. I understand parli jargon, but I dont like to see it outside of appropriate rounds. I also very much favor structure in debate. If you can make your arguments clear and understandable, then it makes it so much easier for me.

I’ve been Involved with Speech and Debate since 2015, although I’ve been judging almost nonstop since 2019. Available as a judge-for-hire via HiredJudge per request.

9.9/10 if you did not receive commentary on your ballot after the tournament, you (hopefully) would get my judge email on there instead.

I don’t currently operate from a laptop so my ballot speed is not ideal atm; I’m usually typing out paragraphs from a doc until the last allowable minute, but my timing is not the most perfect. You won’t always get a pageful but its my personal policy to give a minimum of 5 sentences. If you send over an email asking about your round; it might take up to 24 hours post tournament but I -will- reply back.

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Ballot Style:

Where possible I add timestamps to help students pinpoint exact moments in their speech that address the issue as noted by comment.it is a personal philosophy of mine to try never have less than 5 sentences on any ballot.

Debate Philosophy: I can comfortably judge parli, LD, PF, SPAR & Congress due to judging almost nonstop since the start of the pandemic. I don't have a lot of experience with policy debate as of this writing, I’m working on understanding spread speak as I do more tournaments. [current speed: 2 notches down from the fast verse in Rap God ]

I LOVE it when students are able to be fully themselves and have fun in a round
Debate Judging: I’m not the biggest fan of utilitarian as a value metric, but otherwise I try to approach the round as a blank slate. I like hearing both Ks & Traditional Argumentation however my rfd really depends on how you use them (or inverse thereof) in the debate.

Sportsmanship (like, dont lower your performance/ be rude on purpose, please) > Argumentative Cohesion & Organization > CX utilization & Clash > Framework Discourse > Delivery > Structural Presence, but I am a little stricter on citation~ doesn’t need to be the full date but it needs gotta be there

Congress: (also see above) but I like those who can flip arguments in their favor;You dont need to be extroverted to be PO, but POs should be attentive with overall energy in the chamber and facilitating ethical and intentional inclusion beforesilence becomes a huge issue in round, in addition to strict yet -visible- timekeeping.

RFD FLOW - I try to have at least a paragraph summary explaining my flow (sometimes it’ll be copy/pasted)

Speech Judging: I can judge any speech event across all levels!

I would sincerely appreciate if students could self time so I can focus on ballots.

(For those who have read all the way through, some free interp gems that will be erased in a month, besides the basics: storyboarding, stop animation, pixar’s “inside out,” samurai jack, sound track your pieces.)