Des Moines Tournavelt
2022 — Roosevelt High School, IA/US
Saturday Public Forum Paradigm List
All Paradigms: Show Hideingridkalg@gmail.com
I am experienced in PF. I will judge the flow first, unless your argument obviously isn't true or ethical.
Disclosure good, friv theory bad, might vote for a good Kritik
- Please collapse and use signposting
- One good, warranted analytic is more valuable than 2 mid cards
- Use weighing mechanisms and metaweighing. Make my job easier
- I can flow decent speed. However, if I can't understand you, I can't flow you. Always send speech docs before every speech.
- Don't respond to an argument by invalidating real experiences. Don't say "gentrification isn't real because black people don't make 8x less than white people" (this has happened). You will get a 25
- Speaker points will be lowered for rude, loud, or passive-aggressive crossx.
- If you give the person next to me a bag of chips, you get a thumbs up
For speech: I have basic knowledge, I will judge you based on performance and content.
be "good people who happen to be good speakers"!
she/her
Can put me on the email chain: lauren [dot] burdt [at] gmail.com
Would prefer Tabroom's anonymized docs sharing if enabled
Background: I coached national circuit LD in Iowa and Nebraska until 2018. Have coached students to late elims of the TOC and NSDA Nats. I've mostly been in tab rooms and judging locally since then, so my threshold for speed and recognition of new arg trends has gone down since then. Debate's your game; I'm happy to be in the back of the room for whatever you prefer to do as long as we're all safe and having fun. In general, if you communicate clearly, are well-researched, show depth of understanding in the literature you are reading, and bring passion to the debate, I will enjoy whatever you have to present.
Couple specific things:
-Speed: Probably not keeping up with your top speed these days. Will yell slow and clear. If you're debating someone who asks you to slow down, I expect you to make your best efforts to ensure they can follow the debate.
-Theory/phil: Sure. This is how I debated. I enjoy framing-heavy debates that compare the applications of different ethical frameworks. Engagement > evasion; extensions of a dropped sentence fragment buried within a paragraph of analytics do not particularly excite me.
-T: Substantive topicality debates ("T as a turn to aff's method") typically fare better with me in the back of the room than "aff must read plan", but I'm down for whatever floats your boat.
-K: Sure. This is primarily what I coached. Feel like these debates have gotten more buzzwordy these days which is not a great strategy to pick up my ballot. I'm uninterested in imposing my own ideological preferences as a judge, and I'm open to experimentation with what debate can/should be. I judge a lot of clash debates.
-General: I'm not following along in the doc. I flow speeches straight down and I evaluate debates holistically. Explanation matters, judge instruction important, big picture storytelling good.
-Happy! I like it when debaters are nice to each other. The friends you make in debate will last much longer than your memory of Ws and Ls. Personality is fun, sass is fun, but I have a pretty low threshold for being frustrated with actions and behaviors that work against building community. Have fun, be smart, and I'll do my best to evaluate rounds the way you tell me to.
Please list trigger warnings before the round begins.
I'm a lay person.
I have no experience in debating.
You can go as fast as you would like but if I cannot hear you or understand you I cannot vote for you.
I am a games judge.
Hello, my name is Calvin. I'm a senior at Roosevelt and have been debating in Public Forum since middle school. Add me on the email chain: calvinj.goldsberry@gmail.com AND trhspf@googlegroups.com
When I am judging, you will have my full attention. I will not be on social media or other websites.
Feel free to email me with any questions/concerns etc.
TLDR: I am a tech judge.
Judging Philosophy
I am tabula rasa/tech>truth. I will evaluate anything I can understand.
I don't care about speed as long as you can produce a speech doc that I can follow.
Defense is not sticky.
Extensions must include all parts of an argument, including the uniqueness, link, internal link, and impact.
Good weighing will probably win you the debate.
Evidence ethics are VERY important to me. fabricating/being unable to produce evidence will result in a TKO and Tabroom contact.
Teams should have evidence readily available in a cut card format as per NSDA guidelines.
Kritiks
I love K debates. I think these debates are extremely important for the debate space when they are run well. I'm familiar with a lot of K lit (Afropess, Cap, Imperialism, Setcol, Fem IR), but please explain things in simple terms so I can understand the warrant-level debate.
Theory
Generally speaking, I believe that open-source disclosure is good and paraphrasing is bad. That said, I am still tech>truth in theory debates.
I struggle to evaluate RVIs, they do not make much sense to me. Why should you win for being fair?
Theory debates can be hard to evaluate; if you want to win, make it simple for me.
Tricks
These are uneducational and impossible to evaluate, please don't read them.
Speaker Points
I assign speaker points based on strategy and speaking ability. Smart arguments usually get high speaks.
25 or less: You intentionally did something abusive/offensive. I have probably contacted Tab.
25-26: You did something pretty wrong/You are a novice.
26-27: You made some mistakes.
27-28: Average.
28-29: Pretty good!
29-30: One of the best teams at this tournament.
If you have any questions please send me an email or talk to me before round. also, feel free to postround me; it makes me a better judge and I do not find it offensive.
Pronouns: She/her/hers
Pre-req: I will not vote on any case arguments addressing sexual violence, rape, or suicide/suicidal ideations that were not preceded by a pre-round trigger warning. If, upon hearing this trigger warning, the opponent requests the argument not be made and that request is denied, I'll be very receptive to theory arguments about why I ought to vote against you based on the introduction of that issue.
I believe that problematic arguments are problematic whether the opposing team points them out or not. I believe that this is not a space where any argument can be made. Problematic arguments at minimum impact the people in the round and can impact discourse outside of the round. I want the opposing team to point out problematic arguments and abuse. However, arguments that promote sexism, racism, or other forms of hate will not be persuasive for me and are likely to result in a down ballot.
Style: I am one of those judges who responds very negatively to rudeness, disrespect, and offensive language
Speed: I don't like speed. Learning how to talk fast has no post-debate benefit, so I do not support it as a strategy in an educational debate round. I can follow fast talking, but if you are spreading, then I will put down my pen and stop flowing. If I stop flowing, it probably means I am confused; either because you are going too fast, or I don't understand what you are saying.
Style: I need to have a weighing mechanism in PF debate. I need to know how to decide who won the round, otherwise I will get very frustrated. I do not want to decide using my own metrics, I want YOU to tell me how to judge the round. I will be using this weighing mechanism as I look at my flow to decide who won the round.
I tend to be a flow a judge. By that I mean that I flow and will be following the flow to see who has the strongest arguments at the end of the round.
Evidence This is also very important to me. By that I mean that I need evidence that is clearly cited and explained. Actually READ me your evidence, don't just give me your summary of the evidence. Analytical arguments are great, and I will vote there, but when disagreement is happening about what may or may not be true about the topic, I would like to hear evidence. This should also connect back to your weighing mechanism.
I also like to hear evidence in the rebuttal. If you are responding with an analytical argument to an argument that has evidence, I need you to do the work of explaining to me why your analytical argument is sufficient to off-set the argument with evidence. You can do this by telling me that sense the argument doesn't make sense/has a fallacy, then it doesn't stand even with evidence. Or you can make an analytical argument about the evidence itself. Otherwise, I am likely going to still prefer the argument with evidence.
Please call for evidence in a timely manner. Please use an email chain or the evidence sharing that Tabroom provides. I want to be included on the email chain.
If there is conflict about evidence, I need you to do the work of telling me why I prefer your evidence over your opponent's evidence. Just telling me, "It post dates," is not sufficient. What has changed since that date? Why is your source more reliable? Otherwise, I will just get frustrated.
If your opponent asks for evidence, per the NSDA rules, you need to provide them with the cut card and the full article in a way that allows everyone to see and read the evidence. I expect to be included in any email chain, so I can also see the card that was called for. I also expect this exchange of evidence to happen promptly (less than 30 seconds) when asked.
If there are questions about the validity of the evidence or the way evidence is being used, you are likely to lose my ballot.
On a related note, I do not believe that everything needs to be quantified. Just because numbers cannot or are not put to an impact, does not mean that it cannot be weighed. This is ESPECIALLY true when it comes to impacts to human beings. I do not find the argument, "we don't know how many people will be impacted," persuasive.
Prep Time: I expect competitors to keep track of their own time. I will also be keeping track of prep time. This will be official time used. If you use all of your prep time before the end of the round, I expect you to start speaking promptly. That means you should take no more than 10 seconds to begin your next speech.
Background: I am a math teacher, so if you are going to throw around math terms and mathematics, you need to be certain that you know what you are talking about and are correct. As an example, there is a difference between exponential, linear, and geometric growth, so make sure you say the right one.
I have debated PF 4 years in high school, 4 years of college PF, 4 years of NPDA/parli in college.
I am not a LD debater, so I have minimal understanding of the theory and technical arguments that exist within LD. You can absolutely still make those arguments, but you need to make sure that you are explaining those terms, otherwise I will be lost and frustrated.
I am happy to give you feedback after the round, if you find me. :)
Pronouns: she / her
Style: I respond negatively to speakers who are rude, inappropriate/disrespectful, and grandstanding (my def = talking just to talk / pontificate).
Background: I have been teaching for 25 years in Iowa and Texas, and I have been Hoover's head debate coach for several years (and judged several years prior to that). I also have legal assistant training; this, too, informs my perspective as a judge.
I teach speech, argumentation, and persuasion daily – same concepts, different venue.
I’m here because I prize lifelong learning, and I find these experiences are fun, rewarding, and add insight into both my classroom teaching and debate coaching. I hope you, too, find these experiences fun and rewarding and that you learn and improve from each interaction… even if you don't win your round. :)
What I look for in a PF round:
I view my role in the round mainly as a trained observer and judge as teams do their work; I prefer teams to time themselves (and report the time) and I will rarely interrupt, direct, or ask for a card. However, I will note called cards and how they are subsequently used. If cards aren’t called or if points are left unchallenged, my assumption is your team agrees to their use – barring fundamentally untrue things ("racism good"). Note also that teams should extend the card’s argument and not just shorthand the author’s name.
Teams should independently, explicitly, at the beginning, address and agree upon how the round should be weighed; if not, my assumption is cost-benefit analysis.
I like roadmaps and prefer clear signposting throughout the round as these features allow all parties to be on the same page.
I can follow moderate speed – especially if it’s because you truly have a lot of strong links and evidence to present -- but if you go so fast that I miss your point, that’s on you. Same if you’re spreading or spending a lot of time talking but not actually saying anything, such as entire rounds spent on agreeing on definitions or other minutia.
Additionally, jargon doesn’t impress me; I spend my days breaking down jargon and complex topics for students, so I expect you to practice this real-world skill as well. Seeing your ability to adapt, contextualize, and show mastery without needing to resort to jargon is key for me.
During cross, ask questions to which you legitimately want answers and don't steamroll your opponents by interjecting so they can’t respond.
In your final focus, I prefer the focus to be on your case -- what are the main voters in the round and why your evidence should be preferred, why your impacts outweigh, why you should win, etc. – instead of your opponent’s case.
PF - I have been judging PF for around 7 years now. I am a judge that listens for Impacts on why your Impacts outweigh others. I am not a huge fan of speed. I am more concerned with the content of the speech rather than the amount of information given. I do understand the PF jargon. It is up to you to persuade me to vote for your side. I am not a huge fan of using FW and definitions as a weighing mechanism but will consider it if the other arguments are well balanced. Make sure to clearly state your Impacts and how these impacts link to the resolution.
Congress - I am looking for you to know the Robert's Rules of Order as well as seeing you participating in the debate by asking questions. In terms of your speech, I would like to hear a clear structure for your speeches. I want to hear the impacts of your points and I want you to be very familiar with your speeches as well. Make sure to bring up new arguments when a bill has been debated for awhile. If you speak later in the session, I want to hear clash with other representatives/senators. I also want to hear new information if you are representing the same point as someone who has spoken previously. I also track recency so I will note if a PO may miss a recency order. Make sure to maintain your professionalism during cross and during your speech. I will knock down a speaker if I feel they are being too aggressive during their speech or their cross.
LD - I do not have much experience judging LD currently. Please focus on argumentation and impacts rather than the jargon that goes along with LD. Tricks, theory, etc. will not work with me. Also, speed is discouraged during your speeches. Please make sure I can follow your supporting evidence and arguments. I am familiar with PF and judging PF.
I am a senior at TRHS and do PF and Extemporaneous. Somethings I like to see in round are
- signposting if I don't know what your responding to I prolly ain't writing it down
- Weigh if you don't tell me why you won then how do you expect to win
- Don't waste cross by reading evidence word for word you should know it by heart and be able to summarize.
- if someone calls for the card have it ready
- Extend your case throughout all speeches same goes for anything you say against your opponents
- Time yourselves and your opponents
- 2nd rebuttal has to respond to 1st rebuttal
- BE RESPECTFUL AND HAVE FUN.