Last changed on
Thu January 14, 2021 at 7:18 AM EST
Heyoo and Howdy, Its Jomi,
I have been Competing, Coaching, and Judging for going on 8 years now and I'm 21 so that says a lot about my wild amount of commitment I have towards this activity.
Mainly competed and coached extemp and congress so that is where my best critiques would come from since those are the events that I know the most about, however, I am proficient in knowing PF and LD since I have judged tons of elimination rounds for those events and have friends in the events so they teach me the game.
I would say no matter the event it always comes down to three solid principles for me
Logic without evidence
Quality of evidence
Speaking and execution of rhetoric
Logic without evidence meaning how solid on a logic understands deductive or inductive reasoning is the argument, to the point that at the least from a basic philosophical level can I consider that argument valid but not being true because that would require evidence.
Quality of evidence is what sets an argument to being a good argument because if your evidence is timely, relevant, and flows within the speech or case then that sets you apart from the round. Good evidence balances arguments, Bad Evidence breaks arguments
Speaking and execution of Rhetoric meaning simply how well are you conveying your speech and case in your delivery, even in Policy debate, if you want the judge to hear something import and round defining then you slow down and say it with conviction. How well do your voice and your inflections convey your narrative especially on the impact analysis which to me is the most important parts of arguments especially;y on a human level is to be important
Most of all, be respectful and courteous to your judges and especially to your opponents because if you are rude, condescending, sexist, racist, you know the deal if it's bad and I catch it, expect the worst result from me and expect for me to back it up. So just be a respectful person and we will be all good.