I am a high school graduate from Technology High School in Newark. I have also debated for a total of 5 years. I’ve debated at many tournaments (Yale, Harvard, Bronx, etc).
I am a Kritikal judge.
if there are any other questions feel free to email me at acostalberto94@gmail.com
Arguments

Framework
You need to make this the most important argument in the round. For me at least. You loss framework, than you have a really high chance of lossing the round (depends on how far you are on the framework flow)

Dropping arguments
Drop them properly. Don’t just stop talking about them. If your opponent does drop this argument then bring it up so you can reap the benefits of their mistake.

Speed
I fine with it. I just ask that you slow down on the tags and the main warrants of the arg. If I can’t hear after I say clear three times I will only flow what I hear.

Theory
I like it and I know about it, but I am not going to do the work for you. Just because you say theory and extend it doesn’t mean that you explained ite. There needs to be a clear explanation on the theory flow what is the abuse that happens in the round and why it is important. Theory for me out ranks all others (not because it is an easy way out) because I feel that this argument are the actual rules of the debate round on what can and can’t be done by each team.

C/X
It is open I don’t flow it, but I do listen to it, and it can change my decision.

2NR/2AR
I flow it, but I mostly like to listen to it. This is the crux of the round. I need you to tell me why you should win (by explaining your arguments in the most detail that you can in the time period) and what arguments that your opponent dropped. (the reason for this is that a lot of teams really don’t do this any more so better to feel safe then sorry).

Jargon
I understand all of the debate jargon (since I did us most of them anyway) just that if there are any new ones that you think that I didn’t hear about then explain it to me.

Affirmatives
Topical affs are great, but I really enjoy hearing a critical debate with a critical affs, but with these kinds aff’s come with great responsibility. There needs to be a lot of in-depth analysis onto why your aff solves for what it solves, how it is a prereq. To the k and other args. A lot of debaters really just read evidence after evidence, i instead like to hear how the aff actually interacts with other arguments what is the actual connection. The critical aff can be the most dangerous weapon in any debate round if used properly. Performance affs are fine just explain the framework in great detail and why I should reject the resolution (if that is the case) in your own words or how you are topical.

Negative

Topicality

This can be a very powerful critical argument if used properly, but not many teams use this argument. I will vote on t if there is clear violation before the round is even finished (unless there is framework or theory). This is an argument that I like but not love like others

Counterplan
This is an argument that is very confusing for me, if you are going to run it explain what the plan does and how it doesn’t steal aff ground (unless theory is involved). If there is a critical counterplan involved explain how it is different from a k. other then that I don’t like counterplans too much, but I would vote on it.

Da
This is really a straightforward argument; I really didn’t see any variations of this argument in my debating career. If there are then I welcome them, but I really don’t have anything else to say about them.

K
Finally to the one argument that all teams want to know about. I love this argument, however I find that a lot of teams really don’t explain this argument in great detail. They just leave the k up in the air for the judge to interpret it in there own way. I know enough about the most common k’s that I can understand them, but again if I need to decide what your k is talking about you may not like what I think. Some of the other arguments that I’m not to familiar with I will listen to but there needs to be more of a keen eye in the explanation for those kinds of arguments.

Hello,

As a judge, I look for my debaters to be firm but respectful. Use the time to prove why you're correct and why your opponent is not. I expect the round to get heated at times, but respect for your opponent and judge is crucial.

I will keep official time, but participants are welcome to keep time as well. The timer will begin ON YOUR FIRST WORD after I have instructed you to begin.

Feel free to ask me questions at any point and I will answer to the best of my ability. Good Luck!

email: kdeodatt25@gmail.com

Hi debaters!

I do not have a preference in arguments, I'm fine with DAs, Ks, Topicality etc; But if you are going to run an argument, I expect you to know it well. Don't just read an argument and expect me to do the work for you. Part of being a great debater is critically thinking and proving why your point matters.

I weigh framework heavily in a round; tell me who should get the ballot and why.

Clarity>speed... If it is not on my flow, it will not be evaluated in the debate round.

I love a clean-cut debate, be respectful to one another. Have fun and simply believe in yourself!

I have coached debate for close to a decade, so I judge all styles. My background is in the humanities, and I teach philosophy at the high school and collegiate level. In this paradigm, I will list my preferences in order of importance:

1. Evidence (timely and well-sourced)

2. Logical connections between evidence and arguments

3. Ability to adjust in-round to what is happening and strategically and effectively countering the opposing side

4. Solvency

I rarely award wins on topicality. I am fine with kritiks and spreading, as long as I can see what you are reading. If you don't seem to understand your own argument, you will almost always lose when I am judging you. I assess this in terms of how you explain your argument in cross-ex in your own words and in your correct pronunciation and use of jargon and philosophical terminology.

I care about education, so I am open to unique approaches. However, I also appreciate fair and competitive rounds. Respect for the integrity of the debate community, including being respectful to all of its members, matters.

Put me on the email chain chodgson8797@bths.edu

(I'm only paying attention to what you read this is simply for reference at the end of the round and to make sure emails are sent somewhat promptly)

I do flow cross ex/crossfire but it must be in a speech if you want it voted on. I do believe cross is binding.

Background: I did policy debate for 3 years at Brooklyn Tech and I've judged Policy, PF, LD, speech, and Parli rounds before. I've run antiblackness, cap k, policy args, a decent amount of theory and have debated nearly every other mainstream arg (haven't hit death good, but I have read a bit not the biggest fan). Having said that I'm fine with spreading just be clear, understand that virtual spreading is iffy if there's lag, and respectful of your opposition. I don't care about formal attire and don't take points for wearing sweats. My pronouns are she/her and yes I am black. If there are blatantly racist, ableist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic arguments or statements and the opposition points it out and tells me its bad in any way and I agree you will lose (this is rather strict for example "black people are criminals" will have you voted down "stats show that black people in the US have higher arrest rates" will not, notice the difference even if I personally believe both are bad I will only vote down the former). Hint: I'm black.

Top Line:

I'll vote for wtvr. That includes T, DAs (with impacts but hopefully you know that), Kritiks, Counter Plans, and theory. I know people are iffy on theory but I personally feel they make some of the best rounds. I mayyyy not be the judge for afro/asian -futurism especially if it's off planet, maybe it's just the rounds I've judged but I have issues resolving the alt. I like case debate, you can win without it but I've found it to be the core of the activity.

Not So Recent Pet Peeves:

T needs an impact ( a voter). Standards and voters are not the same thing. Fairness is a standard and one I don't particularly care about especially without an impact/voter. Education because its the purpose of debate (this is weak but I can vote on something), fairness because they're unfair ... fairness because the world is unfair ... (what am I voting for if you get here and say "so people want to debate" thats weak but now I have something to vote on. Unfortunately if I have to vote on fairness because the aff team drops the ball so hard it meets the Earth's core I will (to K Affs ... y'all do this way too much).

If I don't know what the aff is at the end of the round I'm probably voting neg on presumption (unless they run cp/alts in the 2nr and idk with they do in which case presumption flips aff), please have your story straight (k-affs if you tell me your aff world starts in reading the 1AC and then your partner says it starts with the ballot and I already don't know what the aff world lookalike other than what it somehow doesn't look like... good luck.)

I really despise the asian afropess aff ... do with that what you will. If I have to vote it up I will but I think answers against it are abundant and apparent.

I don't like new 2nc flows (outside of theory), I tend to go aff when it comes to throwing them out as abuse and/or giving them less weight.

Credits to William Cheung for the rest of the this

1) Have a claim, warrant, and impact to every argument. It isn’t an argument absent these three elements, and I will have trouble/not be able to/want to adjudicate what you’ve said.
2) Make sure, on that note to properly explain your positions, don’t make an assumption that I know your DA scenario (perhaps fill me in on the internal work), or K jargon. Maybe i haven't judged that many rounds this topic and don't understand abbreviations right away - help me out.
3) Have comparative analysis of evidence, arguments, and preformative styles as it compares to your own and how I ought to prioritize impacts as it relates to your framing of the round.
4) Be Persuasive, it will go a long way to making me to sign my ballot your way if you can make the round enjoyable, touching, funny, etc – it will also help your speaks.
5) Write the ballot for me in your last speech , tell me how you win. Take risks, and don’t go for everything. Make me think, “woah, cool, gonna vote on that” “What they said in the last rebuttal was exactly how I prioritized stuff too, judging is soooo easy [it's often not :(]"

Also, some other things:

1) I will default to competing interpretations on T and extinction unless alternative mechanisms of evaluating the round or alternative impacts are introduced and analyzed.
2) I will avoid looking at evidence, unless there is a dispute over evidence in a round or a debater spins it as part of being persuasive

3) Extend arguments if you want them to be voted on and no new args in the final speeches
4) I am an open minded judge, and respect all “realms” of debate, though of course, I will always already have some bias (I fully admit I am a K debater, although I do usually take FW and T on both sides), I will do my best to mitigate it.

Email - mkobeski@ucfsd.net. Please include me on the email chain.

I am going to give you the benefit of the doubt on tech issues and other situations that may occur at tournaments. Please reciprocate that benevolence by trying to keep the round on time. Prepare ahead time. Recognize that when rounds are delayed that it has a cumulative impact on the entire tournament.

I expect you to organize papers and otherwise set up to speak during prep time. Please don't tell me to stop prep, and then spend time getting ready to speak.

Also, please don't ask me to provide you with supplies such as flow paper or pens. That is not my role as a judge. Bring your own equipment.

Experience - Long time debate judge and coach. This is my third year coaching and judging for Unionville, the first as head coach.

Policy/LD - I am familiar with Policy and LD debate.

Public Forum - I have judged Public Forum debate, but I am not as familiar with this format.

General Philosophy - I will try to flow and base my decision on the arguments made by the competitors. I encourage debaters to directly respond to the arguments made by their opponents, and I urge competitors to make arguments that have claims, warrants, and impacts. I prefer that debaters use evidence to support arguments. However, reading evidence alone is not an argument.

This generally means that I will look at the flow to see what arguments were made, and make my decision based on what I have written down on the flow.

Although I am receptive to all arguments, some claims have greater thresholds than others. It is still the debaters' responsibility to refute the arguments. I have voted for alternative frameworks and in round impacts, but mostly because the other team didn't respond well to those claims.

Constructive speeches should be used to construct new arguments, and rebuttals should be used to respond/refute/extend previously made contentions. I am not receptive to new arguments made in the final speech, and need for the debaters to show how their arguments in second speeches have been developed from previously articulated positions. Dropped arguments are conceded arguments. But you can always do impact comparisons.

In order for me to evaluate an argument, I must be able to understand and flow it. Vocal clarity is very important, definition of terms and jargon is also important. Moderate Speed is generally ok IF (IF IF IF) you are speaking clearly. I will not interrupt you to say unclear, and will continue to try to flow. It is your responsibility to recognize that you are unclear. It is ok for a partner to politely indicate that a speaker is unclear.

It's your round, and you can present any arguments you want in any style you want. I will be more effective as a critic if you signpost, label your arguments, and follow the flow. If you want to kick out of the line-by-line, then I will struggle to follow you and will most likely have to intervene to make sense of the arguments. It is ok if you don't want to signpost or tell me where to flow arguments, you will just have to live with my decision as I tend to vote in favor of the team that does the best of helping me organize my flow.

Signposting means to tell me where to flow your arguments. For example "On the counterplan, their first permutation was this..., my argument is this...." The more you do this, the better I will be as a judge.

emmanuelmakinde18@gmail.com

I currently debate at NYU

I have fun debating and judging for the most part and enjoy when other debaters are having fun as well. Don't appreciate you being disrespectful or degrading to your opponents because I think that's bad for the community. Being mean is okay if you have the skills to back it up, but that's not the same as genuinely being a very ad hom/disrespectful debater.

I care less about what you debate and moreso how you debate it.

Defense is insufficient to win debates.

Debate is a communication game. I'm okay with speed, but of course not with incomprehensibility. I won't burden myself with yelling clear if I don't understand you, it simply won't reach my flow.

There are certain ethical challenges that I'm willing to adjudicate and others that I'll defer to tab. Not amazing for bringing outside beef into the room. Aside from things that are categorically violent (verbally abusing ur opponents, explicit race-, able-, sex-... -ism, etc), likely won't vote on reject the team, but I will reward clever implications of the substantive arguments on other parts of the flow.

Hey, please add me to the email chain crownmonthly@gmail.com.If you really don't want to read this I'm tech > truth, Warranted Card Extension > Card Spam and really only dislike hearing meme arguments which are not intended to win the round.

PF and LD specific stuff at the bottom. All the argument specific stuff still applies to both activities.

How to win in front of me:
Explain to me why I should vote for you and don't make me do work. I've noticed that I take "the path of least resistance" when voting; this means I will make the decision that requires no work from me unless neither team has a ballot which requires zero work from me. You can do this by signposting and roadmapping so that my flow stays as clean as possible. You can also do this by actually flowing the other team and not just their speech doc. Too often debaters will scream for 5 minutes about a dropped perm when the other team answered it with analytics and those were not flown. Please don't be this team.

Flowing Practices

I flow 1AC and 1NC cross-x just in case it becomes important to the debate. For 2AC and 2NC cross-x I am mostly listening and writing feedback about the constructive. I will flow 1AC & 1NC with the speech doc open next to the flow. I am reading along with the speech and will catch if you do things like hide aspec so don't worry about that. For the other 6 speeches I am probably not looking at the speech doc. and just flowing what I hear. Don't read into it if I close my eyes or look up and away; I'm just trying to increase my focus to flow better.

Online Debate Update
If you know you have connection/tech problems, then please record your speeches so that if you disconnect or experience poor internet the speech does not need to be stopped. Also please go a bit slower than your max speed on analytics because between mic quality and internet quality it can be tough to hear+flow everything if you go the same speed as cards on analytics.

Argumentation...

Theory/Topicality:

By default theory and topicality are voters and come aprior unless there is no offense on the flow. Should be clear what the interpretation, violation, voter, and impact are. I generally love theory debates but like with any judge you have to dedicate the time into it if you would like to win. "Reject the argument solves all their offense" is an unwarranted claim and teams should capitalize on this more. Lastly you don't need to prove in round abuse to win but it REALLY helps and you probably won't win unless you can do this.

Framework:

I feel framework should be argued in almost any debate as I will not do work for a team. Unless the debate is policy aff v da+cp then you should probably be reading framework. I default to utilitarianism and will view myself as a policy maker unless told otherwise. This is not to say I lean toward these arguments (in fact I think util is weak and policy maker framing is weaker than that) but unless I explicitly hear "interpretation", "role of the judge", or "role of the ballot," I have to default to something. Now here I would like to note that Theory, Topicality, and Framework all interact with each other and you as the debater should see these interactions and use them to win. Please view these flows holistically.

DA:

I am comfortable voting on these as I believe every judge is but I beg you (unless it's a politics debate) please do not just read more cards but explain why you're authors disprove thier's. Not much else to say here besides impact calc please.

CP:

For the neg I prefer that you have a solvency advocate. For the aff I think solvency deficits to the CP probably win most in front of me. I'm alright for competition debates if you are good at them. Spreading one liner standards in the 1ar and then exploding on them in the 2ar will make me have a very low threshold for 2nr answers look like. Similar for the 2nr, but I think the 2nr needs to flag the analysis as new and tell me it justifies new 2ar answers.

K:

I am a philosophy and political science major graduate so please read whatever you would like as far as literature goes; I have probably read it or debated it at some point so seriously don't be afraid. Please leave the cards in the file and explain the thought process, while I have voted on poorly run K's before those teams never do get high speaker points. For aff v K perm is probably your best weapon, answer the theory of power especially if there is an ontology claim, and FW which outright excludes the K is probably weaker than a FW which just says the aff gets to weigh their impacts.

K Affs:

Look above for maybe a bit more, but I will always be open to voting and have voted on K affs of all kinds. I tend to think the neg has a difficult time winning policy framework against K affs for two reasons; first they debate framework/topicality most every round and will be better versed, and second framework/topicality tends to get turned rather heavily and costs teams rounds. I'll vote on framework/topicality, for negs running it I think the "role of negation" is particular convincing and I need an offensive reason to vote, but defense on each aff standard/impact is just as important.

Perms:

Perms are a test of competition unless I am told otherwise. Perms test mutual exclusivity and I normally think they do this by resolving links through the perm. Multiple perms good/bad is a question to be debated on theory.

Judge Intervention:

So I will only intervene if the 2AR makes new arguments I will ignore them as there is no 3NR. Ethics and evidence violations should be handled by tab or tournament procedures.

Speaks:

• What gets you good speaks:
  • Making it easier for me to flow
  • Demonstrate that you are flowing by ear and not off the doc.
  • Making things interesting
  • Clear spreading
  • Complete line by line in the order that the opponents made the arguments
  • Productive CX

• What hurts your speaks:
  • Wasting CX, Speech or Prep Time
  • Showing up later than check-in time (I would even vote on a well run theory argument - timeless is important)
  • Being really boring
  • Being rude

PF Specific

• I am much more lenient about dropped arguments than in any other form of debate. Rebuttals should acknowledge each link chain if they want to have answers in the summary. By the end of summary no new arguments should made. 1st and 2nd crossfire are binding speeches, but grand crossfire cannot be used to make new arguments. *these are just my defaults and in round you can argue to have me evaluate differently
• If you want me to vote on theory I need a Voting Issue and Impact - also probably best you spend the full of Final Focus on it.
• Make clear in final focus which authors have made the arguments you expect me to vote on - not necessary, but will help you win more rounds in front of me.
• In out-rounds where you have me and 2 lay judges on the panel I understand you will adapt down. To still be able to judge fairly I will resolve disputes still being had in final focus and assume impacts exist even where there are only internal links if both teams are debating like the impacts exist.
• Please share all evidence you plan to read in a speech with me your opponents before you give the speech. I understand it is not the norm in PF, but teams who do this will receive bonus speaker points from me for reading this far and making my life easier.

LD Specific

• 2AR should extend anything from the 1AR that they want me to vote on. I will try and make decisions using only the content extended into or made in the NR and 2AR.
• Don't just read theory because you think I want to hear it. Do read theory because your opponent has done or could do something that triggers in round abuse.
• Dropped arguments are true arguments, but my flow dictates what true means for my ballot - say things more than once if you think they could win/lose you the round if they are not flown.

Quick Bio

I did 3 years of policy debate in the RI Urban Debate League. Been judging since 2014. As a debater I typically ran policy affs and went for K's on the neg (Cap and Nietzsche mostly) but I also really enjoyed splitting the block CP/DA for the 2NC and K/Case for the 1NR. Despite all of this I had to have gone for theory in 40% of my rounds, mostly condo bad.

Be respectful and kind during debate. I find using rhetorical strategies such as logos and ethos provides more of a persuasive appeal. In policy debate, I appreciate when there's a proposal argumentation so the audience knows the details and reasoning the proposed solution is a good idea. I prefer quality over quantity in terms of evidence meaning I would rather have a team make a strong case with few points than rushing through numerous points. I prefer if competitors refrain from using profanity in a debate round. :)