Background: Judging online from Indonesia GMT+7 (12 hours ahead of EST/CDT). I judged several varsity level British/Asian/Australs parliamentary debating tournaments around Southeast Asia from 2016 till 2021. As of Nov 2023, I judged a total of 13 Public Forum, 1 Lincoln-Douglas, and 1 WSDC competitions in the U.S. circuit.

Technicalities: Some people may put a heavy emphasis on the presence of evidence and the presentation of examples, but for me, warrant: coherent logical explanation and step-by-step analysis of your argument is more valuable. Spewing out too many facts and trivia before you explain your assertions confuses me. Use those data to back up your arguments, not to lengthen your speech. Also, don't forget to connect the extensions. Do put elaborations on why any impact you give is significant and unique to your side.

Strategy: Don't ever forget to weigh in your arguments against your opponent's. I also expect the two-worlds scenario when you're painting your case. Rather than saying "To give you an off-time roadmap..." in the beginning, better if you do signpost as you go because it will surely help me do the flow during the speech. I love the "even ifs" and the clear-cut comparison between your model and your rival's model.

Manner: No spreading. Please speak clearly and don't rap out your speech. You may turn off cameras if you (or I happen to) experience lags or internet problems. Please time your own speech and when you start, just speak. There's no need to say "time starts now/on my first word" because some scientists argued that time began shortly after The Big Bang.

Correspondence: albert-yang@mail.com. Yes, without the G.

I prefer the practical arguments those are well elaborated between the claim, the facts/evindences which extensively elaborated. And i would really appreciate if the debaters doesn't rush their way during the speech.

Hi Debaters,
My email if you decide to start emailchain for evidence sharing

drneeruagarwal@gmail.com

I have judged elementary , middle school, Novice High School and Junior Varsity debate last year. I make unbiased decision even if I have some background knowledge of topic and always open to listening and learning. I believe with time information changes and affects our decision. It's always fun to see how new and pro debaters benefit with the rounds.

I will give points based on what you presented , how well you presented, did you have real content or just tried to pass time with some nonintelligent tricks. I will not hold you responsible for what you did not cover about topic.

I am particular about debate rules:

1. Manage time wisely
2. Do not expect me to intervene during crossfire
3. During cross fire do not try to waste opponent time by beating around the bush, ask precise clear questions
4. Use signposting as your strength and also makes judges job easy
5. I will take speaker points off if any arguments are conceded or if new arguments are brought up later than first summary.
6. Come prepared, decide how you want to share the evidence. Do not assume other team may share evidence the same way (ex. google doc vs chat)
7. I strive to start rounds timely and be respectful of everyone's time and effort.
8. Low point wins are possible, but it has happened once only so far for me (so be confident but not rude).

I can follow decent speed but will prefer someone not to rush to put more in given time and not explain their case /argument properly or have unused time on hand. So pace yourself.

I am looking forward to honest, respectful debates from which both the debaters and I will learn debating and the topic. I am fairly easy going person but particular about respectful debates. I am getting familiar with debate jargons but not a master yet. I prefer to give immediate oral feedback as that may help debaters to improve for next round as well as may be looking at all feedbacks later may not give as much clarity and satisfaction. I do not mind debaters asking questions about my decision as long as it's done in respectful way.

I am learning and evolving with debaters. I debated a little during high school and college and love it now also. So let's keep the fun going. Enjoy the topic and debate process do not focus on winning and loosing. Every round you will learn and get better irrespective of outcome.

Thanks,

Neeru

Several things that I prioritize on the PF debates, are :

1. The elaboration and further analysis regarding the facts (general idea, data, statistic, journal info) that given by each team. It means that what things that has been proven, the urgency, the significance related to the resolution of the debate within those facts.
2. The team that likely to give the likelihood of the impacts that will occurred, in short-long-term timeframe and the engagements throughout the refutation of each opponents' argument.
3. In particularly, please respect each other and convey the speech clearly and not too fast.
4. lastly, have fun and good luck for the debates!

My name is Hamza Aziz.

I am a University level debater and have been to a number of tournaments. I recently judged the Harvard online PF tournament.

I hope to see some strong arguments for and against the proposal. What I prefer is to see is logical explanations of each argument along with the use of credible sources.

Good luck to all debaters!

Thank You,

Hamza

Debate Philosophy:

I approach debates with a focus on flowing arguments and evaluating them based on the flow. While I prioritize technical arguments over truth, I do expect clear and logical communication from debaters. Clarity of thought and logic is paramount, and I value well-warranted arguments over-reliance on evidence alone.

I weigh the claims by whether they are supported by two kinds of reasoning:

11. Truth: Why the claim is true.

22. Impact: Why this claim is important in the debate.

"Claims" apply to both constructive arguments and rebuttals, as I will weigh them side by side in clashes on my flow later. Providing examples or research findings doesn't necessarily mean your claim is true; you have to explain which part of the example/research can be applied to the argument, to explain why that example is important to the debate as a whole.

Weighing Arguments:

Debaters should focus on weighing their arguments and demonstrating why their impacts outweigh those of their opponents. This includes considering scope, magnitude, timeframe, probability, or employing metaweighing techniques. I appreciate clear roadmaps and signposting throughout the round to aid in organization.

Topic Relevance:

I prefer debates to stay on topic and avoid off-topic or theoretical arguments aimed at disqualifying the other team. Definitions by the government/affirmative team are allowed, but abuse of this privilege will be penalized.

Argument Evaluation:

Warranted arguments are crucial for winning my ballot. Unsubstantiated claims are difficult to vote on, especially when effectively rebutted by the opposing side. It's essential to be charitable to opponents' arguments and engage with the best version of their claims rather than strawmanning them.

Public Forum-Specific:

In Public Forum debates, I prioritize logical reasoning over reliance on evidence cards. Debaters should focus on identifying weaknesses in their opponents' link chains rather than reading from prepared blocks. Clash should be evident by the rebuttal speeches, and second rebuttals should address all offense or risk concessions.

Evidence and Email Chains:

I do not typically review evidence or participate in email chains. Debaters must convince me of their arguments without relying on my review of evidence. However, if requested, I may assess evidence for accuracy.

Introduction:

Hello, I'm Bukunmi Babatunde, a graduate from the University of Ilorin. As a debate judge, my mission is to foster fairness and promote learning. Here's a summary of my judging approach:

Conflicts: None

Email address: bukunmi5176@gmail.com

Expectations:

When you encounter me in a debate, I prioritize fairness and active engagement. I value debaters who fulfill their roles, engage with the debate's burdens, and respectfully address opposing arguments.

Open-mindedness:

Even if you don't agree with the framing or the argument, I encourage you to engage with the other team's case. This demonstrates a comprehensive understanding and helps foster a constructive dialogue.

Clashes and Focus:

To have clashes in the debate, it's crucial to pinpoint and compare the warrants behind arguments. Examples, precedents, and empirics don't clash unless the warrants are addressed. Summaries should focus on key points, warrants, and reasons for winning, without reviving untouched arguments.

Equity and Timekeeping:

Following equity rules is essential for a fair debate environment. Please keep track of time, as it helps maintain a well-organized and efficient debate.

Special Considerations:

In virtual debate tournaments, if feasible, keeping your camera on is encouraged. Technical issues with wifi or connection are understandable. Additionally, please ensure your speeches are clear and intelligible, delivering at a medium pace for effective communication.

Other Remarks:

As a judge, I prioritize neutrality and impartiality. I appreciate well-structured arguments supported by evidence and logical reasoning. Clear articulation, persuasive language, and a logical flow in speeches are valued. Respectful conduct, adaptability, and effective rebuttals are important.

Evaluation and Feedback:

At the end of the debate, I evaluate each debater's overall performance based on the strength of their arguments, critical analysis, presentation skills, and engagement with the opponent's case. Constructive feedback will be provided to facilitate growth and improvement.

Conclusion:

My goal as a debate judge is to create a fair and intellectually stimulating environment. I evaluate arguments impartially, emphasizing logic, evidence, and adaptability. Through valuable feedback, I aim to contribute to the growth and development of all debaters involved.

conflicts: groves high school (class of 2019), wayne state university (class of 2023, secondary ed major w/ minors in public health & gender, sexuality, and women's studies), detroit country day high school

always put me on the email chain! Literally always! if you ask i will assume you haven't read this! legit always put me on the email chain! lukebagdondebate@gmail.com

pronouns: they/them.

the abridged version:

• do you, and do it well

• don't cheat in ways that require me to intervene

• don't misgender me, or your competitors

• do not assume i am going to vote for you because you say my name a lot

some general stuff:

the more and more i do debate the less i care about what's put in front of me. when i first started debating, i cared very deeply about norms, the resolution, all that jazz. now, if you're willing to read it i'm willing to judge it. i'd rather see an in depth debate with a lot of offense and clash than anything else, and i don't care whether you do that on a T flow vs. a k aff or a cap flow vs. a policy aff.

my least favorite word in the english language (of which is not a slur) is the word "basically." i would rather listen to everyone for the rest of time describe everything as "moist" than listen to you say the word "basically." i've hated this word for years, do not use it. make of that what you will.

it should be said i at one point read a parody aff that involved my partner and i roleplaying as doctor/patient during the 1ac. i care exceedingly little what you want to do with your 8 minute constructive, 3 minute cx, and 5 minute rebuttals - but those speech times are non-negotiable (unless the tournament says otherwise). play a game, eat a salad, ask me about my cat(s), color a picture, read some evidence; but do it within the constraint of a timer.

(this "time fetish" is less of a "respect my time" thing and more of a "i need to know when i can tell tab who i voted for" thing. i take a lot of pride in getting my decision in before repko, and i wish to continue that streak.)

stuff about me as a judge:

i do not follow along in the speech doc. i try not to look at cards. be clear, be concise, be cool. debate is first and foremost a communicative activity. i will only read y'alls ev if there is serious contention, or you tell me to. i HATE DOING THIS, and this very often does not go how people think it will.

if you say "insert re-highlighting" instead of reading the re-highlighting i WILL consider that argument uncarded

bolded for emphasis: people are also saying they can 'insert a caselist' for T flows. this is not a thing. and i will not consider them part of the debate if this occurs.

i do not play poker both because i am terrible at math and because i have a hard time concealing my emotions. i do have pretty bad rbf, but i still think you should look at me to tell what i'm thinking of your speeches/cx.

speaker points:

Misgendering is bad and a voting issue (at the very least I will give you exceptionally low speaks). due to my gender identity i am hyper aware of gender (im)balances in debate. stop being sexist/transphobic jerks, y'all. it's not that hard. additionally, don't be racist. don't be sexist. don't be ableist. don't be a bad person.

Assigning speaker points comes down to: are you memorable? are you funny? are you a bad person? Did you keep my flow neat? How did you use cross?

I usually give in the 28.2-29.9 range, for reference.

ethics violations:

i consider ethics violations clipping, evidence fabrication/omission of paragraphs between the beginning and end of the card, and violence (e.g. calling Black people the n word as a non-Black person, refusing to use correct pronouns).

for clipping: a recording must be presented if a debater brings forth the challenge. if i notice it but no one brings it up, your speaker points will suffer greatly.

for evidence miscutting (this is NOT power tagging): after a debater brings it forward the round will stop. if the evidence is miscut, the team who miscut the evidence will lose with lowest speaker points possible. if the evidence is not miscut, the team who brought forth the violation will lose with the lowest speaker points possible. i will not entertain a debate on the undebatable.

for violence: i will stop the debate and the offender will receive the lowest speaker points possible and will lose. the person who is on the receiving end of the violence is not expected to give input. if you misgender me i will not stop the debate, but your speaker points will suffer.

one of these, because i love getting caught in the hype

brad hombres ------------------------------------X--banana nut brad

generic disad w/ well developed links/uq------X------------------------------------ thing you cut 30 mins before the round that you claim is a disad

read a plan--------------------X---------------------don't read a plan

case turns--X----------------------------------------generic defense

t not fw--------------X-------------------------------fw not t

"basically"-------------------------------------------X-just explaining the argument

truth over tech------------------X--------------------tech over truth

being nice-X------------------------------------------being not nice

piper meloche--------------------X--------------------brad meloche

'can i take prep'----------------------------------------X-just taking prep

explaining the alt------X--------------------------------assuming i know what buzzwords mean

process cps are cheating--------------------------X-------sometimes cheating is good

fairness--------------------------------X----------------literally any other fw impact besides iteration

impact turn-X--------------------------------------------non impact turn

fw as an impact turn------X--------------------------------fw as a procedural

green highlighting-X----------------------------------------any other color

rep---------------------------X----------------i don't know who you are and frankly i don't care to find out

asking if everyone is ready -X-----------------------------------asking if anyone isn't ready

jeff miller --------------------------------------X--- abby schirmer

PUBLIC FORUM SPECIFIC THINGS:

i find myself judging this a lot more than any other activity, and therefore have a LOT of opinions.

• time yourself. this includes prep. i'm not your mom, and i don't plan on doing it for you. the term "running prep" is becoming very popular, and i don't know what that means. just take prep.
• don't call me judge. "what should we refer to you as?" nothing! i don't know who is teaching y'all to catch judges' attentions by referring to us directly, but it's horrible, doesn't work, annoys all of us, and wastes precious time. you should be grabbing my attention in other ways: tone, argumentation, flowability, humor, sarcasm, lighting something on fire (please do not actually do this). call me by my first name (luke) if you have to, but know if you overuse it, it has the exact same affect as calling me "judge."
• PLEASE don't assume i know community norms, and saying things like "this is a community norm" doesn't automatically give you that dub. i entered PF during covid, and have a very strong policy background. this influences how i view things like disclosure or paraphrase theory.
• even more so than in policy, "post-rounding" me after a decision is incredibly common. you're allowed to fight with me all you want. just know it doesn't change my ballot, and certainly won't change it the next time around.
• i will never understand this asking for evidence after speeches. why aren't we just sending speech docs? judges are on a very strict schedule, and watching y'all spend five minutes sending evidence is both annoying and time consuming - bolding, because i continue to not get and, honestly? actively hate it when everyone spend 5-10 minutes after each speech exchanging evidence. just sent the whole speech. i don't get why this isn't the norm
• i'm fine with speed and 'unconventional arguments.' in fact, i'm probably better for them because i've found PF aff/neg contentions to be vague and poorly cut.
• PFers have a tendency to call things that aren't turns "turns." it's very odd to me. please don't do it.
• i'm not going to delay the round so you can preflow. idk who told y'all you can do that but they're wrong
• if you are using ev sending time to argue, i will interrupt you and make you start and/or i will tank your speaks. stop doing this.
• i'm very split on the idea of trigger warnings. i don't think they're necessary for non-in-depth/graphic discussions of a topic (Thing Exists and Is Bad, for example, is not an in-depth discussion in my eyes). i'm fine with trigger warning theory as an argument as long as you understand it's not an automatic W.
• flex prep is at best annoying and at worst cheating. if you start flex prepping i will yell at you and doc your speaker points.
• PLEASE READ THIS IF YOU WANT TO READ THEORY:I hear some kind of theory (mostly disclosure) at least once a tournament. I usually end up voting for theory not because the theory is done well, but because the other team does not answer it properly. I do like theory an unfortunate amount, but I would prefer to watch a good "substance" debate than a poor theory debate

LINCOLN DOUGLAS SPECIFIC THINGS:

• please read my policy and pf paradigms. they have important information about me and my judging

• of all the speech activities, i know about lincoln douglas the least. this can either be to your advantage or your detriment

• apparently theory matters to a lot of y'all a lot more in this activity than in policy. i got a high threshold for voting on any sort of theory that isn't condo, and even then you're in for the uphill battle of the century. i like theory debates generally, but watching LDers run theory like RVIs has killed my confidence in LD theory debate.

• 'i'm gonna take X minutes of prep' isn't needed. just say you're taking prep and take prep. i'll never understand LD or PF judges who act as if they are parents and y'all are 5 year olds asking for cookies after dinner; if you can figure out how tabroom works and how to unmute yourself, i'm pretty sure you can time your own prep.

• going fast does not mean you are good at debate, please don't rely on speed for ethos

• i hate disclosure theory and will prob vote neg 99.9% of the time (the .001% is for new affs or particularly bad answers). just put your stuff on the wiki, i genuinely don't understand why this is a debate to be had. just disclose. what year are you people living in.

things i don't care about:

- whether you keep your camera on or off (if you wanna lose free speaker points, that's up to you)

• speed. however, you should never be prioritizing speed over clarity.

hidden at the bottom: if you read the kato k and call it the "oppenheimer k" in the roadmap for the whole round i will give you a 30

neda-specific:

please use all your time. my bar for civility is much lower than most neda judges, so make of that what you will. please also use evidence.

I am a cardiologist in the Washington, DC area and I have no background in debate. I have been a parent judge for 5 years, so I do know some of the basic rules.

Please speak clearly and be respectful with asking and answering questions.

Keep your arguments generally socially acceptable.

I prefer probable arguments as opposed to farfetched arguments.I want to hear a good debate. Avoid repeating what others have said. Make sure you address previous speakers and expound on arguments.

At the end of the session, I have to rank you and that is difficult, so please talk to me when I am finished and not prior to that.

I'm a beginner volunteer judge with limited experience in debate. Experienced in Model United Nations conferences, respect towards each other is essential to me. There is no preference for how fast or slow you speak; I feel comfortable with both.

I prefer well-researched and convincing arguments with evidence and sources being objectively based, with limited usage of news sources, if possible. Lower emphasis will be placed on presentation or delivery; however, you should sound confident. Questions asked towards the opposing side should be respectful and not aggressive.

Besides that, I look forward to listening to fruitful arguments from both sides, learning and improving ourselves, and, most importantly, having fun!

Impact Calc.

Show me why your argument is better

I will vote for anything as long as it is explained

I like ethos inside of the debate

please say "next" in-between cards

do some kind of impact interaction

explain why I should vote

if all is done u should win

Have good document organization and sign posting

Jordanbranch91@gmail.com for email chains

Engineering grad and IT professional living in DC; I did PF in Virginia 2013-2017 and have been judging debate since 2018.

General:

1. Please pre-flow before round start time. I value keeping things moving along, and starting early if possible, so that the round does not go overtime.

2. I'm fine with speed, if you speak clearly and preferably provide a speech doc.

3a. Time yourself. When you run out of time, finish your sentence gracefully, on a strong note, and stop speaking.

3b. I will also time you. When you run out of time, I will make a hand gesture with my fist, then silently stop taking notes on my flow and wait for you to finish. I will cut you off if you are 30 seconds over time; if I cut you off, it means I didn't listen to anything you said for roughly the last 30 seconds.

4. I don't care if you sit or stand. Do whichever you prefer.

5. I am unlikely to vote on a K. I like hearing Ks, I think they're cool, I like when debaters deconstruct the format/topic/incentive structure of debate, I'm learning about them, but evaluating them as a voting issue is outside my comfort zone as a judge and I don't have the experience and confidence to evaluate Ks in a way that is consistent and fair.

6. I like case/evidence disclosure. It leads to better debates and better evidence ethics. When a team makes a pre-round disclosure of case/evidence or shares a rebuttal doc, I expect that the other team will reciprocate. I expect that you have an evidence doc and can quickly share any evidence the opposing team calls for. If you have not prepared to share your evidence, you should run prep to get your evidence doc together. I want rounds to proceed on schedule and will note it in RFD and speaks if a significant and preventable waste of time occurs in the round.

PF:

I vote on terminal impacts. Use your constructive to state and quantify impacts that I as a human can care about. I care exclusively about saving lives, reducing suffering and increasing happiness, in descending order of importance. Provide warrants and evidence for your claims, then extend your claims and impacts through to final focus. In final focus, weigh: tell me *how* you won in terms of the impacts I care about. You should also weigh to help me decide between impacts that are denominated in different units, for instance if one side impacts to poverty and the other side impacts to, idk, life expectancy, your job as debaters is to tell me why one of those is more important to vote on. If you both impact to the same thing, like extinction, make sure you are weighing the unique aspects of your case, like probability, timeframe, and solvency against the other side's case.

1. If you call a card and begin prepping while you wait to receive it, I will run your prep. Calling for evidence is not free prep.

2. Be nice to each other in cross; let the other person finish. Cut them off if they are monopolizing time.

3. If you want me to consider an argument when I vote, extend it all the way through final focus.

LD:

The way I vote in LD is different from how I vote in PF. In the most narrow sense, I vote for whichever team has the best impact on the value-criteron for the value that I buy into in-round.

This means you don't necessarily have to win on your own case's value or your own case's VC. Probably you will find it easier to link your impacts to your own value and VC, but you can also concede to your opponent's value and link into their VC better than they do, or delink your opponent's VC from their value, or show that your case supports a VC that better ties into their value.

Congress:

I don't judge Congress nearly enough to have an in-depth paradigm, but it happens now and then that I judge Congress, particularly for local tournaments and intramurals. I will typically give POs top-3 if they successfully follow procedure and hold the room together.

Ranking is more based on gut feeling but mainly I'm looking to evaluate: did you speak compellingly like you believe and care about the things you're saying, did you do good research to support your position, and did you take the initiative to speak, particularly when the room otherwise falls silent.

BQ:

I've never judged BQ before and have been researching the format, watching some rounds and bopping around Reddit for the last week or so to understand the rules and norms. Since I'm carrying some experience with other formats in, you should know I will flow all speeches, and only the speeches. I will give a lot of leeway to the debaters to determine the definitions and framing of the round, and expect them to clash over places where those definitions and framings are in conflict, and ultimately I will determine from that clash what definitions and framing I should adopt when signing my ballot.

Experience things:

Graduated from College Debate. 4 years NDT, 4 years NFA-LD, 4 years HS, coach HS CX too

He/Him

yes email chain, sirsam640@gmail.com

Please read an overview. Please. It will only help you and your speaks.

Speed is fine - please be clear

Tech over Truth always - the debaters make the argument, not what my preconceived notions of what is truthful/real arguments are.

1. I was frequently in policy v K rounds on both sides. At the 2022 NDT 8/8 rounds were K rounds for me, and 2023 2/8 were K rounds. I read a K aff with my partner one year, then an extinction aff the next year. I went for FW/cap the other half of the time. I am a clash judge and vote for K affs as much as I vote for FW versus them.

2. k affs justify why your model of debate is good impact turns to T are fine

3. 2nrs need a TVA (unless the aff just shouldn't exist under your model which is rare but can happen)

4. condo is good but fine voting that its bad

5. judge kick is probably bad, but if neg says its good and aff doesn't reply I'll judge kick

6. I went for impact turn 2NRs/1ARs a significant portion of my rounds

7. win that your reps are good affs

8. I think perms are a little bit underrated - they probably overcome the link and shield any residual risk.

9. Judging more and more I realize how awesome impact calc is in 2NR/2AR - I definitely think about debate in offense/defense paradigm and often vote for whoever's impact is bigger and accesses the other teams

Theory

CPs need a net benefit in order to win. The role of the neg is to disprove the aff, not just provide another alternative that also fixes the aff. "Solving better" isn't a net benefit. I have voted aff on CP solves 100% of the aff but 0% of net benefit.

PICs are good vs K affs. Pretty strong neg lean on this. It rewards good research.

Don't read death good in front of me.

T

I have come around a lot on T. I think that affs get away with too much in terms of being resolution-adjacent.

Competing interps > reasonability (as law school goes on, I am reverting back to reasonability. This is probably 55/45%ish)

Ground is probably the biggest impact in T debates IMO, I think specific links to affs is the largest internal link to good debates.

I think that community norms is very unpersuasive to me. I do not really care what the rest of the community thinks about T, I'm judging the round, not the community lol

PTIAV is silly but gotta have a decent answer to it.

Affs need to just have a large defense of "no ground loss" and "aff flex/innovation outweighs"

Likely the best way to win T in front of me regardless of side is to just impact out whatever you think is your strongest standard, and make it outweigh your opponents. I spend less time thinking about the specific definition of words and more time about what the models of debate look like (though if debaters tell me to evaluate interps in a specific way I will definitely spend time on it).

PF specific

You do you and I will evaluate to the best of my ability! Any questions feel free to ask pre-round!

You don't need to ask for x amount of prep, just take "running prep" unless you specifically want me to stop you when that time ends.

Last speech should start out with "you should vote aff in order to prevent structural violence which comes first in the round" or something like that. Write my ballot for me.

I find it very hard to vote on something that I don't understand, so while impacts matter a lot I need to understand the story of how we reach the impact

Hi! I'm Ricky (she/they) and I'm a third year at Cal Poly SLO majoring in Ethnic Studies. I was a Congress kid, so if I get put into another event for judging please keep that in mind :)

I am open to theory and things like Ks, the largest thing is just spreading for me. If you spread too fast I will have trouble keeping up but you don't have to talk super slow just be mindful.PLEASE GIVE ME A COPY OF YOUR CASE IF THIS IS PF/LD/CX, etc.If this is Speech/Congress PLEASEdon't use any cookie cutter speech openers like "My opponents arg is like a cone of cotton candy, it seems nice at first but when you take a closer look, it's fluff and no substance' plssss thats so corny lol.

Also if this is Congress, PLEASE CLASH! Clash is what makes the event fun and exciting to watch.If you PO more then likely you will be getting a 3-5.

Feel free to ask me any questions before the round!

Hi Debaters,

I am excited for being given the opportunity to judge the debate.

I will assess the debaters on the following aspects

1. Relevant point of proof/examples about the perspective

2. Logically reasoning on how the relevant point of proof builds up to the perspective

3. Engaging the other team of the opponent(s) with rationale and not dismissing their stand without detailed counter views

About the flow and pace of the debate, I would prefer if the debater can pace themselves and not try to rush through the content.

Thank You

My tip to winning my ballot: WEIGH WEIGH PLEASE GOD WEIGH

also collapse and extend please, write my ballot in final focus

I am in my second year competing in college APDA :)

theovdatta@gmail.com

I did some PF

Here is my full paradigm if you care to read it, otherwise just ask me questions before round

postrounding is good, do it if you feel the vibe is right

update on theory: I default reasonability and won't change that stance. I will not evaluate CIs>reasonability, so if you read theory, don't read it this part of meta-theory, and be prepared for some subjectivity in evaluation. 99% of the time, debates will still come down to who is winning the warrants/weighing, I just want the room to maneuver in RFD. Additionally, No RVIs doesn't mean you can drop offense on your opponent's CIs, so don't try to implicate it that way - I will not buy this implication.

update on communication: I won't STOP you from speaking to your partner while they are giving a speech, but please don't do it. I will dock speaks, and I have never seen it been done well enough to justify both the perceptual loss and the interruption in thought process. Just do what I did when my partner missed an argument – write it big on paper, and hold it up for them to see.

update on speed: I did a lot of debate and I can flow very well. With that being said, I will not flow off of the doc (I think its a bad norm). Take this advice as you will.

I have some judging experience, however, consider me a lay judge while making arguments. Speak at a reasonable speed in order to make your speech more comprehensible.

General

• I don't care if you sit or stand/wear formal clothes etc, all that doesn’t matter to me
• give trigger warnings- if another team does not feel comfortable with an argument, change it. you can argue whether trigger warnings are good/bad for debate/society, but don't proactively cause harm to someone else.
• The defense isn't sticky
• Flex prep is cool and tag team speeches/CX is fine with me
• absent any offense in the round, I'm presuming to neg on policy topics and first on "on balance" topics

Case

• Have fun. Do whatever you want to do.
• I prefer framing arguments to be read in case, i.e extinction/structural violence authors.

Rebuttal

• Offensive overviews in the second rebuttal are BS and as such, my threshold for responses will be lower
• I think you need to be the frontline in the second rebuttal but do whatever you want to do, however,
• Anything not responded to in the second rebuttal is regarded as conceded
• Turns that are conceded will have a 100% probability

Summary

• for an argument to be voteable, I want uniqueness/ link/ impact to be extended
• please extend warrants, I don't want to have a flood of blippy and unwarranted claims on my flow at the end of your summary
• this also goes for arguments that are conceded
• First summary
• The defense should be extended but I’ll give slightly more lenience to your side if extended in the final especially since the second-speaking team already had a chance to frontline it twice. However at this point, it’s probably not a terminal defense if it was originally, but it’ll at least mitigate their impact
• Second summary
• This is your side’s last chance to weigh, so if the weighing is not here then I will not evaluate any more weighing from your side
• The defense must also be extended

Final focus

• Just mirror summary, extend uniqueness, link, and impact.
• Don't make new implications on something that was never heard before, it’s annoying for me to go look back and see if you really said that, plus it’s just abusive

Cross

• Cross is binding, just bring it up in a speech though

Hi! I am a parent judge and this is my first time judging, so please be patient with me. I prefer that you speak slowly and don't spread. I also prefer that you have clear impacts and that you are constantly weighing them. Finally, as a beginner judge I am not too familiar with PF terms, so if you do use them please explain what it means to me first. Good luck at the tournament!

I have some judging experience, however, consider me a lay judge while making arguments. Speak at a resonable speed in order to make your speech more comprehensible.

General

• I don't care if you sit or stand/wear formal clothes etc., all that doesn’t matter to me.
• give trigger warnings- if another team does not feel comfortable with an argument, change it. you can argue whether trigger warnings are good/bad for debate/society, but don't proactively cause harm on someone else.
• defense isn't sticky.
• Flex prep is cool and tag team speeches/CX is fine with me.
• absent any offense in the round, I'm presuming neg on policy topics and first on "on balance" topics.

Case

• Have fun. Do whatever you want to do.
• I prefer framing arguments to be read in case, i.e., extinction/structural violence authors.

Rebuttal

• Offensive overviews in second rebuttal are BS and as such, my threshold for responses will be lower.
• I think you need to frontline in second rebuttal but do whatever you want to do, however,
• Anything not responded to in second rebuttal is regarded conceded.
• Turns that are conceded will have 100% probability.

Summary

• for an argument to be voteable I want uniqueness/ link/ impact to be extended
• please extend warrants, I don't want to have a flood of blimpy and unwarranted claims on my flow at the end of your summary.
• this also goes for arguments that are conceded.
• First summary
• Defense should be extended but I’ll give slightly more lenience to your side if extended in final especially since the second speaking team already had a chance to frontline it twice. However, at this point, it’s probably not terminal defense if it was originally, but it’ll at least mitigate their impact.
• Second summary
• This is your side’s last chance to weigh, so if the weighing is not here then I will not evaluate any more weighing from your side.
• Defense must also be extended.

Final focus

• Just mirror summary, extend uniqueness, link and impact.
• Don't make new implications on something that was never heard before, it’s annoying for me to go look back and see if you really said that, plus it’s just abusive.

Cross

• Cross is binding, just bring it up in a speech though.

General:

I am a lay judge. I do follow the flow, but I don't judge exclusively on that;

You may sit or stand to present but both teams will do the same. If the room is cramped, it’s better you stay in your seat;

If you are going to speak quickly, your elocution needs to be good enough for me to understand you;

I do not run a clock on time, track your own time and keep your opponents honest about theirs;

If you are relying on an electronic device to make your speeches and it goes down, I will run your prep time until it is corrected. If you run out of time, I expect you to continue without it. If you can’t, I will consider that a forfeit;

I have a thorough knowledge of statistics so making arguments that go off the deep end (speculative) or citing sources with a statistically insignificant sample size, or "cherry-picked" data or conclusions will diminish the impact of your card.

Misrepresenting cards will cost you, whether done intentionally or not;

You may use an off-time road map to state the sequence of your argument but do not use it to make your case.

About me:

I have an engineering background and work in the heavy construction industry. I am swayed by facts, data, logic, and reason and do my best to avoid emotion in decisions at it mostly leads to failure or disaster in the realm of the physical sciences where I work.

My hobbies include history, particularly military history, automobiles, woodworking, outdoor sports, and evolutionary behavior/genetics.

Experience

I have been judging debate in multiple formats for last 1 year. I have judged tournaments around the globe and have been judging Multiple WSDC, PF and LD and Policy tournaments at the school level.

Let me lay down a few general guidelines, which also broadly applicable to other debate formats as well

General

• Debate is a game so tech>truth (Your tech should be solid though, merely asserting something does not mean it's tech.)
• Speed: Try to speak at a reasonable speed, I do not need a lot of background and information, emphasize on important reasonings in your argument and that should be enough. Also, the faster you go the more likely I am to miss something, so do that at your own risk
• If you want to concede should be conceded in the speech immediately after it was originally read
• a concession requires an implication of how the defense interacts with your argument not just "we concede to the delinks"
• I don't care if you sit or stand/wear formal clothes etc, all that doesn’t matter to me
• give trigger warnings- if another team does not feel comfortable with an argument, change it. you can argue whether trigger warnings are good/bad for debate/society, but don't proactively cause harm on someone else.
• defense isnt sticky

Case

• Have fun. Do whatever you want to do
• I prefer framing arguments to be read in case, i.e extinction/structural violence authors.

Rebuttal

• I think you need to frontline in second rebuttal but do whatever you want to do, however,
• Anything not responded to in second rebuttal is regarded conceded
• Turns that are conceded will have 100% probability

Summary

• Caveat on turns. I believe that If you extend a link turn on their case, you must also make the delineation of what the impact of that turn is otherwise I don't really know what the point of the turn is.
• case offense/ turns should be extended by author name, you'll probably get higher speaks if you do, it's a lot clearer for me
• do- “Extend our jones evidence which says that extensions like these are good because they're easier to follow"
• Dont do "extend our link"
• for an argument to be voteable I want uniqueness/ link/ impact to be extended
• please extend warrants, I don't want to have a flood of blippy and unwarranted claims on my flow at the end of your summary
• this also goes for arguments that are conceded
• First summary
• Defense should be extended but I’ll give slightly more lenience to your side if extended in final especially since the second speaking team already had a chance to frontline it twice. However at this point, it’s probably not terminal defense if it was originally, but it’ll at least mitigate their impact
• Second summary
• This is your side’s last chance to weigh, so if the weighing is not here then I will not evaluate any more weighing from your side
• Defense must also be extended

Final focus

• Just mirror summary, extend uniqueness, link and impact.
• Don't make new implications on something that was never heard before, it’s annoying for me to go look back and see if you really said that, plus it’s just abusive

Cross

• Cross is binding, just bring it up in a speech though

Evidence

• I know how bad evidence ethics are, however, I will only call for evidence if the other team tells me to call for it
• If your opponents are just blatantly lying about a piece of evidence, call it out in speech and implicate what it means for their argument
• I’ve always been a firm believer that a good analytic with a good warrant beats a great empiric with no warrant. Use that to your advantage
• You’ll have a minute to pull the evidence your opponents called for before your speaks start getting docked
• Exception- the wifi is bad/something is paywalled and you have to go around it

Background - PhD in science and engineering (materials, chemical)

Debate judge for a few years - judged middle school and high school debates

I will flow the round

For me:

tech > truth

clear/structured > compiling/spreading

cards/logic reasoning > buzz words/waving hands

Public speaking > screen reading

Respect to other team > aggressive

Get permission first > say sorry later

I value clear and concise arguments and responses with strong cards or logic reasoning. Compiling/spreading is not encouraged.

If your opponent wins one link in a link chain, then you can not use your impact. Make sure that the links are for your side in order for your impact to stand.

Make sure that your impacts are clearly stated. I do not want to guess what your impact is. Tell me what it is clearly.

If you give me a framework, tell me why the framework should be there. Explain why the framework works in the resolution and why the framework will benefit the round.

I will not view what you say in cross-fire for the actual debate unless the point is brought up in speeches.

In rebuttal, if you are planning to respond, give me clear signposting on what your response is. Don't just repeat your contentions again as that is not responding to what your opponent is saying.

Make sure you extend your contentions throughout the debate. In summary, you should extend your contentions and collapse if you want. I want weighing in summary on the impacts. Tell me why your impact is more important than the opponents' impact.

I value probability > magnitude and scope. If something will not happen, then there is no magnitude or scope. Make sure you prove that your impact has a probable chance.

I want voting issues in final focus to help me understand your main arguments. Tell me what is important in final focus so I know what to judge off of.

General

• Because argumentation is a game, technology trumps facts.
  Speed: Please keep your conversation contained and talk at a normal pace. You should know that the quicker you run, the more likely I am to miss anything.
  Any surrendered defence must be made within the speech itself, just after it was read.
  Instead than merely saying "we agree to the delinks," a concession should imply how the defence interacts with your argument.
  Provide trigger warnings; if another team does not feel comfortable with an argument, adjust it. I don't care whether you sit or stand, wear professional attire, or anything else. You are free to discuss the merits of trigger warnings for discourse and society, but you should not intentionally damage another person.
  The defence isn't cohesive.
  Tag-teaming speeches/CX and flex preparation are ok by me.
  I'm going to assume a negative vote on policy items and a first place vote on "on balance" topics until shown otherwise in the round.

  Case

  Be merry. Just do what you want.
  Authors that frame their arguments in terms of a case study (like those who write on extinction or systemic violence) have my undivided attention.

  Rebuttal

  As such, I shall have a lower bar for responding to the offensive overarching arguments included in the second reply.
  I believe it's important to make a strong showing in the second rebuttal, but you may use whatever approach you choose there.
  The odds of a conceded turn are always one hundred percent.

  Summary

  There's a catch with the twists and turns. If you extend a link turn on their case, as my buddy Caden Day and I both feel you should, you should also make the delineation of what the effect of that turn is, otherwise I don't understand what the goal of the turn is.
  It would be much easier for me to follow the argument if you listed case offences and turns in order of author. Don't state "extend our link" if you want your argument to be upvotable: "Expand our jones evidence which suggests that extensions like this are beneficial since they are simpler to follow." I want amplification of originality/connection/impact.
  Do not finish your summary with a barrage of shaky, unreasonable statements; this includes arguments that have already been acknowledged.
  Initial Synopsis
  The defence should be pushed back, but if you push it back in the last round, I'll be a little easier on your side. This is particularly true given that the non-native speakers have had two opportunities to address the issue. Nevertheless, it is not a fatal defence at this stage, and it will at least lessen their effect.
  Second Synopsis
  In the event that the weight is not present at this time, I shall not consider any further weighing from your side.
  Defenses need to be made more expansive.

  Final Focus

  Simple repetition; emphasise originality; increase relevance and effect.
  Don't imply meaning where none exists; It is not feasible to check to see if I misheard, and it wastes my time.

  Cross

  The cross is persuasive, but only if mentioned in public.

  Evidence

  Notwithstanding my awareness of the problematic nature of evidence ethics, I will only request evidence if the other side requests it of me.
  If your opponents are deliberately misrepresenting evidence, you should address the issue head-on in your argument.
  A excellent analytic with a decent warrant, in my opinion, is superior than a fantastic empiric with no warrant. Put it to good use
  You have one minute to provide the proof your opponents have demanded before your speaking points begin to be deducted.
  The only exception is if the wifi is terrible or if you need to bypass a paywall.

Email: jfang775@gmail.com

Pronouns: (he/him)

Former national circuit/varsity policy debater 2 years in college, 4 in high school (TOC twice) (2009-2014). Fast or lay debate, read whatever you want.

Some general thoughts: I first and foremost value the strength of internal links. One, strong cohesive narrative about your case, standards, etc. will go much further than having six different questionable "space colonization saves humankind" add-ons in your 2AR.

Kritiks: do your thing. Alts are nice.

Theory: Topicality, conditionality, general theory arguments are good. HOWEVER, please don't spread theory at full speed. I don't know of a single person that can catch blippy theory arguments at 300 wpm. Slowing down will benefit everyone. And be clear. I've seen a tendency for NC's and 1ARs to read theory shells at the same speed as a card with a short tag. Please do not do this. If you're spending prep or CX asking for clarification on warrants for standards, it's likely the judge missed it as well. If I miss your esoteric 2-liner that ends up being 3 minutes of "drop the debater" in the NR, and I don't vote on it, I'm not sorry.

Condo is probably not great for real world education and a potential voting issue in my book. That being said, you need to win it on the flow. For LD, 1AR gets theory. Topicality is a procedural question. If you read a critical aff and impact turn switch-side debate or T, then the above does not apply.

If you have any specific questions, ask. Also check out Tim Alderete's paradigm. Pretty good reflection of my thoughts on theory as well.

Argument Extensions: tag + warrant. You will find more success with: tag + warrant + why your warrant is better than the other team's warrant. Not answering an argument on the line-by-line does not immediately equate to a dropped argument. Embedded clash exists. Do not take this as an excuse to do everything in the overview or egregiously group arguments.

Risk/Impact Calc: Politics disads generally have weak internal links. Extinction level claims...also a bit hard to win with adequate impact defense. I'm more willing than most to vote on zero risk of an impact scenario if you're warranting and engaging in the nuance of the internal link/impact defense debate. Many traditional extinction impacts are stretched and I think pretending that economic recession leads to nuclear war is bad scholarship. BUT you need to win that on the flow. Comparative analysis is the name of the game. My professional job is in risk management, so articulate likelihood versus impact well and we'll be friends.

^^^ all of this being said, huge fan of impact turn debates.

^^^^ that being said, if you try and impact turn racism or sexism or something blatantly offensive, you will lose.

Congress: I like to see that you know the game of Congress so if I can tell that you're strategizing (internally, with others in the room, with teammates) I'm gonna be happy. I like debaters that debate. Sounding pretty is good but giving rebuttals and avoiding giving constructive speeches in the middle of the legislation are even better. You should have enough evidence or common sense to speak on either side of the legislation at any point, wasting recesses to write speeches or chide others for not being ready (while you're not offering to speak either) will be criticized.

Public Forum: Give me voters in summary and final focus or give me death! I am a logic-chain judge; if your arguments require me to suspend disbelief or ignore reality then expect them to be dropped from the flow. Behavior within the round matters just as much as performance so please do not be rude to your partner or competitors and try to maintain professionalism for the sake of an efficient round. Speeches that matter the most to me are rebuttals so an organized rebuttal that responds to as much of the competitors case as possible will positively impact my vote overall.

Policy @ Northwood -> UCLA '26 (Environmental Science/Conservation Biology)

Email Chain - alexfu004@gmail.com

LD and PF paradigm at bottom

TL;DR

Debate is a game, do impact calc, I'm more familiar with Policy strats, clipping is bad, and clarity on analytics is important. Tech determines Truth.

F'23 Update: I'm only vaguely familiar with the topic (~15 rounds judged) so if you start using fancy econ jargon I might get lost, please slow down on analytics, especially in the T debate.

General

Don't be a bad person, you've seen it on other paradigms, no racism/sexism/homophobia/transphobia, etc.

DA/CP

I love them! Your disads should be specific to the aff, but generic links are ok too if you can spin it well enough. Condo is probably good, int'l/private/object fiat is probably bad. I mainly read process counterplans and states in high school so make of that what you will.

K

I'm pretty familiar with a few Ks but don't go for that many of them, barring things like Cap and Security. Case specific links would be great! The Aff should explain the perms instead of just throwing them out there, at least by the 1ar but preferably in the 2ac. I'll treat framework like an impact debate, but I tend to lean weighing the aff.

Ks I'm more familiar with: Cap, Berlant/Suffering, Yellow Peril/Orientalism, Security, Militarism

Ks I'm less familiar with: Deleuze, Bataille, "pomo"-esque Ks (with reason)

T

I'll vote on it, but I'm persuaded by reasonability more than other judges. The neg needs to win a clear instance of abuse beyond just "it's what they justify," and the Aff ideally should have specific reasons why the counterinterpretation resolves or turns neg offense.

Nontraditional Affs

I have very limited experience with reading K affs (maybe 2 or 3 times), but I'm receptive to them. I think that having a stasis is necessary for debate, and I think that fairness is good, whatever fairness means. That said, I do think that K Affs can provide unique educational value, and if the Aff can prove their aff is important to talk about certain issues I can still buy it. Framework is probably your best 2NR against K Affs, I went for education and movements mainly in my junior and senior year in high school but I can be persuaded to vote on fairness as well.

Theory

Reject the arg, not the team is persuasive in almost every case, condo aside. I lean neg on condo; I can be persuaded otherwise, but it's an uphill battle for the aff to win on it. International and Object fiat are probably illegitimate, and require more work to be done on theory if you want to win on them as the neg.

Speaks

• being creative, strategic
• clarity, especially when spreading through analytics
• efficiency between speeches, sending out docs, etc
• if you're funny
• clear signposting!
• i was inspired by another judge but please get me food (+0.1? speaks) (but dont bankrupt yourself it's not worth it) (better to just speak better probably)

LD

I'll judge it like I judge a policy round, and I'm not familiar with a lot of LD theory. I'll try to adapt but please exercise discretion.

Public Forum

I used to do PF, don't worry about having to adapt too hard

Everything above applies, don't spread if your opponent is not okay with it though. Don't read policy-esque arguments just because you can, PF probably should be a bit more accessible. I'm more receptive to Ks than most PF judges, but don't read incomplete arguments i.e. a K without an alt just because PF doesn't have advocacies.

julianvgagnon@gmail.com please add me to email chains

from planet debate-

this is difficult for me b/c i'm not sure i have A judging philosophy but I do have many different ideas about and for debate...some inconsistent. that being said i don't want what i think about debate to totally dictate what debaters decide to do in rounds.

topicality- generally don't like it. I find no abuse args to be really persuasive. Since I like critical arguments so much I think you can usually find ground in any debate. i don't like the competing interpretations framework very much. i find the "that limits out any aff" arg to be persuasive. but i will vote on that framework and topicality if left unchallenged. in a good topicality debate on competeing interp vs an ok no abuse arg i'll USUALLY vote aff.

cp- like em. with a critical nb even better. i think i'm a fair judge for these debates. aff theory args generally not persuasive unless unchallenged. very similar to topicality in this regards.

das- great. a lot of people are now struggling with the we control the uniqueness = a risk vs. we got d/risk of turn. i don't think the aff has to have offense to win a da but i do find in a lot of debates that with only defense it hurts the aff a bunch. especially when the neg has a cp. but i tend to weight the da first in terms of probability and then magnitude.

critical args- love em. these are the debates i find the most interesting. i'm willing to listen to virtually any way the neg wants to present them. method. alternative. text no text. don't care. case turn. obviously it's the neg's burden to provide some way to evaluate their "framework" but in terms of theory i think they are all pretty much legit. args are args and it's the other teams responsibility to answer them.

others- i like to see people be nice to each other in debate rounds. some people may say i intervene sometimes. it's true but let me provide context. if you go for you mis-spelled (jk) a word in your plan and you should lose and your winning the arg but the other team says this is stupid...we'll i'm persuaded. you just wasted a bunch of peoples time. another thing. DON'T RUN MALTHUS IN FRONT OF ME- DOESN'T MATTER IF IT RIGHTS OR NOT. i won't flow it. i think that while debate is a game we still have a responsibility to "speak truth to power". discourse is very important. definately co-constitutes with reality. this may be why i'm starting/have been hating the politics debate for the last year and a half. but hey, like i said before, i'm full of inconsistancies b/c sometimes you just don't have another arg in the box to go for. i'm sympathetic to this. especially in high school debate. i still research it for the hs topic and coach my kids to go for it.


from debateresults...

Debate is a game- i have a lot of ideas about how the game should be played but in the absence of teams making those arguments i won't default to them. i think debate should make the rules of the game and provide a framework for how i should evaulte the debate. i'm not a big fan of some arguments...like malthus in particular...but also theory arguments in general. these debates generally happen faster then my mind and pen can handle. ive judged a lot although i haven't much this year on the china topic. some people may think i have a bias towards critical arguments, and while this is true to some degree (i generally find them more intersting than other debates), it also means i have higher standards when it comes to these debates. yeah imagine that, me with high standards.

Mike Girouard

Years involved in debate: 20+ (policy 20+years, PF 7yrs, LD 7yrs)

Coached at Baylor, Kansas State, U of Rochester, The New School, Augustana College, The Asian Debate League and several High Schools - Debated at Univ of North Texas

I hate people who try to pigeon-hole judges into fitting a particular mold or label them as hacks that only vote for certain args or certain types of arguments. That being said I would say that I feel as though I can judge and evaluate any kind of debate that you want to have. I have some feeling about args and I will discuss those more in detail below, but it’s important to keep in mind that when you debate in front of me you should be comfortable in yourself and your arg and you should be fine. Have the debate that you want to have, because in the end that will make it more enjoyable and educational for everyone involved.

One last caveat, as this year has progressed and with the transition to paperless debate I find myself calling for less and less evidence after the round. I feel as though you should be doing the debating in the round. If it is a question of what the card says or doesn’t say I will probably call for the evidence, but don’t expect me to piece together your argument by reading all of your evidence after the round. I feel as though this does a disservice to a team that is at least attempting to do the argumentation on the line-by-line.

Prep Time – my default is that prep time should stop when the other team is flashing their evid. That being said if there is blatant disregard for this or abusing of this I will revert to prep-time not ending till after the speech has been flashed and given to the opponents. Before this does occur I will say something in the round.

CP’s – I love a good PIC. I think it should be the burden of the Aff to defend every aspect of the plan and should have some defense of including it in the plan. I really don’t like to vote on theory, but I will if that is what you want the debate to be about. As far as perms go, use them as you like. Just justify your theory and your fine. If you are going for a CP in front of me keep a few things in mind: it must have a net benefit and some sort of DA to the perm, it doesn’t necessarily have to solve for all of the Aff, but you need to have something to answer the portions that you don’t solve for, you can have a critical net benefit if you like, just explain how it functions in relationship to the Aff and the advocacy of the CP.

DA’s – Not really a whole lot to say here. I like U cards to have some sort of a warrant. Debate the warrants in the round and don’t make me have to evaluate 15+ U cards to help settle that debate. I would prefer fewer cards with more warrants to help settle this problem. Make sure you are giving me some sort of impact calc in the last few speeches and weighing all the potential outcomes of the impacts (i.e. – even, if statements). If the aff reads a K of your impacts you have to justify them or you will probably lose that argument. I prefer scenarios with fewer and more warranted internal links as to avoid the proliferation of outlandish impact scenarios. Make sure there is a solid link and you are weighing everything in the last few speeches and you should be fine.

The K – I am open to most K’s. I don’t believe that Realism/Framework is the end all answer to the K. Try engaging in the arguments that are being run and you have a better chance of picking up the ballot in front of me. Arguments that question your representations or epistemological starting point are best answered by providing an offensive justification for your reps or your starting point. Just make sure you are explaining how you want me to evaluate your K in relationship to the Aff. What are the impacts, what are the implications, do you have an alt, and what is the link. Make sure all of these things are in the debate and you will be fine. I do find that most people don’t answer one fundamental question in these types of rounds: What is the role of the critic? Just answer or at least recognize that these questions exist and you should be alright.

Topicality – My default is that this debate should be about competing interpretations. You should attempt to answer the question: which interpretation is better for both this debate round and the community as a whole. This being said, if you don’t want me to evaluate it based on competing interpretations just make the arg and justify it with warranted args and you should be fine. If you are going for T in front of me you probably need to spend a little bit of time on it in the 2NR. I’m not saying that you have to go for T and nothing else, but I think it’s an arg that requires a little bit of time for you to adequately go for it. Things I look for in a T debate: Clear distinction between interpretations, warranted reasons for why your interp is better as well as why the other interp is bad, and the impact these have on not only the round but the community at large.

Theory – Not a big theory hack, but will vote on it from time to time, especially in instances of clear articulated in round abuse. Just make sure you are giving warranted reasons why your theory is legit, the specific abuse that has occurred and the impact of them being allowed to do what they did. That being said, theory should be more than just a whine, engage their args and make sure that you are at least answering their args. If you expect for me to vote on theory you should devote some time to it in the last couple of speeches.

Performance – I’m fine with different styles of debate. There are instances where you can ask me to not flow or be so “flogo-centric” and assuming there is a warranted reason why this is legit I will be alright. A few things to keep in mind if you do chose to do this in front of me: why is your method better than what exists now? why should it be preferred and what are the larger implications on the debate community? Just make sure you are attempting to at least perceptually engage the other teams args and you will be fine.

Black Lives Matter

add me to the email chain : aysiagrey@gmail.com

I have some judging experience, however, consider me a lay judge while making arguments. Speak at a reasonable speed in order to make your speech more comprehensible.

General

• I don't care if you sit or stand/wear formal clothes etc, all that doesn’t matter to me
• give trigger warnings- if another team does not feel comfortable with an argument, change it. you can argue whether trigger warnings are good/bad for debate/society, but don't proactively cause harm on someone else.
• defence isn't sticky
• Flex prep is cool and tag team speeches/CX is fine with me
• absent any offence in the round, I'm presuming to neg on policy topics and first on "on balance" topics

Case

• Have fun. Do whatever you want to do
• I prefer framing arguments to be read in case, i.e extinction/structural violence authors.

Rebuttal

• Offensive overviews in the second rebuttal are BS and as such, my threshold for responses will be lower
• I think you need to be the frontline in the second rebuttal but do whatever you want to do, however,
• Anything not responded to in the second rebuttal is regarded as conceded
• Turns that are conceded will have a 100% probability

Summary

• for an argument to be voteable, I want uniqueness/ link/ impact to be extended
• please extend warrants, I don't want to have a flood of blippy and unwarranted claims on my flow at the end of your summary
• this also goes for arguments that are conceded
• First summary
• The defence should be extended but I’ll give slightly more lenience to your side if developed in the final especially since the second-speaking team already had a chance to frontline it twice. However at this point, it’s probably not a terminal defence if it was originally, but it’ll at least mitigate their impact
• Second summary
• This is your side’s last chance to weigh, so if the weighing is not here then I will not evaluate any more weighing from your side
• The defence must also be extended

Final focus

• Just mirror summary, extend uniqueness, link and impact.
• Don't make new implications on something that was never heard before, it’s annoying for me to look back and see if you really said that, plus it’s just abusive

Cross

• Cross is binding, just bring it up in a speech though

Sherry Hall, Harvard, Judging Philosophy, East Region
Judged multiple College rounds this year.

Please add me to the doc chain: hallsherry2@gmail.com

I view my role as a debate judge as a "critic of argument." This means that I think the closest analogy to what I do when I judge rounds, is to act as an educator grading a class presentation. But Collegiate debate is not just an educational activity, it is also a competitive activity. Therefore, the judge has the additional role of acting as a "referee" or official who keeps time, and resolves disputes over the "rules". In resolving debates that focus on the "rules" - is topicality a voting issue, are PICs legitimate, must the negative provide an alternative - I tend to evaluate those questions based on the impact that they have on education and competitive equity.

I consider clash against the opponent’s ideas as one of the most important standards by which to evaluate whether or not a particular argument or practice is “good” or “bad” for debate. I do think that for the activity to continue to progress, creativity in arguments and debating styles is a good thing that should be encouraged. I also think that teams which are employing innovations, such as a “performance is all that matters” strategy, will do better with me if the debaters can isolate what standards I should use to evaluate rounds in this new way, and/or what ground is left to the other team. A strategy or performance that leaves nothing for the other team to respond to undermines the goal of competitive equity.

I have a few theoretical preferences, though none is so strong that I cannot be convinced to set it aside despite the arguments in the round. I will list some of these preferences, but the debaters should keep in mind, that these issues still need to be argued, and the side that plays into my preferences, still needs to articulate the reasons why a particular argument should be accepted or rejected.
1. I strongly believe that if asked, the affirmative must specify who does the plan. The fact that the topic does not lock the affirmative into a particular actor, means that the affirmative gets to choose. The whole purpose of having a debate where the negative can clash meaningfully with the affirmative case is lost, if the affirmative can say what their plan does after they have heard the negative strategy.
2. Almost all negative teams these days reflexively declare that the counterplan is conditional. I have seen many rounds this year where that unthinking choice has cost the neg the round. If you have a legitimate reason for your arguments to be conditional and you are prepared to defend it, go for it, but I think it is a bad idea to say that your arguments are conditional when they don’t need to be – you just open yourself up to more ways to lose. My preference is against conditionality. For the same reason that I think the affirmative has to say what their plan does for the negative to meaningfully clash with that plan, the affirmative needs to know what their plan and case is being compared to, in order to effectively clash with the negative’s arguments. It is not enough that the negative will pick one strategy by the end of the round, because too much time has been wasted on arguments that are irrelevant. More importantly, the presence of a counterplan in the round changes how the affirmative answers disadvantages and case arguments. If the negative can drop the counterplan later in the round, the affirmative cannot go back and re-give the 2AC. I think that the debate is better if both sides clearly stake out their ground and their positions from the beginning and the rest of the debate focuses on which is better.

3. I have a mixed voting record in "race" and "identity" debates. I am open to the arguments that they deserve a place in debate. However, I am not familiar with a lot of the literature, and I can therefore feel a little lost understanding some of the vernacular. It is better to explain arguments rather than to rely on terms that I am unfamiliar with. I prefer arguments that have some nexus to the topic or the other team's arguments for the reasons I outlined above when discussing my feelings on clash.

In addition to the theoretical preferences, I do have some views regarding decorum in the round.
1. As I mentioned above, I view myself as an educator and consider the debate round to be a “learning environment”. I believe that both basic civil rights law, as articulated in the 1964 Civil Rights Act and subsequent state laws, as well as basic ethics requires that debaters and judges conduct themselves in rounds in a manner that protects the rights of all participants to an environment free of racial/sexual hostility or harassment. I am inclined to disallow language and performances that would be considered harassment in a regular class-room setting. I have no problem with discussions that include sexual issues, but if the incorporation of pornography, sexual simulation, sexual threats against the other team, nudity, etc., creates a hostile environment for the other participants in the round, then it should not be presented. If you think your debate performance potentially crosses the line and could constitute sexual and/or racial harassment, your safest bet is to warn the other team before the round and ask if they have any objections. I consider a request from the opposing team or me to not use explicit language/material/performance to be a signal of their/my discomfort and deserving of your respect. I view the intentional decision to create a hostile environment without respecting the feelings of the opposing team to be an unethical practice that will be treated the same way as other ethical violations such as fabricating evidence – loss and zero speaker points.
2. I detest rudeness, especially in cross-examination, or in comments directed at one’s opponents.

email: colter.heirigs@gmail.com

POLICY PARADIGM:

I have been coaching Policy Debate full time since 2014. Arms sales is my 7th year of coaching.

I view my primary objective in evaluating the round to be coming to a decision that requires the least “judge intervention.”

If debaters do not give me instructions on how to evaluate the debate, and/or leave portions of the debate unresolved, they should not expect to get my ballot. My decision will end up being arbitrary, and (while I will likely still try to make my arbitrary decision less arbitrary than not) I will not feel bad.

In the final rebuttals, debaters should be giving me a “big picture” assessment of what’s going on in the debate to give them the best chance to get my ballot. Extending 25 arguments in the rebuttals doesn’t do much for me if you’re not explaining how they interact with the other team’s arguments and/or why they mean you win the round. In my ideal debate round, both 2NR and 2AR have given me at least a 45 second overview explaining why they’ve won the debate where they dictate the first paragraph of my ballot for me.

Important things to note:

-I don’t ever think Topicality is an RVI (*this is distinct from kritiks of the neg’s interp/use of topicality*)

-If you don’t signpost AND slow down for tags, assume that I am missing at least 50% of your tags. This means saying a number or a letter or “AND” or “NEXT” prior to the tag of your card, and preferably telling me which of your opponents arguments I should flow it next to. Speech docs are not substitutes for clarity and signposting.

-I'm probably a 7 on speed, but please see above ^^^^

-High-theory will be an uphill battle.

-I would prefer not to call for cards, I believe it’s the debaters job to clearly communicate their arguments; if you tell me they’re misrepresenting their cards – I will probably call for them. But if I call for it and they’re not misrepresenting their evidence you’ll lose a lot of credibility with me and my cognitive biases will likely run amuck. Don’t let this deter you from calling out bad evidence.

-You can win the line-by-line debate in the 2AR but still lose the debate if you fail to explain what any of it means and especially how it interacts with the 2NR's args.

-Don’t assume I have any familiarity with your Acronyms, Aff, or K literature

-Swearing is probably word inefficient

-You’re in a bad spot if you’re reading new cards in the final rebuttals, very low propensity for me to evaluate them

-CPs that result in the aff are typically going to be a very hard sell, so are most other artificially competitive CPs. Perms are cool, so are time tradeoffs for the aff when this happens. If you really think you've got a sick techy CP make sure to go out of your way to win questions of competition/superior solvency / a specific link to the aff plan alone for your NB

-I think debate is a competition.

-the best “framework” arguments are probably “Topicality” arguments and almost probably don’t rely on cards from debate coaches and definitely don’t rely on me reading them after the round

-Impact everything out... Offense and Defense... I want to hear you telling me why your argument is more pressing and important than the other team's. I hate having to intervene... "Magnitude," "Probability," and "Timeframe" are not obscenities, please use them.

Arguments you shouldn’t waste your time on with me:

-Topicality = RVI (*this is distinct from kritiks of the neg’s interp/use of topicality*)

-Consult CPs

I am going to have the easiest time evaluating rounds where:

-warrant and evidence comparison is made

-weighing mechanisms and impact calculus guiding how I evaluate micro & macro level args are utilized

-the aff advocates a topical plan

-the DA turns and Outweighs the Case, or the CP solves most of the case and there's a clear net benefit that the perm doesn't solve for

-the negative has a well-researched neg strategy

-I am not expected to sort through high-theory

-the 2NR/2AR doesn't go for everything and makes strategic argument selection

Presumptions I bring into the round that probably cannot be changed:

-I’m voting Neg on presumption until the aff reads the 1AC

-Topicality is never an RVI (*this is distinct from kritiks of the neg’s interp/use of topicality*)

-There is no 3NR

-Oppression of humans = bad (note: I do not know how this compares to the end of the planet/human race, debaters are going to have to provide weighing mechanisms for me.)

-Earth existing = good (note: I do not know how this compares to other impacts like oppression of humans, debaters are going to have to provide some weighing mechanisms for me.)

-I will have a very difficult time bringing myself to vote for any sort of Consult CP if the aff even mumbles some type of “PERM”

-Once the 2AC perms, presumption goes to the neg to prove the perm unworkable or undesirable if the CP/Alt is not textually/functionally competitive

Unimportant things to note:

-Plz read your plan before you read solvency – I will be annoyed and lost if you don’t

-I really enjoy author indicts if/when they’re specific – it shows a team has worked hard and done their research

-I really enjoy case specific strategies – I enjoy it when a team can demonstrate that they've worked hard to prepare a case specific strategy

-I enjoy GOOD topicality debates

-I’ve been involved in policy debate in some capacity for 11 years now – Education is my 5th topic coaching.

-I put my heart and soul into policy debate for four years on high school. I worked tirelessly to put out specific strategies for specific affirmatives and I like to see debaters who I can tell have done the same and are having fun. So, show me you know your case better than anyone else if you're affirmative, or on the neg, show me specific links and answers to the affirmative... I tend to reward this in speaker points. ...That being said, generics are fun, fine, and essential for the negative team. Feel free to run them, you will not be penalized in any way.

Specific Arguments

I'm good for just about anything that is well debated: T, Theory, DAs, CPs, Ks... I can even be persuaded to vote solely on inherency if it is well debated - if the plan has literally already happened, for the love of god please punish the aff.

That being said, I enjoy seeing a strategy in argument selection, and appreciate when arguments don't blatantly contradict each other (i.e. the DA linking to the CP, or Cap Bad and an Econ Impact on politics). Especially in the 2NR.

********************************************************

LD Paradigm

I am pretty tab when it comes to LD. My goal is to reach a decision that requires the least amount of judge intervention.

Signpost and slow down on tags. Slow down even more for theory args. Spreading through tags and theory interps is absolutely not the move if you want me to be flowing your speech. I will not be flowing from the doc.

Slow down. No, you don’t have to be slow and you should certainly feel free to read the body of your cards at whatever max speed you are comprehensible at. If you’ve used signposting, slowed down on tags and pre-written analytics, you’re golden. It's inexcusable and unforgivable to not have signposting in the 1ac.

I come into the round presuming:

-the aff should be defending the resolution

-the aff is defending the entirety of the resolution

-my ballot answers the resolutional question

-debate is a game

These presumptions can likely be changed.

Stylistically agnostic, but probably not your best judge for:

-dense phil that you’re spreading through

-undisclosed affs that don’t defend the entirety of the resolution

-process CPs that result in the aff

-more than 2 condo

-friv theory - I ❤️ substance

-Probably not interested in hearing condo if it’s just 2 condo positions

-theory interps that require me to ignore other speeches

I think that I have a low propensity to vote for most arguments regarding things that happen outside of the round or prior to the 1ac. I am not interested in adjudicating arguments that rely on screenshots of chats, wikis, or discord servers.

Questions, or interested in my thoughts on particular subjects not covered in my LD paradigm? Check out my POLICY PARADIGM above!

Public Forum Paradigm:

First speakers get to ask the first question in crossfire. If you ask about the status of this in round, expect to get one less speakerpoint than you would have otherwise.

File Share > e-mail chain.

Depth > Breadth. You only have four minutes to construct your position, would far prefer to hear 2 well-developed contentions rather than 3-4 blippy ones unless they are incredibly straight-forward. Much less interested in adjudicating “argument checkers” than most.

I have never been on a debate team before, but I enjoyed watching debate tournaments in the past. I am very open minded about any topics. I think what makes debate fascinating is always how people may see the same thing from different angles. So every time after I watched a debate tournament, I feel I am so refreshed with my own views on the very same topic. I personally like clear and calm verbal expressions over some speedy speech in a very fast pace that potentially increase heart beats of audiences. But overall, I sincerely wish everyone enjoys debating. There are no winning or losing in the tournament, you are always becoming a better yourself after each tournament. Have fun!

Hello there!

My name is Idris Ibrahim, and my judging career which spans for over four years has seen me muster up a significant amount of experience in a wide range of debate formats/styles such as; the British Parliamentary Format, World Schools Format, World Scholars Format, Public Forum, Lincoln-Douglas, Asian Parliamentary, and Speech Events.

Judging Pattern:

I always approach any debate I'm about to judge as a globally informed citizen, whilst making sure I toss any conceivable personal biases I may have about a topic aside. This means that to convince me in a debate room you must make sure your arguments are credibly realistic and persuasive within the scope of the debate. A couple of things to bear in mind about my judging pattern -

• State your contentions/arguments clearly and back them up with enough analysis to prove your case.

• Make sure you're creating a fair means of engagement towards your opposition. This means that I do not expect you to just present your contentions in a vacuum and expect them to win - I also expect that you challenge the contentions of the opposition and create comparatives to show why your contentions are superior.

• Ensure you highlight your arguments in a well-organized structure - I do not expect that in the middle of contention A, you then transition to contention B abruptly. Take your time to fully explain your contentions while also being time-conscious.

• Role fulfilment is also important. So make sure you fulfil your roles perfectly.

• For Speech Events - I appreciate absolute creativity during your presentation. I expect that you use all that is within your means to execute whichever role you're taking on in whatever speech event I am judging you in. I take notes of your eye contact, body language, energy, and expressions while speaking.

Side Notes:

• I have a slight preference for medium-paced speeches. This does not however mean that if you're naturally a pacy speaker, you're automatically disadvantaged when I'm judging you. I would give your speech equal attention and assessment on a meritocratic basis regardless of how fast you speak, but if you can, just take deep breaths as you present your speech rather than zapping through.

• I admire it when competitors respect, value, and have a deep sense of mutual understanding for each other during rounds. This means I totally detest irritable attitudes such as rudeness, hostility, and intolerance. Kindly be on your best behaviour and be very conscious of how you interact with your co - competitors.

Whenever you come across me in a debate room, I can guarantee you quality judging and the most accurate feedback (either written or orally) , I also hope that in my little way, I contribute towards the growth of your speaking journey.

I appreciate debaters who are able to analyze their arguments and datas beyond simply quoting. Step by step analysis is very important as it will strengthen one's arguments or evidence

4 years PF experience

For PF:

Anything on the ballot should be in Final Focus.

I consider myself to be a pretty technical judge. It is helpful when debaters go for fewer arguments and give clear link stories. My preference is that the second rebuttal responds to the first rebuttal and that new arguments are not brought up after first summary. CX is for the debaters, but it can be used as an opportunity to bolster speaker points. Paraphrase evidence is fine as long as it is not misconstrued. I will call for the evidence if you ask me to.

Feel free to talk to before round if you have questions.

Experience

I have been judging debate in multiple formats for last 1 year. I have judged tournaments around the globe and have been judging Multiple WSDC, PF and LD and Policy tournaments at the school level.

Let me lay down a few general guidelines, which also broadly applicable to other debate formats as well

General

• Debate is a game so tech>truth (Your tech should be solid though, merely asserting something does not mean it's tech.)
• Speed: Try to speak at a reasonable speed, I do not need a lot of background and information, emphasize on important reasonings in your argument and that should be enough. Also, the faster you go the more likely I am to miss something, so do that at your own risk
• If you want to concede should be conceded in the speech immediately after it was originally read
• a concession requires an implication of how the defense interacts with your argument not just "we concede to the delinks"
• I don't care if you sit or stand/wear formal clothes etc, all that doesn’t matter to me
• give trigger warnings- if another team does not feel comfortable with an argument, change it. you can argue whether trigger warnings are good/bad for debate/society, but don't proactively cause harm on someone else.
• defense isnt sticky

Case

• Have fun. Do whatever you want to do
• I prefer framing arguments to be read in case, i.e extinction/structural violence authors.

Rebuttal

• I think you need to frontline in second rebuttal but do whatever you want to do, however,
• Anything not responded to in second rebuttal is regarded conceded
• Turns that are conceded will have 100% probability

Summary

• Caveat on turns. I believe that If you extend a link turn on their case, you must also make the delineation of what the impact of that turn is otherwise I don't really know what the point of the turn is.
• case offense/ turns should be extended by author name, you'll probably get higher speaks if you do, it's a lot clearer for me
• do- “Extend our jones evidence which says that extensions like these are good because they're easier to follow"
• Dont do "extend our link"
• for an argument to be voteable I want uniqueness/ link/ impact to be extended
• please extend warrants, I don't want to have a flood of blippy and unwarranted claims on my flow at the end of your summary
• this also goes for arguments that are conceded
• First summary
• Defense should be extended but I’ll give slightly more lenience to your side if extended in final especially since the second speaking team already had a chance to frontline it twice. However at this point, it’s probably not terminal defense if it was originally, but it’ll at least mitigate their impact
• Second summary
• This is your side’s last chance to weigh, so if the weighing is not here then I will not evaluate any more weighing from your side
• Defense must also be extended

Final focus

• Just mirror summary, extend uniqueness, link and impact.
• Don't make new implications on something that was never heard before, it’s annoying for me to go look back and see if you really said that, plus it’s just abusive

Cross

• Cross is binding, just bring it up in a speech though

Evidence

• I know how bad evidence ethics are, however, I will only call for evidence if the other team tells me to call for it
• If your opponents are just blatantly lying about a piece of evidence, call it out in speech and implicate what it means for their argument
• I’ve always been a firm believer that a good analytic with a good warrant beats a great empiric with no warrant. Use that to your advantage
• You’ll have a minute to pull the evidence your opponents called for before your speaks start getting docked
• Exception- the wifi is bad/something is paywalled and you have to go around it

I would prioritize teams and speakers that are able to provide relevant point of proof about the motion, manage to provide proper analysis about their point, Properly engaging to the point of the opponent and are not dismissive to the relevant case brought by their opponent. Preferably able to provide clear comparative point to why your argument should win the debate and providing clear support to the claim with logical explanations.

I am a warrant-based debater, so explaining your logic is key.

Explain a causal relationship of your evidence. If you can’t explain your evidence, don’t use it. If this debate turns into a debate fighting about evidence that each side has no idea about, I give both teams extremely low speaker points.

Focus on one issue and stick with it. Make clear attacks, defenses, explanations, and extensions of your card.

On speed, don’t spread. Once you go into high speeds (350 wpm+), even if I can understand, I probably can’t flow it all down.

Time all of your speech and be aware of your total prep time. I will be focusing on flowing, therefore don't expect me to time you, and don't expect me to go through the debate procedure with you.

I don’t mind aggressiveness during the crossfire, just don’t be insulting to your opponents. However, if you have to choose between going with the aggressive or quiet approach, choose the former. Reasonable interruptions are acceptable on my end (note: it doesn’t mean other judges will accept it).

Most importantly, have fun while debating! :D

I prioritize students with a much structural speech and no one-liner arguments. A peaceful yet competitive debate with clear analysis of their points and arguments are what I hope in a debate round. I prefer a student who did their homework on what points should be bring and what not, a deeper analysis will be great even if it's a small points. And although I valued matters more than manners, manners does make a speech valuable.

LASA 21, Northwestern 25

Put me on the email chain: monicaelise.mej@gmail.com

I debated for 5 years at LASA debate and was coached by Yao Yao Chen and Mason Marriott-Voss. My thoughts on debate are very similar to theirs. I qualified to the TOC and the last year I debated was 2019-2020.

TLDR:

I am fine with basically everything, don't over adapt and do what you do best. I value argument explanation, so please take the time to explain your arguments. This also tends to make me more truth>tech than other judges. I am fine with speed. Don't say stuff that's racist/sexist/homophobic/ableist etc. (but also don't accuse the other team of doing this if they didn't.)

Theory

I lean aff on condo, but in general for condo to be viable for the aff I would like for the aff team to spend more time on it and actually respond to the negatives arguments. In general this is true for theory and everything else. I will probably not vote for you if you aren't responding to your opponents arguments and just reading blocks, but this tends to come up the most in theory debates. I lean neg on agent CPs, Advantage CPs, PICs out of the plan, and anything with aff specific solvency advocates. I tend to lean aff on process CPs, kicking planks, and CPs with no solvency advocate. I am ok with 2NC CPs if there is a reasonable explanation for them. I would like to see more teams be creative with theory; ie use it to justify a perm or as a reason the counterplan doesn't solve rather than just going for reject the team.

Topicality

I don't like evaluating T debates so please only go for T if there is an actual violation and you have a good interp and vision for the topic. This is the argument that I need y'all to explain the most, because it is very topic specific and I will probably not have the context of camp debates and thoughts that y'all do. This is where I think y'all should be doing the most clash and indepth answering the other teams arguments so that I know what is going on.

Policy Affs

I prefer judging affs that have solvency advocates and scenarios that actually relate to each other. The more specific your advantage and solvency advocate the more happy I am. I also wish the neg would take more advantage of how awful many policy affs are and how little their cards say. A good case debate can take out most risk of the aff for me and make it very easy for the neg to win.

Counterplans

I enjoy specific case specific counterplans more than generic counterplans. If you have to run a generic counterplan please at least contextualize to the aff in your explanation. You should have a solvency advocate. I am not a fan of process cps with an internal net benefit. That goes doubly for delay counterplans.

Disads

Disads also require more explanation than debaters often give them. I would really appreicate if more people would spend their time spinning their evidence, especially their link because I know its hard to have aff specific link cards. I also think its often important for the neg to set up multiple links and then chose the best ones in the late debate because it makes it much harder for the aff. I am not the biggest fan for Rider DAs but everything else is fine. Affs should compare how contrived the da is in comparison to aff scenarios.

Kritiks

I am not super familiar with K literature, so I will need you to explain your k. I also think that a K should have specific links to the aff. Similar to the disad section I don't really care if your card is answering the aff but you need to explain how the aff links based on what your link card says. I am harder to convince on structural arguments, but if you put in effort to explain them and apply it to the aff I'll vote for them. I think the best links are to the core ideas of the aff, either being the action of the plan or the core reps of the aff. I am generally skeptical about whether the alt does anything so please explain the more material implementation of the alt. I also think more aff teams should call out alts that are clearly utopian.

Kritikal Affs

Similar to what I said about Ks, I am probably not going to know what your aff is about. I have very limited knowledge on K literature and that is even more true for K affs. Your evidence should defend the same thing and be related to each other, I am going to be even more confused if your evidence is from a dozen different arguments and doesn't clearly connect. You really need to take the time to explain your aff and contextualize it to the topic (this will help you on the framework debate). The neg should try to engage the aff, I get it if you can't if you've never seen anything like it before, but you at least need to engage with the content of the aff at some point in the debate even if it is on framework. I will probably be very lost in K v K debates, but I will do my best just make sure to have very good explanations and don't rely on me having any prior knowledge.

Framework

I am not a huge fan of the fairness impact. I don't think that it can't be used convincingly, but I have yet to hear an explanation that doesn't just feel like two teams reading fairness blocks against each other. I think clash/research impacts on framework tend to be the best, but I am pretty open to anything. I think you should do impact analysis on them though. You should be specific about the ground you have lost, what the TVA is, and how the aff's content could exist in debate in another form. Also please respond to the aff's arguments and disads. The worst and most frustrating Framework debates are when teams just read blocks against each other.

Hi everyone, my name is Reeya Kansra (she/her) email: rvkans22@gmail.com

I competed in Speech and Debate for 8 years throughout middle school and high school and my background is primarily in speech. I am currently a Policy debater for NYU so I've definitely been exposed to all styles of public speaking

Speech: Speaking style captivation is extremely important to me - I have competed against some of the best people in the world and hold my own national rankings so if you can wow me I will be all the more likely to give you the 1. That being said do not be intimidated by good competition, my motto is that everyone is beatable and this is TRUE. Make sure to be respectful and moreover genuine - Speech is a place for emotion, and personality, and above all is a place to be yourself. The best performance comes from within. Lastly I am aware of all speech rules, I know when you're cheating, I know what tech you can and cant do, i know what categories allow props and which ones dont, and I know which categories can have characters and which ones are platform.

DP, HI, DI: this was my category in HS I have won TOCs, and finaled at Harvard, NCFLS, GMU, Villiger and more, please be funny (HI) (although I understand every piece has its limitations), tech Is important although I will say tech was never my strong suit so instead focus on setting a scene, the DP killer is flat characters so be mindful of that. Finally, your performance is often affected by the energy of the room, the best performers are those who can perform in even the deadest of rooms so even if it feels like the life force has been sucked out of the place keep going.

Dec: I did this category for a year or so - if you are older than a sophomore doing dec please leave and find another category. Make sure you maintain good energy I've noticed it is often what dwindles in these long monologue-type speeches.

Debate: I am a flow judge however my speech background also gives me a lay bias - I am a fan of logic arguments however I will respect the flow, as someone who spreads I understand the appeal and am fine with it as long as you are not only clear but persuasive. Focus on engaging with your opponents, sign posting is not only appreciated but in these fast-paced rounds makes you more convincing.

PF: make sure to adhere to timing, I am timing but that also points out to me when you are not - a sentence or so over is fine but you should not be reaching your 3rd contention at the time mark that goes for cross as well - make sure you are on top of it. Signposting goes a long way, make sure to emphasize your contentions, links, uniqueness claims and so forth it not only makes it easier to flow but will help you be clearer on what you need to win. Don't be afraid to engage the judge, tell me what my voters are!! I vote on Impact calc so be clear.

for the india accord topic - please note that i am indian, anything offensive will result in a 0 in speaks and an autoloss even if you were the better team.

About Me: I have been actively involved in debating, primarily in the BP and AP systems, since 2019. My coaching journey began in 2021, focusing on BP, and extended to AP in 2023. Additionally, I have served as a judge in several BP Debate competitions since 2022 and six Public Forum Debates since 2023.

General Approach to Judging:

My judging philosophy revolves around meticulous evaluation and fair assessment. When assessing arguments, I prioritize a comprehensive elaboration of the points made, and while I give due credit to assertions, a thorough explanation of the reasoning and process behind each claim is essential. Furthermore, I emphasize the significance of relying on credible and legitimate sources, such as journals and scientific research, to support data, evidence, or study cases.

In response to opponents' arguments, I encourage debaters to provide clear and concise explanations on why an argument may lack validity. This involves showcasing why the anticipated outcome might be contrary to what is asserted or effectively addressing the best-case scenarios put forth by the opposition, always maintaining a tone of politeness and respect.

A critical aspect of effective debating is the ability to compare and clash arguments. I look for debaters to convincingly demonstrate why they believe they are winning in their concluding speeches. Structuring the speech is equally crucial, and I appreciate debaters who employ road-mapping and signposting techniques to enhance the overall organization and clarity of their speech.

1. This is my paradigm; I will explain how I approach judging in a FAQ format. Hopefully, it's clear. If you have any questions, email me: khumalothulani.r@gmail.com

1. What is my experience level?

Here are my judging qualifications:

2022: Implicit Bias - Project Implicit, USA

2022: Cultural Competency course - National Speech and Debate Association, USA

2022: Adjudicating Speech and Debate – National Speech and Debate Association, USA

2022: Protecting Students from Abuse - US Centre for Safesport, USA

You can find my certificates here (Google Drive):

I have been judging for two years now, since 2022, and have judged about 22 tournaments (I have no idea how many flights but probably hundreds lol). I have experience in most formats: LD, PF, WSD, BP, AP, Congress, SPAR, Impromptu, Policy, and even the rare ones like Big Questions and Extemporaneous. I have some experience in oratory speeches like DUO. Yes and many rare debates (for example, one time I did a radio debate where the speakers were performing as radio announcers, giving local news, sports, etc, with 1950-type voices-- it was a pretty cool experience :)).

2 2. What are my preferences as they relate to your rate of delivery and use of jargon or technical language?

I pretty much understand complex English words. Having studied engineering in college, it's pretty much a given that I understand most of the stuff and words that may be deemed complicated. However, debate is an Art of Convincing and Converting, so don't try to use too much jargon like a lawyer (or a surgeon lol), as it might end up confusing your opponents and me.

Rate of Delivery: Any delivery pacing is welcome. Generally, I prefer a medium pace; a slow pace is okay, too, if you can explain your contentions adequately in the given time. Medium or conversational pacing gets the point across really well. When it comes to fast pace, don't speak in a monotonous way like you are reading..(approach your speech as if you are trying to convince me to follow your case), and don't rush too much: take your time; it's your moment, be free. I don't have any difficulties understanding fast-paced deliveries; however, during the speech, you must factor in the time for me to process the information you say. But remember, it is not only me; your opponents must also understand what you are saying. This means, you really don't need to have too many contentions to be convincing (Quality over quantity).

33. How do I take notes during the round?

I am a writer, and there is no stopping my pen. First, you have to know that during your contentions, I basically write down all your points, examples, and details. I keep my notes detailed so that it's easy to recall and give a balanced assessment. However, I highlight your major contentions so that I get an appreciation of your overall message. This is important in that, usually during questioning, there usually are nuanced questions coming from the other side relating to minor arguments, such as an example that was not stressed upon. Picking all that up is important so that I don’t forget or get surprised when someone asks a question on a minor point.

4. Do I value argument over style? Style over argument? Argument and style equally? Are there certain delivery styles that are more persuasive to me?

Arguments and style are both important to me. Generally, I give Arguments 70% and style 30%. When I rate every debate, there is an argumentative section and a performative section that is essentially style and delivery. For me to give you the round, you have to provide me with convincing and logical arguments supported by examples/exhibitions (argument). Then there is style: After every debate, I always emphasise how important a structured speech is. There must be a flow to your case. Start by saying something out of the box to raise my interest (Give an exciting hook, show me how smart you are); after you introduce the topic, state your major contentions, then explain them, giving evidence. Don’t give too much proof because you need time to explain to me, as if I am a layman, what it all means and the impacts of an action. Then, as you conclude, give a summary (remind me of the journey of the speech). This delivery style is tried and tested, However, if you think you have your own style that will convince me, go for it. You can trust me when I say to you that I pay a lot of attention to detail.

45. What are the specific criteria I consider when assessing a debate?

1. Clarity: outline your key contentions early on in the debate, and use these to link your argumentation for consistency and clear logical flow.

2. Rebuttal: be genuine with engaging matters from the other side. Make strategic concessions while showing me how your side solves the problems you illuminate from the other side. Avoid making claims without justifying why they are valid or essential to the debate and at what point they engage with the other teams' arguments.

3. Conclusions: When deciding on a winner, I use the key clashes that came out in the debate regarding the strength of weighing and justification. This means, as debaters, you need to prove to me why you win certain clashes and why those clashes are the most important in the debate. That is to say, mechanise each of your claims (give multiple reasons to support them) as you make them make it easier to weigh clashes at the end of the debate.

4. Coherency. Make sure your delivery is coherent. The perk of writing stuff down is you can catch a lot of mistakes, so make sure everything tallies up.

56. If you have judged before, how would I describe the arguments I found most persuasive in previous debate rounds?

Essentially, the most compelling arguments are the most well-explained, and the impacts of those arguments are well-explained and logical. Try not to brush things off, manage your time wisely, and don’t come with a lot of contentions…3 or 4 are usually enough (depending on the debate format); explain well, give proofs, and give impacts.

67. What expectations do you have for debaters’ in-round conduct?

In the round, everyone is EQUAL, and everyone is free to express themselves. It’s a safe space for everyone. Be kind to one another, and that means no bullying or targeting of any sort.

78. Feedback. I will give verbal feedback if the tournament allows, disclosing who has won and why. I will also write feedback on Tabroom for every individual. My job is to make sure that you learn from the debate experience and take something positive.

89. Time: I prefer that the speakers have time clocks with them (this won't lose you marks, lol). I prefer the round to flow naturally without my continual interruption, interjecting here and there (for example, you: “Judge Ready?”— Me: “Ready”) if there is something to be said.

Cheers!

if you are rude to your opponents, i will dock speaks.

Wake Forest '21, Working at Harvard

Please add to the email chain: rubycklein@gmail.com & harvard.debate@gmail.com

Tech and execution matter most, presuming there are warrants and implications for your arguments.

I like to read through cards closely, so if I’m taking a while, that’s probably why.

I think the aff gets to weigh their case vs. Ks, so protracted debates about framework are rarely important. I would much prefer aff-specific link debating or more about your alternative.

Neg framework impacts about clash and the value of research are generally the most persuasive to me, but if your thing is something else, that’s fine, too. Clearly conveying why your impact matters and how it interacts with aff offense is most essential.

Turning the case is way more likely with cards. And, I really enjoy and care about turns case arguments.

International, consult, condition, etc. CPs are likely bad, but a specific advocate about the plan could help.

If the neg tells me to, my presumption is to kick the CP.

Neg-leaning on conditionality.

Inserting re-highlighting is fine if it’s to provide context and you fully explain what it reveals.  

I have been judging debate since high school, and have judged outrounds at a number of tournaments. I favour substance over style as I believe that rewarding style disadvantages ESL competitors, and I encourage all debaters to engage with other teams. I judge hollistically and tend not to be too picky about the organization of speeches, provided that they are clear and logical. I encourage debaters to structure their speeches in the way that they feel will best present their arguments.

Hello everyone!

My judging philosophy is simple; come up with a good structure, logical arguments, short summary speech and I shall consider you.

Debating is, according to me, more of what you present and less of what you know. I do not prefer long extensive arguments. Just come on the stage, give me handful strong arguments, do impact assessment of your points, make a few rebuttals and you are good to go.

Refer to these specific points-

1. Topic knowledge- You need not be scared from an unknown topic, I won’t judge your past knowledge on the topic, and rather I will give weightage to how you interpret it in the round and explain it initially. But, at the same, you may get some brownie points if you insert a fact and impress me!

2. Jargons & Speed- Do not go too fast in order to keep forth all your points and disturb your flow. Either select a sensible number of points or shorten all of them in order to present them wisely. If I am unable to match the speed, you have the chances to lose.

3. Rebuttals- I would love to hear logical rebuttals from you, but even the wacky ones won’t harm. Make sure you tell me where you are on the flow, and I’ll really like numbering your responses to things, it makes flowing easier for everyone.

4. Summary- A good summary is what I’ll appreciate. Just be very specific in it; you can also add a couple of new points in it but prefer reiterating the previous ones.

I am not going to judge you on each and every word you speak but make sure, most of them make sense. Be honest, don’t pretend on the know-how and do well.

Feel free to ask me any questions you may have before the round starts.

All the best!

I’ll prefer good speaks, not speakers!

Name: Lalit Kumar

Email: lalit.kumar.debate@gmail.com

I am a lay/parent judge. However, I do have knowledge of the LD and how it works. I have judged PF tournaments for over a year and got familiarity with LD debates. I have also researched the current topic in detail online.

I usually join a couple of minutes before the round to take questions about my paradigm. If you have clarity questions, please feel free to ask.

Key notes:

1. Respect - First, and foremost, debate is about having fun and expressing your creativity! Please be respectful to your opponents and your judges.

2. Document sharing - please share your speech/response docs ahead of time so I can follow along. Include me in the email chain (lalit.kumar.debate@gmail.com) Please ensure the subject is not blank and populated with tournament name and round.

3. Clarity - Please do not sacrifice clarity for speed. Your arguments should be clear and well-substantiated with evidence

4. Jargon - Jargon and abbreviations should be avoided and will lead to deductions. They cause a lack of clarity and can lead to misinterpretations. Please explain any technical jargon that you use.

5. Time - Going overtime will lead to deductions. I would recommend timing yourself and your opponents. In case you notice your opponent is overtime, feel free to raise your zoom hand to highlight this.

6. Signposting - I strongly recommend signposting so your opponents understand what you are responding to.

7. Theories and Ks - I have limited understanding of Theories and Ks; but I am okay to proceed as long as you break it down in simple and clear terms. You need to elaborate on how it correlates to the topic.

In Public Forum debate, I will prioritize the students' capability in creating further analysis and not just giving away the facts that they gathered in certain resources. This analysis is important as to show how you process all of the information you've collected before and getting the best output to the forum right away within your time. Rebuttals and responses are better to not be one-liner. A deeper reason to prove why your opponents are wrong will contribute more on the matter of debate. The team that wins, would be a team that more tangible examples and facts that may be impactful to us in the future.

live, laugh, love <3

My PF expectations:

I expect that the round has understandable arguments, with a sufficient level of framing and roadmapping in order to help me evaluate the round. The affirmative should be defending the resolution, conversely, the negative should be defending the status quo. Cross fire periods should be equal and fair, and I weigh arguments that take their competitors charitably.

Hey everyone! My debate background: I'm currently debating with NYU's Cross Examination Debate Team, and I've made CEDA Nats, NDT Nats, as well as never failed to break into elims. So no PF experience, but CEDA is very similar :) I've also done MUN, Mock Trial, and JSA in high school, so I do have some experience with more speech style rounds!

General Tips/Conduct:

• Please add me to the email chain rl4459@stern.nyu.edu
• I do flow on paper, so give me a bit to shuffle my sheets around + please give a roadmap
• I can handle spreading, but please build up to it, and also slow down for your analysis of the evidence! If I can't understand it, I simply won't vote on it!
• I personally do not care if you curse, but please do not curse AT anyone. Don't be a jerk.
• I expect you to keep your opponent accountable on prep/speaking time. I WILL lower speaking scores if I catch you excessively stealing prep/speaking time. You should both be timing your own speeches as well as your opponents! I'm often jotting down notes, so I sometimes forget to time - please help me out haha

Decision: I am not so much persuaded by stats and evidence but rather by your analysis of said evidence. Tell me why I should care! A good internal link story to your terminal impact almost always guarantees a ballot from me. Clash with your opponents, and tell a story that frames the round in YOUR terms. I'm very lazy, and I want to do the least work possible. For more speech type rounds, be confident! Slow down and really emphasis certain words to hook me into the story that you are telling, and I also am a sucker for a relevant personal anecdote! For both speech and debate, try to have fun! We hopefully all love debate, which is why we're here on a weekend, and I personally think that if you are having fun, your speeches come out so much more passionate and just, well, better! :)

Hello debaters!

I'm a parent judge, I've judged 7 tournaments, so I am ok.

I do not have much experience on the debate topic so please make sure to explain everything very thoroughly. Please do not use too much debate jargon as I do not understand most of them.

Please do not run any squirrely arguments, because I will have a hard time understanding them.

I will try to be a tech>truth judge but please don't make things too unbelievable.

English is not my first language, so please talk slowly and clearly so I can understand you. If I can't understand what you are saying, I won't be able to vote for you off of it. Also, please signpost and make it clear whether you are talking about your case or the opponents' arguments. Make your speech easy to follow. This will make it easier for me to understand your points and vote for you.

If you bring up sensitive topics, have a trigger warning. Please also avoid bringing up politics, religion, race, etc. if it is rude or derogatory.

If you talk very fast or unclear, I will take off speaker points.

Please be respectful to your opponents throughout the round and maintain a sense of seriousness.

Most importantly, I prefer confidence over anything else. Even if you don't know the answer to a question, present yourself well.

Good luck everyone!

Debate:

I have participated in debate for more than 6 years, including public forum, LD, and Policy Debate. I am open to all kinds of arguments and speed.

Clarity outweighs speed. Quality outweighs quantity.

Just a reminder, the purpose of debate is not only to present your arguments but to engage with your opponents.

Speech:

I have experience doing speech as a kid and experience of being a speech judge.

Keep mind of the time management, clarity, and volume.

Competition is never about only about winning and losing, its more about what you've learned.

4 years of pf @ oakton || karinliu2011@gmail.com for email chains

lmk if you have questions about my paradigm! ◡̈

general

- resolve clash/compare warrants (!!!!!), collapse, extend, & weigh

- alright with speed, send a doc if going fast (but i still might not catch everything)

- second reb should frontline, if not i'll be very hesitant to buy new frontlines in 2nd sum

presumption

- unless given warrants otherwise, i'll presume the team that lost flip

- if it's side locked i'll presume the squo

prog

- i understand theory a lot more than k's, no friv theory or tricks

^ i have v basic understanding of prog so i might vote wrong, make sure it is rly warranted

speaks

- L20 if you run problematic arguments or run prog/spread on newer debaters

^ aka don't ask anything starting w/ "but wait"

In Public Forum Debate, I will prioritize the students' capability to create further analysis regarding the facts and materials they deliver during their speeches. Facts and materials that have explanations as to how they are materialized will have higher credit than facts without explanations. Numbers shouldn't be the only explanation for your argument. Regarding, rebuttals and responses, I will give more credit to speakers that provide deeper reasons to prove their opponent wrong (not a one-liner). Information and facts from reliable resources like journals or research papers will also have higher credit than other sources like newspapers or websites. The team that wins, would be a team that can provide more tangible examples and facts that may be impactful.

As a new judge but familiar with debates in general and having drafted dissertations and reports where I need to present my arguments to the reader and have often been involved in presenting reasoned and sound advice to customers and clients I tend to look for the following characteristics.

solid supported statements based on evidence; I like to hear statements such as "based on my research .".." based on my reading.....(source) " "according to...." (quote source)...despite the opposing opinion that (state opposing opinion) I have discovered from (state research, report, article, web-site) that the opposite could be true because.."

I also look for the use of language "is true" "is a fact" "is totally wrong" are probably too strong and should be replaced by softer phrases such as "probably" "is more likely" "based on reasoned opinion"

I personally prefer presentations to be slower and more methodical and not a "race against the clock" to convey all prepared materials and opinions as fast as humanly possible - sometimes the "less is more" approach works better.

I am not against fast talkers as such, as English is my native language but I find that it is often preferable to speak concisely in order to present compelling and clear arguments to the target audience (or judge)

I also like to observe respect for all and the use of words and actions that demonstrate this - after all the opposing team have worked just as hard as you in "prepping" and at the end of the day no argument or opinion is totally wrong or totally right - good communicators are confident but respectful at all times.

Good luck to all debaters - and enjoy and importantly learn from the experience !

I have some judging experience, however consider me a lay judge while making arguments.

I am here to evaluate the arguments presented by both teams and determine which team has done the better job of persuading me. I am not an expert in debate, so I will not be able to follow complex arguments or jargon. I am looking for debaters who are clear, concise, and persuasive. I will also be considering your delivery and demeanor when making my decision

some specific things I will be looking for:

• Clarity:Can you explain your arguments in a way that I can understand?
• Conciseness:Can you get to the point without using too many words?
• Persuasiveness:Do you use evidence and logic to support your arguments?
• Delivery:Do you speak clearly and confidently?
• Demeanor:Are you respectful of your opponent and the judge?

some things that I will not be swayed by:

• Speed:Speaking quickly does not make you more persuasive.
• Volume:Yelling does not make your arguments more valid.
• Jargon:Using complex debate jargon will only make it harder for me to understand your arguments.
• Personal attacks:Attacking your opponent personally is not a valid argument.

General

I am a coach and a flay judge but judged PF for many years.

- DON'T SPEAK FAST OR SPREAD.

- Yes, I want to be on the email chain. vaibhav_mahajan@yahoo.com

- I'm fine with you reading theory or K's as long as it is well explained and defended.

- Truth > Tech

- Be respectful and remember that cross is not for arguing but rather to further understand each other's positions and discuss about evidence.

- Don't waste cross time to call for cards. Do that separately, and prep time will count towards you reading the cards.

- Don't read anything new in the second half. I will accept new weighing and frontlining in summary but not in Final Focus.

- I work in the finance and banking sector so I will understand economy-related arguments extremely well and will be more willing to vote off them

- BE PROFESSIONAL.

Decision

I give my ballot to the side that does the best impact comparisons and weighing, provides good quantitative statistics and logical evidence, and well constructs/explains their narrative.

Speaks

- I DO NOT TOLERATE RUDENESS/RACISM/SEXISM

• I give speaks based off of organization, clarity, participation, and ethics

hi! im ash mathur (she/they)!

i judge policy, ld and pf and compete in policy.

i currently compete for oes and am part of sim low's asian identity work group. i come from a more policy oriented background, but i did do ld in the past.

any sort of racist/homophobic etc. remarks will result in an autoloss.

for policy/ld:

i am okay with tag team cx, as long as one debater doesn't dominate the entire thing

im tech>truth all the way, i love joke args as long as you articulate them

i hate people abusing condo as a way to avoid clash and then just going for dropped args, if u do this i will be inclined to vote on theory.

ks - i love k debate, however dont run ks just to be edgy and make sure you understand it/ articulate it well: yes this means no pomo jargon. if you are truly passionate about your k and have taken time to do research, i will appreciate this.

for public forum: if you spend >5 minutes finding evidence, you are being charged prep: ive seen people stealing prep way too many times in this format.if both of you happen to be cheaters, i will pretend i am a parent judge and vote based on who sounds the best and vibes. i might even vote for the team i just simply agree with the most. if you do not want to act like debaters, i will not treat you like one and this is now a speech event.

lastly, have fun and learn from your mistakes!!

pf: my only real reservation is that I can't handle a crazy amount of speed (if you're going too fast for me to keep up I will stop flowing). outside of that, feel free to have whatever kind of round you want. I actually enjoy theory debates so if you choose to go that route I won't mind.

ld: see andrew gong's ld paradigm

worlds: pls weigh

Speak as clear as possible when presenting your speeches. Spreading is fine, but make sure the tags are clear by signposting. I don’t want to miss any important arguments for either team. I absolutely love good complex arguments that make me think, but please do your best to keep your audience (me) engaged. Everything else is Fair game, Good Luck!

Email: christianmendoza4975@gmail.com

I debate for the University of Pittsburgh; third year of college debate.

Please add me to the email chain, before the round would be nice. Email me if you have questions before or after the debate.

Online debate:

If you have a technical issue, just pause your timer and let everyone know.

Mics will cut out sometimes, if this becomes a problem, I will let you know and pause the speech.

Prefs:

Clarity over speed, but you can go fast, and I’ll keep up on the flow

I’m not incredibly familiar with this years topic so explain your acronyms and make your tags clear, also differentiate them from the cards because online debate can be hard to hear. I will read your cards and figure it out from there as long as you’re making honest arguments you can defend and explain.

I judge primarily by listening to what you say, which means cx matters, judge instruction tells me how to evaluating my decision and I’m not going to just look at your cards while you read them instead I will pay attention to what you’re telling me. Impact comparison makes it much easier to evaluate the debate but don’t sacrifice a good framework debate.

Argument stuff

I am not tech over truth. While you can win on technical aspects of the flow that doesn't mean I default to tech when you can make simple arguments with good evidence.

I am partial to the affirmative in framework debates, however, I will vote on the most persuasive team which means you have to answer questions for me which include what your model of debate looks like or your critique of the resolution/debate etc.

Fairness is an IL to Education, not an Impact in itself. If your impact is fairness, you need to explain what debate is and not rely on a premeditated idea of debate. I like when teams write my ballot in the 2nr and 2ar.

The best way to win a round is to narrate what happened in the debate and sit on a couple of arguments rather than try and go for too much without a clear line of thinking.

I tend to protect the 2nr, so try not to lie too aggressively in the 2ar and sit on your biggest pieces of offense that were won.

Dropped arguments should be extended but will not get you an auto win by any means unless you use them for a different part of the debate. I would much rather vote on a team that made the best arguments and consistently kept it clean on the flow then a team that relies on debate tech to get out of tough spots on the flow. Make it make sense.

Speaks:

Finally, debate rounds are fun and can be very educational. Try and keep the debate interesting because it really does take 2 hours.

Do not harm others with your language because debate is a real activity.

I will take and assess argument based on its strength, on the truthfulness of the argument and how well established the process of explanation, also on how important and impactfull is the argument on the debate and to be as comparative as possible. I would also appreciate linear analysis with the spirit of the motions, frameworks and examples given, also clarity of speech delivery for maximum understanding. I would also highly appreciate engagefull debate, with well analyzed, concise and on-point rebuttal, and to not ignore your opposing bench case.

Hello! I'm currently a junior at Harvard College debating in APDA with experience judging PF, World Schools, and APDA.

Be polite and respectful during rounds.

If possible arrive early

I OPT OUT OF ALL DISCUSSIONS OF ISRAEL/HAMAS

You will be auto-dropped if you read arguments relating to the current conflict.

General debate best practices:

I care more about warranting than about evidence, just quoting a New York Times article is not enough to convince me of your argument.

I appreciate off-time road-maps and clear side-posting, but it will not negatively affect you if you do not do these things.

Weighing is important! Please explicitly weigh why an argument is more important than your opponents.

You do not need to prove complete solvency for me to buy an impact or argument - ie any reduction in climate change is better than no reduction, regardless of if you solve climate change

For PF:

I cannot understand spreading so please try not to read faster than 212 words/min. If I can't understand it, I won't evaluate it.

I generally don't buy high-impact low probability arguments unless they are well warranted—ie if you say x will lead to nuclear war, there must be a very good link-chain.

I generally don't flow cross-ex, if a contradiction is important please pull it through to FF!

For APDA:

I don't have any theory pre-beliefs.

For LD:

I cannot understand spreading so please try not to read faster than 212 words/min. If I can't understand it, I won't evaluate it.

I will not evaluate theory or ks, so don't read them.

Former open debater at GMU from 2018-2022. I ran mostly queer theory, disability, and various forms of cap for the last couple years and am most familiar with those lit bases.

She/they pronouns. Put me on the email chain please, ceili1627 at gmail dot com. Feel free to email me after rounds with questions.

TL;DR: run whatever you want and I'll judge as best I can. I think my role as a judge is to be an educator/facilitator of idea exchanges regardless of whether those ideas are connected to anything from USFG action to interpretive dance performances. Keep in mind that even though debate is a game that you should have fun playing, it has real-world consequences for the real people who play it. As a great woman once said, "At the end of the debate, be sure to tell me why I should vote for you; if you don't, then you can't get big mad when I don't ... periodt" and I live by that <3

Policy:

K Affs: I'm totally down with k affs but I prefer them to have at least a vague link to the topic. It's super easy for the narrative of k affs to get lost during the round so please keep the aff story alive!! In FW/T debates, make sure to explain what debate rounds look like under your counterinterp, and that plus solid impact turns is usually a fairly easy ballot from me.

FW/T: As the same great woman once said, "I have voted against framework, I have voted for framework, but at the end of the day I don't really want to be there when framework is read." Run a caselist. Reasonability isn’t really an argument and fairness definitely isn't an impact. I tend to default to competing interps unless given a good reason otherwise. The neg needs to really spell out why I should err towards them on limits. TVAs are pretty useful for mitigating offense against fw as long as they're explained and contextualized well. Please for the love of god contextualize all your fw blocks to the round & aff in question instead of just reading a transcript of fw blocks from an NDT outround half a decade ago. I'm not persuaded by args that debate doesn't shape subjectivity--if you come out of a round the exact same as you entered it (regardless of if your opinions/beliefs have changed) then you're probably playing the game wrong.

Theory: Trying to convince me to care about potential abuse is an uphill battle. Don’t spread through theory blocks please. For blippy args I generally err towards rejecting the arg but will (extremely) reluctantly vote on it if dropped.

DAs/Case: Impact calc and clear internal link chains are both super important for me to vote on a DA. I tend to think that links determine DA direction but can probably be persuaded that direction is determined by uniqueness. I really enjoy heavy case debates and am disappointed that's increasingly missing from a lot of rounds. Also I think re-highlighting your opponents' ev is a bold move that's cool and often persuasive when it's done right but is pretty cringe if done poorly.

Ks: I was mostly a k debater in college and I'm most familiar with lit bases for queer theory, cap, set col, and debility. Still, you need to clearly explain your theories of power and all that good stuff instead of throwing around a bunch of obscure terms expecting me to know what you’re talking about. Please please please don't read a k just because you think that's what I want to hear--it makes for a bad debate and a grumpy judge. I’d like to think my ballot actually means something so explain to me what it does and I'll be more likely to pull the trigger for you. I feel most comfortable voting on specific links to the aff though I prefer the debate to go beyond the level of you-link-you-lose. Please give me a clear and coherent framework under which I consider the aff vs the alt, but also I think too many policy affs use framework to avoid engaging with the k at all which is both frustrating to judge and not at all strategic.

CPs: 50 state fiat is definitely core neg ground at the high school level. I’m fine with the neg having 2 conditional worlds, 3 makes me lean aff, and the neg shouldn't ever need 4+ conditional worlds. I don't judge kick and I'm likely to entertain most if not all CPs as long as they have a clear net benefit and explanation of how they solve the aff. Super meta CP theory confuses and bores me.

General: Tech > truth (often but not always, e.g. I usually tend to evaluate the debate through tech > truth but can be fairly easily convinced otherwise), debate is a game that you should have fun playing, clarity > speed (especially for zoom debate), I reserve the right to tank speaks if you're being homophobic, transphobic, sexist, racist, ableist, excessively rude, or clipping cards. Please don't make me have to judge something that happened outside the round like authenticity checks or happenings from other tournaments/seasons. I usually have little HS topic knowledge but that doesn't necessarily mean you shouldn't pref me ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ it's good for the neg on T insofar as I don't have a predetermined view of what the topic should look like, but it's also good for the aff because I don’t have much knowledge on the nuances of what affirmatives look like under particular definitions. I'm pretty hit or miss on reading ev after rounds unless explicitly told to, and on that note please highlight your cards in as close to complete and coherent sentences as you can. Violent verb fragments aren't arguments.

PF:

I did 4 years of PF in high school so I'm quite familiar with this format. Extend your own args, don’t drop your opponents’ args. I vote on the flow and default to util for impact comparison unless you tell me to frame impacts differently. I’m most likely to vote for a PF team that nails impact calc in the rebuttals, does solid work extending offense, and uses effective warrant-level evidence comparison. My 3 biggest pet peeves with PF are (1) labeling literally everything as a voter, (2) saying "de-link,", and (3) using "frontline" as a verb.

LD:

I never debated this format, though I understand it, and I tend to judge it from a somewhat policy perspective. I'm cool with both traditional and progressive formats--do what you do best/enjoy most and I'll vote off the flow. What bugs me most is the introduction of some kind of framing lens at the beginning of the round (like value/value criteria or another kind of framework) that isn't extended or used throughout the rest of the debate.

The Gamble

If you use One Direction lyrics in your speechI will raise your speaks a max of 0.5. Do with that what you will.

ck mcclatchy '18 // harvard '22

put me on the email chain: elyse.d.pham@gmail.com

tldr: debated for four years at ckm and have been coaching/judging on the natl circuit for the past two. as a 2n in hs, my 2nrs were just as often a counterplan/disad as they were afropessimism. barring anything racist, sexist, or otherwise abhorrent, i don't care all that much what you do, as long as you can do it and explain it well; very few of my predispositions are so rigid that they cannot be swayed by superior debating. i only evaluate warrants that are highlighted/read, and spin is good but must have reasonable basis in the ev. tech > truth.

specific thoughts:

critical affs: admittedly, i'm a better judge for teams that defend a topical plan. inclined to believe that debate is a) a game and b) one that produces valuable skills intrinsic to the structure of competition and predictable resolutional stasis point. i should not, and cannot, decide debates based on the individual identity of debaters; by this, i mean that there is a line between identity as a justification for/informing arguments, and identity itself as the primary reason for the ballot. do the former if you want, not down for the latter. i won't evaluate anything that happened outside the debate i'm judging. framework is just another argument; please do not treat it as incredibly deep.

-- if you're aff: i need substantial thesis explanation and one or two pieces of clearly isolated offense that frame the 2ar. your best bet vs fwk is impact turning any reason that a limited model of debate (or debate as it currently exists at all) might be good, bc i will be skeptical that your counterinterp actually places a meaningful limit on the topic.

-- if you're neg: i am good for both procedural and skills-based (note: not "institutional engagement" or "topic education") impacts to fwk but find that the former's often better vs high theory affs and the latter's better vs identity affs. fairness is probably an impact but that's not a given. willing to vote on presumption.

the k: obviously explain well w/o jargon. specificity to the aff will get both teams much farther than totalizing metaphysical claims about the world, the state, whatever. inclined to believe that extinction is bad, suffering is bad, structures are contingent, material progress is worthwhile, and the aff gets to weigh the fiated consequences of the plan text. at the same time, reps/scholarship probably matter. both teams need to invest heavily in the fwk debate bc it determines what links and impacts i evaluate (i.e. if no links are to the plan text, and no impacts are directly or uniquely caused by the plan, the aff winning fwk likely means the whole k goes away). the alt debate is often neglected and i'm left not really knowing what the alt does, but also not knowing why i can't just believe the neg's assertion that it solves stuff. don't leave this up to me.

counterplans: cheat as much as you want, just be good at the theory/competition debates. if you can outtech the aff on an egregiously cheating counterplan i will be entertained. prefer when the aff goes for "counterplan is not competitive" rather than "counterplan is theoretically illegitimate." condo is likely good when debated evenly. i don't default to judgekick.

topicality: most interps on the arms topic are silly and arbitrary (i.e. portella for t-subs), but if you outtech the aff you win. "plan in a vaccuum" is convincing -- the effect of plan might be an increase in arms sales, but that doesn't mean the plan isn't topical. limits only matter insofar as they are predictable/grounded in the lit. finding myself more and more convinced by reasonability, granted that the aff proves a marginal difference between the interps and explains why substance crowdout, race to the bottom, etc internal link turn the neg's impacts.

disads: zero risk is a thing. smart analytics > card dumps.

I can definitely appreciate well-researched and thoroughly-planned debates and speeches. Signs that I would be looking for would be fluency and confidence. Do not worry if there are some hiccups because it is quite common due to nerves, and I won't be deducting points from it unless it is an apparent point of improvement. Recollect your thoughts and continue with your arguments just like how you have prepared for this public forum debate tournament. Let's all enjoy this debate while also learning from it, and I wish the best of luck to all debaters!

I think that debate should be safe and welcoming for everybody. If you prevent this, I do not want to judge you, and you will not want to be judged by me. This is very important, so I’ve put it first.

LASA 21, Emory 25. I coach for Pine Crest.

He/Him. poedebatedocs@gmail.com

I primarily judge policy debates, but I also understand LD to some extent and have been an instructor at an LD camp. I am familiar with PF as well, but to a lesser extent.

(bad disclosure = bad speaker points)

NOTE FOR ONLINE DEBATE

Fix the microphone echo issues. They're incredibly annoying.

TLDR

Do what you'd like and don't over-adapt. I'm fine with both policy and K strats, but I'd rather hear a specific strategy than generics. I think research is the most important part of debate. I try to be tech>truth but I'm skeptical of garbage arguments. Speed is fine if you're clear. Have good disclosure. Don't say stuff that's racist/sexist/homophobic/ableist etc. (but also don't accuse the other team of doing this if they didn't.)

Theory

If the abuse is egregious I'll totally vote on it. 2-3 condo worlds usually seems ok, but it's easier for the aff to win this debate with more worlds. Well researched strategies and specific solvency advocates help the neg win theory.

Lean neg: most agent CPs, advantage CPs, PICs out of something in the plan, CPs recut from aff ev, basically anything with an aff-specific solvency advocate.

Lean aff: generic process CPs, kicking planks, 2NC CPs, CPs with no solvency advocate, CPs that only compete textually.

Topicality

Not a huge fan! I think about T in a more truth>tech way than I do other arguments. Have specific case lists, examples of ground loss, and a qualified interp that's somewhat contextual to the topic. "More affs bad" isn't good enough.

Policy Affs

Have an actual solvency advocate. I prefer specific impact scenarios like "these countries go to war" over something like "democracy solves everything!" Neg teams should do case debate. Generic framing frustrates me.

Counterplans

Case-specific CPs > generics. Big fan of advantage CPs. If your CP steals the aff to get a contrived internal net benefit, it's an uphill battle to beat the perm. 1NC needs a solvency advocate.

Disads

Good spin and story > dumping 50 cards and hoping I'll sort them out. I prefer DAs based on the outcome of the plan rather than the process, but I'm more down for politics DAs based on stuff like political capital than I am for bad Rider DAs. 0% risk is possible.

Kritiks

Have specific links and explain how the K implicates the aff. Generic state bad or cruel optimism links aren't persuasive. I've got a high bar for structural arguments, but if you do a good job I'll vote on it. Answer examples.

I lean toward thinking the neg should have links to the plan or the 1AC's core ideas (which could include reps, but might not include "your author defended stuff we don't like in an unhighlighted part of the card.") I start the debate assuming the aff gets the plan but you can change my mind.

Tell me what the alt does and give examples if you can. Alts that do something material > alts that think really hard.

Kritikal Affs

Explain what your aff does and why it matters. It should be about the topic, not just a previous year's aff with one topic-adjacent card. You should defend something and be stuck defending it. It's hard to win that your performance actually did something unless your evidence is fantastic.

Neg teams should try to engage with the content of the aff, but I get it if you can't. I'm often persuaded by presumption. K v K debates are awesome, but only if both sides know what's going on.

Framework

Clash/Research > "fairness because fairness." I enjoy creative styles of framework like "T - talk about the topic at all." Tell me the ground you lost, why it's good, etc. Explain the types of debates that would happen in the world of the TVA if you want to go for it.

Joint Winner of the Harvard College Tournament Costume Contest 2023

Jeff City 16-20

UWyo 20-24

Niles West 23-

KU 24-

rebound23sp@gmail.com

I cannot read blue highlighting. Green/Yellow is most ideal BUT most other colors are fine. If you are struggling to figure out how to change your highlighting, Verbatim has a standardize highlighting feature.

Firmly committed to tech over truth. The exception being arguments that say the suffering of a group of people or animals is good.

I will not vote on out of round issues. If this happens in a round I am judging, I will defer to tab and most likely contact coaches.

Clipping/evidence ethics challenges need to be called out and backed up with evidence. The debate will stop and the team that has lost the challenge will receive an L. However, teams calling out the reading of an author and make it an in-round voting isssue (e.g. Pinker) is totally fair game.

Prefer debates where the AFF proposes a change to the status quo and the NEG says that the AFF is bad. What this means is open to interpretation.

Judge instruction is really important to me, teams that are able to guide me to a ballot often end up winning more often than not.

Enjoy debates where teams forward and construct a coherent story and uses that story to implicate other portions of the debate.

I am willing to vote on condo bad.

Unnecessary time-wasting irks me. The 1AC should be sent before the round starts.

Hidden Aspec is one of the worst trends I have seen in debate. I will allow new 1AR answers and you do not even need to particularly answer it that well. Any team hiding Aspec will have a speaker point implosion.

I prefer to be called E.C. rather than judge or any other version. (I go by my initials if that helps with pronunciation.)

I will clap when the round ends, debate is a very draining activity and I am impressed with anything you do even if it is round 4 at a local or the finals of a major.

In judging a debate, I weigh the claims by whether it supported by two kinds of reasoning: 1. why the claim is true, and 2. why this claim is important in the debate. "Claims" applies to both constructive arguments and rebuttals, as I will weigh them side by side in clashes in my flow later. Also, providing examples or research findings doesn't necessarily means your claim is true; you have to explain which part of the example/research that can be applied to the argument, to explain why that example important to the debate as a whole.

I am a parent judge.

Please keep it simple. For your arguments, please speak slowly and clearly, and make sure to emphasize to me what you truly want to get across in your speeches. Again, I am not experienced so I will not be able to get down every single thing you bring up in your speeches. It is your responsibility to make your narrative clear and tell me why you're winning.

I would prefer no progressive argumentation (theory, Ks, etc) as I have no idea how to evaluate them.

Add me to the email chain: rohithraman4@gmail.com

he/him

Tufts 25, I debate in college, but also like not really

Top Level stuff

As a first year out, I haven't had much of any experience judging and my thoughts on debate aren't set in stone or insanely clear - I'm also not an great flow, especially online

Read whatever you want - if you're clear and fully fleshing out the args then you should be fine.

With that said, I have almost exclusively invested in k debate throughout high school - if your ideal 1NC is 6 off policy strat, then pref me much lower

The 2NR/2AR should frame my decision - how do I think about the args, what comes first and why etc - judge instruction will be rewarded and just makes decisions easier

Most of the time, tech over truth – however, I won’t vote for an arg just because it was dropped. Impact it out

Don't be a shitty person - understand how you interact with spaces like debate and change accordingly. I’ll stop the round if there’s anything racist, sexist, homophobic etc being said – goes without saying

Disclosure is good.

Notes this year - go a little slower than you usually would and record speeches in case someone cuts out if it's online. I also know very little about the topic, so limit the amount of topic specific jargon you use

Fw

Neg ---

I approach fw from the point of the broader vision each team has for debate. What discussions are you forwarding, and how do I differentiate between the two? What vision does your model have for engagement, or does that come secondary to another impact?

You are more likely to get my ballot if you explicate the end point of your model. For example, I find discussions of clash to refine political strategies or create better advocates as a much more persuasive argument than keeping clash to simply “preserve the game”. Going further and explaining why certain things matter will help a ton. A 2NC/2NR that is able to win an exportable impact and argue how it gets better throughout the year alongside some aff offense through either SSD or TVA is in a great spot

I find it shocking that a ton of fw teams will go through rounds without mentioning any specific stuff about the aff – engage with the aff

creative interps, standards, and answers are ALWAYS preferred - diversify how you approach each aff – you don’t always need to read t-usfg

Do I think procedural fairness is an impact? No. Especially if there's no actual explanation on it - you should be talking about what the unfairness looks like in round, examples of your inability to engage etc. I prefer deliberation, skills, clash based args as opposed to fairness because it gets to the question of why this matters. Fairness debates end up becoming a question of their external net benefit like clash or education, so starting there just makes more sense to me but you do you

SSD and TVA – These should be areas of the debate where you can most easily access aff offense. Most aff teams don’t know how to answer SSD, but you need to explain what reading on the neg would look like etc. The TVA doesn’t need to “solve” the aff, but I do think they need to be able to include most of the aff’s discussion somehow, especially if the aff has reasons why that discussion matters. Most neg teams will simply say the TVA doesn’t need to solve and move on, which isn’t sufficient

Don't just forget case - a significant case push makes neg ballots way more viable - most k affs don't do anything so go for presumption please

Aff ---

I tend to lean aff in these debates, but make sure there isn't ambiguity over what the aff does / you clear it up quickly – I’ll vote on presumption for sure

Just explain why the end point of their model causes [aff impact] + why that’s bad and you should be good. I personally think impact turn strats are much better because focusing on a counterinterp often forces the aff to find more common ground than offense. Regardless, decide what strat you want to go for and stick to it.

I love DA’s that target both form and content of fw

Crafty counterinterps are always great

You have to have some sort of topic link – use that to your advantage because that should be the crux of your fw answers

k stuff

General ---

I primarily read Afropessimism, Black Nihilism, Baudrillard, Semiocap/James, and Settler Colonialism, but I’m familiar with most ks in varying degrees. Regardless, nuanced explanation of the theory is important

I'm fine with debaters reading stuff outside their subject position but that requires an understanding of how your identity relates to the arguments you read and sometimes a change in the way you read the arg - whether thats how you approach talking about instances of violence or the alternative you read -- (opponents should always push on these kinds of questions) -- Its clear when a team has thought through their relationship to the scholarship and when they haven't

I'm fine with longer overviews, but I think its way more strategic and easier to flow if they are shorter - do your work on the lbl

I really like smaller k's or piks (that actually have strategic benefit)

K v policy ---

Framework is probably one of the most important part of these debates to me because it determines how I view literally everything else – if you are winning fw, I don't think an alt is needed as long as you are framing stuff correctly

"Generic links" are fine, especially if there is a broader fw push, as long as you are getting specific when extending them. Obviously, the more specific the link, the better. You should be giving me examples and pulling quotes when extending the links

K v K ---

These can be some of the best debates if well executed.

Methods need to be explained - what does the alt do? What does the aff do? You should be spending time here, include examples, quotes, etc – I think the alt should be resolving either the impact to the links and/or the aff, but if you want to go for it as a non-unique da then I need significant offense on case

That being said, explain perms fully - you should be doing more than simply showing an ideological similarity between both authors/lit bases. What does the perm look like in application? Again, examples are really helpful – I tend to lean aff on the question of no perms in a methods debate – it’s a standard for competition that tests the legitimacy of the links, but I also agree that most perms in these debates make zero sense

Theory of power stuff can get pretty muddled - make it clear - you don’t auto win if you have a better theory of power, but it helps

Policy stuff

I'm not your judge for the 8 off debates, but I'll do what I can if I’m in the back. I would much rather you limit the cards read in the block and use more analytical arguments rather than card dump – either way, make sure there is actual engagement

T ---

Default to competing interps,

More specific interps are better, but these debates can get really confusing and annoying - just explain things like definitions or what the interp looks like fully

Having case lists and describing what debates would look like under each model is always helpful

Cps ---

Try to have some explanation about what the perm looks like outside of perm do the cp in the 2ac

I don't really care about judge kick - if the neg doesn't go for it then I'll kick it but if you want to go for it as offense then sure

DAs ---

I mean just extend it properly and have offense that o/w – its pretty straight forward

Random theory stuff ---

I hate these debates - most of the time nothing is really abusive – if the 2ar goes for theory, it has to do the work of comparing its impacts to the stuff that the 2nr goes for

Other stuff

CX is really important and I flow it - just don't be rude / unnecessarily cut people off

Recutting ev is always persuasive – you definitely can get offense from unhighlighted parts of cards

Make me laugh

For LD/PF, the closer you are to policy the better.

General

• Technicality over Truth.
• Speak as fast as you want. However, if you’re going faster than I can process, I’ll text you to go slower once and then it’s on you.
• Defense you want to concede should be conceded in the speech immediately after it was originally read.
• I don't care if you sit or stand or wear formal clothes etc.
• Give trigger warnings.
• Absent any offense in the round, I'm presuming neg on policy topics and first on "on balance" topics.

Case

• Do whatever you want to do.
• I prefer framing arguments to be read in case, i.e extinction/structural violence authors.

Rebuttal

• Offensive overviews in second rebuttal should be discouraged and as such, my threshold for responses will be lower.
• I think you need to frontline in second rebuttal but do whatever you want to do, however,
• Anything not responded to in second rebuttal is regarded conceded.
• Turns that are conceded will have 100% probability.

Summary

• Caveat on turns. I believe that if you extend a link turn on their case, you must also make the delineation of what the impact of that turn is, otherwise, I don't really know what the point of the turn is.
• Case offense/ turns should be extended by author name.
• Do - “Extend our jones evidence which says that extensions like these are good because they're easier to follow"
• Don't - "extend our link"
• For an argument to be voteable I want uniqueness/ link/ impact to be extended.
• First summary
• Defense should be extended but I’ll give slightly more lenience to your side if extended in final especially since the second speaking team already had a chance to frontline it twice.
• Second summary
• This is your side’s last chance to weigh, so if the weighing is not here then I will not evaluate any more weighing from your side
• Defense must also be extended

Final focus

• Just mirror summary, extend uniqueness, link and impact.
• Don't make new implications on something that was never heard before.

Cross

• Cross is binding, just bring it up in a speech though

Evidence

• I know how bad evidence ethics are, however, I will only call for evidence if if the other team tells me to call for it
• If your opponents are just blatantly lying about a piece of evidence, call it out in speech and implicate what it means for their argument
• I’ve always been a firm believer that a good analytic with a good warrant beats a great empiric with no warrant. Use that to your advantage
• You’ll have a minute to pull the evidence your opponents called for before your speaks start getting docked

top-level

qualifications & career highlights: i am a computer engineer and sociology double major in college. i was also the scout of the year at the 75th NDT online. i have cleared at 10 college policy debate tournaments starting with triples at the northwestern season closer for that year on alliances, and i was also double 2's in 2022 getting to doubles at the Texas Open on antitrust and earned a speaker award and cleared, also made it to doubles as the 17th seed at both the 2024 ADA tournament and the 77th NDT in 2023 on the legal rights for AI topic (while being double 2's at the latter as well), and at both of those previous two i beat Michigan State GM during round 4 in an upset. ok those are my bragging rights i care about. nothing exceptional but im happy with the mild success attained during my career.

speaker points: the only reason my inflation for speaker points is probably high if you look back at my speaks is because i think speaker point inflation has been wild. i cant fight it and i dont want to be the reason someone doesnt make it to elims on speaks, so i mean i give out decent speaks compared to most people. however though, that being said the trade-off here is that i will be probably more critical in the RFD and im direct and straightforward and outspoken so you can argue with me in the decision i dont care it doesnt bother me ill just respond back nicely and still be correct, but i dont mind some back and forth, im a debater too i get it. ultimately the impact i want my RFD and decision to have on you is simple.

i dont get paid enough to change your personal opinions, but i do get paid to give you an RFD which ur gonna hear approximately two and a half hours to three hours after you read this when you see my name on the pairing. My RFD is based on who i think won the Debate based on community consensus across the board. it reflects what i think most judges in the pool would think, not my own hot takes. i believe the judge should adapt to the debaters and i am aware of community consensus on most things and takes in the topic and community about logics and arguments. dont judge me based on what others say. time yourself please, and do not go over time because i will be timing so do not try it.

read whatever u want. seriously. i promise you i can judge any debate. critique arguments are weaker on this topic and think policy teams have been pretty in their bag this year. the nuances of economics aren't lost on me either and i can actually keep up, so run any DA you want, i'm definitely down. my teams are all reading a jobs guarantee aff, some are reading the regular fjg one with infrastructure and inequality advantages, some are reading the degrowth one, so i'm lowkey on the policy reform wave for high school this year. but if you do run critiques, i hate when people call it "the K". we're not german. that's really my only personal pet peeve. i have no hard and fast opinions on theory or topicality because i have a real life outside debate and i honestly couldnt care less about 99% of it sorry.

novice things for the neg:

1 - split the block, novices always forget the negative has two back to back speeches (2nc and 1nr) and they should have completely separate arguments from one another (but should still be somewhat compatible or at least not contradictory otherwise it's a performative contradiction) but they should be totally separate positions, i.e. 2nc takes the counterplan and case, 1nr takes a disadvantage and kicks out of any other argument.

2 - the 2nr must choose and narrow down - you want a DA, or a case turn, or you could do a DA with a counterplan, but do not just go for a ton of different random unrelated arguments. please narrow down in the 2nr. if you sound all over the place, you're probably going to lose.

3- 1nc and 1nr should not need prep time - you should have your 1nc ready before the round, and after you finish asking questions to the 2ac you should immediately start working on the 1nr. i recommend the 2nc takes half of the prep time you have, and the 2nr takes the other half. the 1nr should have at least fifteen minutes to prep this way, and it should be a really good speech because you can take one position and just solidly answer every single argument they put on that one position, which in novice debate usually translates to a very winnable 2nr.

novice things for the affirmative:

1 - answer every position and try to not drop any flow (as in, any position - you can surely drop parts of a position in novice debate and be fine usually), think about how much time you need to spend on each one in advance and break it down.

2 - don't drop your case in any speech, and put case as the first thing in every affirmative speech. please do not drop their case turns in your 2ac. have blocks that respond to each off case position and if you can do at least that, you're good

3 - the 1ar only needs a couple good arguments on each flow so just pick and choose and go fast. the 1ar only needs to extend your case impact for 5-10 seconds, and solvency for 5-10 seconds - if you don't do at least that, then i have to vote neg on presumption.

varsity - ABC's

conditionality: unbiased, more in the camp that it depends on the number not the practice, unless aff goes for condo bad outright. 2nr for condo good obviously doesn't need as much as the 2ar's full speech of condo bad, you just need to beat 1ar because 2ar can't make new arguments that weren't in the 1ar. that being said, 2ar still has hindsight and i'll still evaluate ur cross-apps. i dont understand how people still think dispo solves because being able to straight turn multiple neg positions and forcing them to go for them seems untenable and perms only take a couple of seconds to say on each flow so you still have to make most of the arguments otherwise so just set counter-interp to less than theirs or say its bad outright.

cap good/bad: i think the aff link turn to cap bad on this topic is pretty good, and if your planless aff says cap is bad, then i honestly dont think that is offense (in and of itself) against framework if the neg team is competent and can win TVA or SSD, so just go for other DA's to framework in that scenario. you can obviously implicate capitalism in how they construct their impacts or ideals under their model with more nuanced explanations, im just saying that they will win you can say cap bad under their model too, so you should account for that. if you want to go for cap good and you think it is strategic in round, and it links to their alt/aff then i will vote on it if you win the link and impact calc.

cp theory: unbiased usually i dont care either way but generally if you can articulate specific abuse story for the type of counterplan they have it's winnable for the aff for me still but at the end of the day just be real with me about what the impact to their thing is, or if their model and interp is just bad go for that, neg teams should feel good if they justify what they do

critique: the more u talk about the aff the more likely i will vote for u. dont drop their answers to your super important things, i get that you can drop stuff but it makes me sad when they have an on-point answer that you pretended to not hear. collapse down on the offense and close doors for me.

answering the critique: your strategic vision, which are often times very basic arguments, are key. use your aff and answer alts, your strategy usually either needs link defense and perm or just really good offense on framework and your aff's impacts not turned by them or captured through alt solvency by them.

framework against critical affs: i will vote for whoever is doing the better debating about debate i promise less on cheap shots more on impact level, fairness clash education skills are all equally good impacts i am unbiased in terms of each. predictability is your friend and limits should frame how you describe the iteration of your model over the course of a year and otherwise it is an internal link to the above four impacts. testing turns case because refinement, ballot cannot solve because Debate doesnt shape things, their model links back to their own offense because its not intrinsic to reading plans, and mitigating their turns to the process of Debating because they fall back on relying on them in some way are the four key components of negative strategy in my opinion. i think Defense is good, for four examples, the TVA or SSD lets you absorb their impacts with your model, and people can say they dont solve their case with generic presumption pushes or particular conceded cards specific to something they have said that their aff relies on. i know aff will shift but something you have said will probably stick if you are smart and can actually engage with what they are saying.

disadvantages - fav arg on topic highkey, yeah i like inflation and politics. 1ar must answer turns case, uniqueness frames the link for me but i can be convinced otherwise thats fine. in a lot of situations, uniqueness usually either is so powerful it overwhelms the link or it loses to thumpers, so exploit that. i think you should frame conceded internal links against the relative probability of aff solvency or your impact defense on their advantage if you have any, or if you are pairing it with a counterplan then usually it should be framed as any risk of a link to net benefit combined with sufficiency framing.

states counterplan - own section because sometimes it can be OP if states can do deficit spending because sometimes that solves every aff solvency deficit against the counterplan so i would say that it is a great generic but a clever aff team can certainly push back against the parameters for solvency.

topicality - biased towards thinking aff can tax because of wording but go for whatever you want, im cool with it. i won in a debate, beating michigan state's top team to topicality for my 2nr at the ndt for an aff about artificial intelligence on the legal rights topic. my only real bragging right i really care about.

theory - apart from CP theory and conditionality, i often think reject the arg not the team is a decent response to lots of them and i also am willing to hear defenses of some out there things, i think textual competition alone is not too good but in tandem with functional maybe not too bad, lit base usually checks abuse probably

final notes on strategy

good strategy: there are many different ways to view Debate which are all "good". i believe there are a lot of different ways to understand what "good" strategy is. i'm honestly tired of having opinions on lots of strategic disagreements between different sectors of the Debate community and i molded my brain so much over the years that i really don't have any strong opinions about which strategies are good, in a sense of what wins Debates, comparing community consensus to my own takes. i don't know what the "it" factor always is to win, but it's pretty obvious within the Debate.

Tech first makes sense obviously, but truth first isn't just what someone arbitrarily dictates is the truth on a personal level - it's the framing and narrative of the Debate that isn't just about technical coverage. Most of the time though when it's a simple Debate, Truth = Tech, because they end up being usually the exact same when the winning team goes for dropped arguments that are executed well and become true even when we might not agree on what the capital T Truth is. i care about you having your own arguments you focus on and also answering their arguments they focus on. i flow well enough to know when something is dropped, but good cross-applications can save you. giving a speech with more persuasive and narrative value even if you drop a minor blip is better because well-executed strategy always maximizes your chances of victory.

Don't worry about adjusting your strategy in front of me, unless you double turn yourself, not just multiple contradicting worlds. Debaters are already under enough stress as is at a debate tournament. Just debate well. i can recognize good debaters regardless of what argument you read and how you present yourself, so actually just be yourself and i can give you tips on how to just unlock your true potential based on what you already do, not based on what i want you to do. just go for the argument that is both the most technically sound decision because of lack of technical coverage, AND the argument that is the most coherent in general against the affirmative you're going for and would be your A-strat against the best team that could be reading that aff.

Defense-Offense or Offense-Defense as better known is intuitive to me because of how i have been coached in college, i divide arguments into Defense and Offense intuitively but i don't discriminate if your strategy is more of one than the other. i've seen teams prioritizing the latter in Debates and give incredibly difficult speeches to fight back against effectively even though sometimes i think they don't collapse down and instead extended way too many different pieces of offense. i've seen teams give largely Defensive speeches that i thought were pretty good too, and they were persuasive because they were directly responsive to the other team's primary arguments and largely controlled the direction of the Debate enough to actually determine the condition for the win. Most people do a mix, which is generally good, but interestingly i think different styles are conducive to different ratios of Defense to offense, if that makes sense. But don't overthink it - you should just do what you're already prepared to do.

In judging, I will prioritize the students ethics and their general arguments as first. Then, their speech will be the another important main factor. Attacking the opponent's argument is totally acceptable but I'll prioritize those who do it in elegant way and cause less ruckus.

I debated for three years on the national circuit for North Broward Prep in South Florida. I am now a student at UNC-Chapel Hill.

-Put me on the email chain: karinas@unc.edu

-PREFLOW BEFORE THE ROUND AND DON'T BE LATE

TL;DR:

-Tech>Truth

-I will probably give you a 30 if you disclose open-source on the wiki (tell me before the round starts) and send speech docs with cut cards before constructive speeches (case and rebuttal)

-No progressive arguments unless you are disclosed open-source on the wiki

More Specific:

Case: I do not care what substance arguments you read as long as they are not exclusionary. I will also evaluate disclosure and paraphrasing theory if your cases are disclosed open-source on the wiki (full text disclosure/ highlights is NOT the same thing). I am probably not the best judge to read K's and other progressive arguments (with the exception of standard theory shells) in front of, but if you send speech docs and explain your arguments throughly and accessibly I will try my best. I will be fine with any speed you choose to read your case at so long as you are sending speech docs with cut cards BEFORE your speech. I will NOT be happy if you decide to spread a paraphrased case and refuse to send speech docs. This doesn't mean that I require teams to send speech docs with cut cards before speeches--just make sure that if you plan on spreading/speaking at above 300 wpm, you do so. I am not a fan of "ghost"/"hidden" links in case and my threshold for responses to these arguments will be lower in rebuttal.

Rebuttal: Again, feel free to go as fast as you want/dump as many responses as you'd like as long as you are sending speech docs with cut cards before rebuttal. I will be extremely unhappy if you dump turns and blow up the one your opponent didn't respond to in the back half if you did not send an organized speech doc before your speech. My threshold for frontlines will be VERY low if this is your strategy. I require that all offense AND defense on the contention you are collapsing on be frontlined in second rebuttal and will consider responses you don't frontline dropped. Turns must be implicated and warranted well the first time they are read if you plan on going for them. Please do line-by-line and don't read huge prewritten OVs and DAs to time skew your opponents--I understand that this is becoming a more common strategy in PF but specific responses are always best.

Summary: PLEASE extend defense in first summary. Nothing is sticky. Extend all parts of the argument that you are going for (this includes uniqueness, link, and impact) with clear warrants. Weighing must start in summary at the latest. Be efficient--you should not need to spread in back half speeches if you are collapsing strategically.

Final Focus: I will not vote for any arguments that are not explicitly explained in the final focus speeches. I will not flow any new responses and will not evaluate new weighing that isn't a response to previous weighing. You must also FULLY extend your arguments in final focus to win it.

Misc:

-Please read trigger warnings on arguments that warrant one and include an anonymous opt-out form for all judges and participants. While I am a strong proponent of trigger warnings, they are not at all required for non-graphic descriptions of common debate impacts. I will certainly not look favorably upon those who use trigger warning theory to avoid discussing important issues.

-I always default to util and will presume for the first speaking team if there is no offense left in the debate

-Do not misconstrue evidence. If your opponents call you out on an egregious ethics violation, I will drop you and give you the lowest speaks possible. Do not take more than 2 minutes to pull up evidence; I will start running your prep. You MUST have cut cards ready to show your opponents if they are called for. I will not accept a 300 page pdf as your evidence and will tank your speaks if this is the case.

-Feel free to ask any questions about my paradigm before the round starts if anything is confusing

-I will disclose my decision after every debate. Postround as much as you want and feel free to ask questions about my decision. I would be happy to give speech-by-speech feedback and offer tips for improvement as well.

-Have fun and be respectful; I will not tolerate rudeness or discrimination of any kind

lunakansasdebate@gmail.com

email chains please i do not know what a "tabroom share" is and i will only learn against my will.

You should aim to be clear in front of me. Now double what you think is clear enough and that's about the range you need to be in.

KU '26

"judge" or "Luna"

Do whatever. I'm an educator first. Maximize your chances of winning by arguing with my ballot not your opponent.

Final rebuttals are most likely to win if they start with: "Our argument is X. Their best argument is Y. Even if they win Y, we have still won the debate on X for Z reason."

Feel free to email or ask any questions.

Huge fan of wearing masks in in-person debates (+0.5). Our mild inconvenience can help save lives!

Average speaks are 28.5

Ev ethics (L25) is skipping more than 5 words in a card, misciting author or article title, cards cut missing atleast 1 sentence, or cards cut that don't start and end with the start and end of paragraphs in the article.

I have no strong argument pre-dispositions as long as they are combined with judge instruction (see above) and attempt to be smart arguments (my favorite troll arguments are the ones where you debate well and beat all the other good teams).

pronouns: she/her

Portsmouth'22, NYU'26

Hey all!

I'm currently a policy debater at NYU but I primarily debated PF in high school (local and circuit) for four years and have experience in Parli, Presidential, Extemp, World Schools, and LD. I went to Nats twice for World Schools and PF and made it pretty far if that helps give an idea of where my experience is.

Tl;dr: no matter what style, outline the most direct path to the ballot. Tagging arguments and important pieces of evidence (/general signposting) are really helpful for my flow. The clearer and cleaner you keep it (the more you're able to boil down the debate into key voting issues/arguments), the more likely the ballot will be on your side.

This should go without saying but: I will not tolerate any case or debater that is racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, Islamaphobic, ableist, or otherwise bigoted in any way. You will lose the round and immediately be reported to Tab.

Also, I'd love to be on evidence chains/send me your speech docs. I probably won't need it unless a particular card is contentious, but I like to have it just in case. My email is josiesedam18@gmail.com

--

General housekeeping:

I'll time you but I hope you'll time yourselves as well. I don't generally give time signals but if you need/want them, let me know before the round starts and we can work that out. Please state how much prep time you've used and have left after each time you take it so everyone's on the same page.

--

PF:

Speaking pace: I know PF has been developing a lot recently and is shifting more toward policy however, while many policy skills are incredibly helpful, please remember that isn't a policy round. You're welcome to speak quickly but spreading or quasi-spreading will negatively affect your speaker points.

Speeches: A well-organized link chain is the key to a great case. Tagging and signposting are helpful (roadmaps before speeches are encouraged if they're kept under 15 seconds). Along with strong evidence, fleshed-out warrants are essential. I feel like I'll say this a lot but tell me why something will happen and why that matters.

Remember the point of your speeches. Rebuttals are the time to tackle the nitty gritty of each case. Be mindful of how much time you're using for offense/defense in the last two speeches. This is the time to crystalize the debate/why you won or are winning, not to give another rebuttal. For first speakers (I was one too), be sure your summary isn't a second 2N/2A. This is where you start deciding what the judge should focus on to sway the ballot to your side. Don't waste time you don't have. If your refutation was strong, it will be noted and reflected in my flow.

Give me voting issues! State them explicitly. It's really helpful when boiling down the debate (especially if it got messy) and crucial to a powerful final focus. Always, always, always collapse your case.

Clash and weighing: these are essentials. I need to know why your side is better, not just that it is. Buzzwords (ex: magnitude, scope, probability, etc) are great for summary/final focus as long as you explain them. In your final focus literally, tell me, "Judge, we outweigh on X because Y." The clearer and cleaner you keep it, the more likely the ballot will be on your side.

Personal: I'm not a fan of "judge, you can't believe my opponents for X" or "judge, completely drop my opponent's contention x" unless you fully explain why. Don't just say it to say it -- rounds get exhausting when it feels like neither side is listening to the other. Speaking in absolutes harms your credibility as a debater.

Additionally, and again, this is personal -- I don't believe in "dropped arguments" unless they've been explicitly stated that they're dropped or have been untouched for two speeches (ex: brought up in the opening, not addressed in rebuttal or summary, brought back up in final focus). It's a pet peeve of mine to be told that an argument can't be brought up again in the summary because it wasn't addressed/fully addressed in the rebuttal. That's not in the rules of PF, please don't pull that move.

Crossfires: These can get contentious and messy easily-- I greatly admire debaters/teams who can maintain clean crosses throughout the debate.

The random: No tech, please. Please please please please please do not go full tech. I will cry. There are no Ks, Ts, counterplans, etc. Those are super great and helpful for other forms of debate but not PF.

Also, be mindful of time but it's okay to finish your final thought/sentence after the timer.

At the end of the day, just be respectful and courteous to each other. And have fun!

--

LD

I will admit, I'm newer to LD than most other styles. I've debated it before and comfortably understand it but if there's something high-techy, it will probably go over my head. Consider me more on the lay end of the spectrum.

I'm going to flow on speeches, not docs, but I will reference them for evidence.

Speaking: As one very helpful judging guide stated, "The best argument wins, not the best-sounding speaker. This is a debate, not an interpretive event." Very true! Ultimately, the content will always take precedence over performance. However, clarity and vocal variety when speaking are really important. I love hearing debaters who are passionate and engaged with the topic. I know spreading is a huge part of LD, and I can handle speed, but I'd prefer if you slowed it down a little bit. For the later speeches, I find intense spreading less helpful because I might lose some of what you're saying when you need me to hear it most.

I'll say clear 2x before it affects your speaker points.

Clash and weighing: As y'all know, the debate can basically hinge on your criteria clash. Since this is a value debate and not as evidence-based, the cleaner your clash, the easier it is for me to weigh arguments. I'm much more lay in LD compared to PF so telling me exactly where and why you won the round will go a long way. Tagging and signposting are very helpful for me to keep everything clear in my flow.

Personal: I will not find a non-topical aff persuasive.

I'm not a fan of "judge, you can't believe my opponents for X" or "judge, completely ignore my opponent's contention x" unless you fully explain why. Don't just say it to say it -- rounds get exhausting when it feels like neither side is listening to the other. Speaking in absolutes harms your credibility as a debater.

KvK debates, high theory, and tricks are going to lose me.

Additionally, I don't believe in "dropped arguments" unless they've been explicitly stated that they're dropped or have been untouched for the whole debate by both sides -- ex: you can't bring up something in the 1AC, ignore it for the whole debate, and say you win on it in the 2AR. It's a pet peeve of mine to be told that an argument can't be brought up again and so I should ignore it. If you're going to claim your opponent dropped an arg you need to fully explain why.

Structure: I think that having a strong/clear structure is even more important here than in PF. I want to follow your path to the ballot easily.

CX: Same from PF -- These can get contentious and messy easily, I greatly admire debaters who can maintain clean crosses throughout the debate.

Jargon: Assume I don't know it. Avoiding it would be great but if that's not possible, please break it down quickly so I understand.

Be mindful of time but it's okay to finish your final thought/sentence after the timer.

At the end of the day, just be respectful and courteous to each other. And have fun!

Background: I’m a second-year Journalism major at the University of Texas at Austin. I did 2 years of Congress and 2 years of PF at Vista Ridge High School.

PF

Argumentation

• 2nd rebuttal should be frontlining

• Extensions, extensions, extensions

• Weigh as early as you have time for and make sure that it’s comparative. I want clear warranting as to why I should vote for one impact over the other, not just name-dropping random weighing mechanisms

• I won’t vote on theory unless there’s an actual reasonable violation in round, so no disclosure, paraphrasing, etc

• I will vote for substance over any theory or progressive argument. Treat me like a lay judge when it comes to any progressive arguments

• It’s really up to you, but I prefer line-by-line in summary and voters in FF

• Definitely frame the round and WEIGH in summary

• I’m listening during cross but won’t vote on anything

Evidence/Speed

• Add me to the chain: raiyanshaik22@gmail.com

• Don’t just ask for multiple pieces of evidence for the purpose of prep

• I’m generally ok with speed as long as you’re speaking clearly, but if you’re going to spread send me a doc

• Be respectful. I will lower your speaks if you’re rude or excessively aggressive during CX

I will immediately vote you down if you say anything racist, sexist, homophobic, etc.

Congress

• Do not just give multiple sponsorship speeches in a row. After the first speech, your speeches should be interacting with the arguments before

• do not repeat arguments from prior speeches unless you're specifically adding something new to the conversation and acknowledging that you're doing so

• If you’re giving one of the last speeches of the round, crystallization is preferred

• Clear cited evidence

Hello,

I am Monali (PhD, Health Economics). I am an enthusiastic parent of a middle school debater. I will look for honest, clear, and concise opinions. Debaters’ mannerism in presenting themselves is important to me. I will give points based on the content, presentation, preparation, organized rebuttals, and background research. I would prefer if the debater can pace themselves and not rush through the content. I can follow a clear speech with decent speed. Speak at a pace that will allow you time to say what you want. Be respectful and sensitive to other team members’ opinions. Use vocabulary that is easily understood with clear diction. And most importantly, learn and have FUN!

Hello , I have judged several rounds and have a good understanding of debate theory and strategy.

When it comes to judging, I prioritize clarity, organization, and persuasion. I believe that a debater's job is to present a clear and convincing argument, and it's my job as a judge to evaluate how well they accomplish that goal. In my view, the most persuasive arguments are those that are backed up by evidence and logical reasoning, and that address the core issues of the debate.

I value fairness and respect in the debate community, and I expect all debaters to adhere to those principles as well. I also believe that the debaters should be civil and professional, both in their speeches and in their interactions with one another. Any instances of disrespectful behavior will be taken into account in my decision.

In terms of argumentation, I am open to all kinds of arguments, including policy, value, and fact-based arguments. However, I am not interested in hearing arguments that are discriminatory or disrespectful. I will not tolerate any form of hate speech or discriminatory remarks.

When it comes to evidence, I prefer quality over quantity. I value well-researched and relevant evidence that directly supports a debater's argument. Evidence that is taken out of context, misused, or irrelevant will not carry weight in my decision.

In terms of style, I appreciate debaters who are confident, articulate, and poised. However, style alone will not win the round for a debater. Substance and sound argumentation are key.

Finally, I believe that every round is a learning experience, and I encourage debaters to ask questions and seek feedback after the round. I will do my best to provide constructive criticism and offer suggestions for improvement.

I look forward to a fair and respectful debate. Good luck to all debaters!

Hello y'all!!

My name is Schylar and I just enetered my junior year of college at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. I debated all four years of high school at Timberline High School in Boise, Idaho. I did policy my freshman and sophomore year. My junior year and senior year I did PF. If you have any more questions, you should ask me before the debate. I will try my best to put everything on the ballot, but if you have more questions you can email me. My email is schylar.jordan.smith@gmail.com. I am not familiar with any of the topics so try and explain them without missing the more niche parts of the debate! Debate is supposed to be fun and educational so I am fine if you do pretty much anything you want. I have some specifics laid out for the different debate types so read those :)

I hate overviews!

I think that they use up valuable speech time and aren't strategic. Also most overviews are just arguments that can be put somewhere else on the flow.

Policy:

I am basically a TABS/ flow judge in policy. I am fine with any argumentation but you better know how to execute it. On topicality you need to go slower than regular to make sure I get all the standards and voters. On disads I am looking for clash. If the aff hasn't done enough coverage and I still think the impact of the disad is reasonable, I will vote neg. If the 2NR goes for a disad or two I still want to see sufficient extention of the case debate. Other than that I want strategic debating. For Ks, I am pretty fine with anything. I am the least framiliar with them, but still understand the debate. Framework on the K is really important to my voting so don't just wash over it or go through it really quick. I am fine with any speed but slow down on tag lines so I can flow them. I rarely flow author names so refer to the arguments by author name and what the argument is. You can tag team in CX but if one partner dominates both answering periods or questioning periods, I will give you both lower speaker points. Put me in the email chain... its at the top :)

PF:

I have the most experience in Public Forum. I went to nationals in PF in 2021 and 2022. I view PF as the debate type that any one can judge. That means that you should be very good at explaining and persuading the judge. Other than that I think you can do anything that you want. I think that you should have some sort of framework because that helps me evaluate the round. Cross fire periods should be an equal amount of questions and answers. If someone dominates then I will lower both you and your partner's speaker points. Final focus is the most persuading to me if you clearly lay out voters. A lot of debaters try and touch on both sides of the flow, but with so little time this is not very helpful.

LD:

LD is very interesting to me. When it comes to arguments I am basically a TABS judge, although I still want the value/criterion debate. I vote on a few things when it comes to it. (1) If the other side proves that your case doesn't fit under your value or your criterion. (2) You should try to prove that your value and criterion are best for evaluating both sides. I am fine with any argument, including CPs on the neg. CX should be an equal amount of questions and answers. If you dominate the CX periods, you will get lower speaker points. In other words, let your opponent answer/ask questions.

I'm a PF coach and big advocate of empowering student voice. The fact that you’re here and well prepared is already impressive. It does not matter to me whether you speak quickly or slowly. That's a matter of your own comfort. Be respectful of all in the room. Theory is not my favorite. If it's used in the spirit of undermining your opponents rather than encouraging debate, it won't go over well with me.

Focus on the resolution and your position. Challenges against well intentioned preparation are off-putting and focussing on details outside the round often don’t work for me. If you have triggers to sensitive material, let your opponents know in advance..

I will be impressed by sound research, critical thinking and persuasive argumentation. Outline your intentions and accomplishments clearly. More important than anything is respect for your opponents' and the experience of debating. They will present valid arguments too, so don't tell me everything they said was wrong. Be judicious yourself as a debater and consider arguments that are more convincing in terms of impact. Consider your flow. Concede to their strengths, but convince me that yours have a greater impact. Please weigh your impact in final focus and don’t bring up anything new there. Quantifying an impact is helpful, but only if it comes from a credible source. Please don’t make up numbers.

Use crossfire to clarify any misconceptions. It's not a place to bring up new information.

Call cards only when seeing them will bring true value. Sometimes this is done to stall for time and often that exposes less than stellar evidence. Be careful not to set this trap for yourself.

Ks can work for me when well linked. I need you to spell out the probability of extreme impacts and what chain of events could set them off in an aff/neg world. Be careful with theory. It’s risky and I won’t vote for it unless you prove the purpose makes for a better debate.

Most of all, enjoy, reflect and grow from every debating experience. I will try to give you the best feedback I can to help you learn and grow.

Please add me to email chains of evidence exchange: dsorobey@ssis.edu.vn

General:

pronouns: he/him

Yes, I would like to be on the email chain: matthewsaintgermain at gmail.

If you are going to be speed reading analysis, especially in rebuttals, send your speech doc. I'm 47 years old and have been in very loud bands and worked in nightclubs for decades. I hate to admit that I don't have the hearing I once did and it has become prohibitive for me to hear the blender of paragraphs coming out of your mouth at auctioneer speeds that generally isn't tagged nor signposted and is just huge chunks of long, run-on sentences that I in real time have to paraphrase in my head into something discernible as I'm flowing it and hearing you already make new, run-on sentences to subsequently paraphrase. Help me help you. Sending your doc does not hurt you. If you don't send this you get what you get and no amount of post rounding is going to demystify my decision appropriately for you.

REPLY ALL.

Affirmatives should have the email chain up and ready to roll immediately upon getting settled in the round. Please do not wait for everyone to arrive to start this. No "oops, I forgot" 1 minute before the round starts please! Unpack your stuff and get on this immediately, preferably sending a blank test email ASAP to make sure we're not having connection issues right before you stand up for 1AC. Also please only use an email chain and not the file drop and please do not send me a live doc as I flow on my computer (a Mac, so please send pdfs) and working from a file that people are updating live causes issues on my end so create a copy of your doc and send so I can view it without issue. I have multiple screens up optimized to flow the round and fill out the ballot via web browser split screen with a spreadsheet program and having to search for your evidence or view it outside of a browser before your speech messes my whole deal up. Despite all this being clear in my paradigm for some time now people keep ignoring it so it seems as if I have to give you justification for why this is important and it is because doing it any other way causes all my screens to get totally out of order as well can cause system resources to go wild. Having to minimize a screen to open up a word editor to then maximize and place back in my dual screen takes time and then rearranges the order of all my windows meaning in the time I'm trying to accomplish this while muted, debaters often go "I'll start if i don't hear from anyone in 3... 2..." and I'm now scrambling to try and find the window that Mac has decided to randomly change position in my window swipe order meaning where I think it is it isn't, and by the time I find it to unmute myself y'all are already speaking despite me not being ready and struggling to tell you this because of your choices to send me stuff that does not comport with my set up. Please keep things easy for me by running an email chain where you send pdfs, not doing this tells me you haven't read the very top level of my paradigm.

Former Edina High School (MN) policy debater (1991-1995) and captain (1994-1995). Former Wayzata High School (MN) policy coach (2019-2022).

I have judged just about every year since then for various high schools in the Twin Cities metro, including Edina, Wayzata, Minnetonka, and South St. Paul, from 1995 to present, with only two years off, just about 27 years. Please note, however, that this has not meant coaching on those topics up until 2019 through the end of the 2021-2022 season.

I'm versed in plenty of debate theory but I'm still catching up on nuance of newer nomenclature so get wild on the meta jargon at your own peril. Especially on critical theory arguments, you would do well to SLOW WAY DOWN and explain yourself thoroughly as while these things may be crystal clear to you, I'm not reading theory or complex philosophy In my free time so stuff like telling me to look beyond the face and totalizing otherness isn't going to immediately jog my "oh, yeah, that stuff" part of my dusty closet of a brain as you're going a million miles an hour with almost zero audible indication of where tags or analysis begin or end with relation to the evidence you're blazing through. I am 45 years old, I played in bands and have worked in rock clubs for years which has impacted my hearing, and especially over the Internet, speed reading complex philosophy through whatever variable quality mic you have often results in a kind of unintelligible din that is not helping you. You may in fact say it is actively hurting you. SLOW DOWN. This is an issue of accessibility and ability. If you're doing this and not sending the analysis that you're straight up reading from a file but expect me to somehow jot down multi-syllabic, college-level philosophical words while you triple-auctioneer speed over the internet, I mean, you're gonna get what you're gonna get, and no amount of post-rounding questions about things that were so clear to you is going to demystify what I humanly was able to get down. I need to stress this. If you're going philosophical and going even moderately fast, you're probably going to lose. Acting shocked after the round isn't going to change what you could have easily adapted to before the round started.

Unless you're theorizing it on the fly, send me everything you read, not just evidence. There is no material audible difference for the listener between you reading evidence and you reading analysis as fast as humanly possible. Both are just a kind of variable din regardless of the content.

My primary focus has been and continues to be Policy debate on the high school level, and that's where probably about 85% of my judging work has come. But I have ample experience judging circuit-level LD and PF through breaks alongside college debate and am more than comfortable adjudicating these different forms of debate.

This paradigm is a constant work in progress.

Across Policy/PF/LD:

Dear debaters: I want to up front set your mind at ease by saying that debate, as I see it, is a club that by the start of your very first round, you are all a valued member of. The fact that you gathered up all your anxiety and worries and excitement and talent and got up and gave your very first speech, it's totally awesome. To me, you are part of a distinct kind of people, different from all the non-debate people, and as such, I want you to both embrace failure as a growth methodology as well as let go of any worries or judgments or preconceived notions about whether or not you belong here. You absolutely do. Please, not only feel okay making mistakes here but look for opportunities to make them! Take chances, especially in your first two to three years of debate. This debate stuff can honestly be mentally rigorous at times, but it's all about a kind of shedding of your prior self and any of the BS put on you in your lives outside of debate. Here you're on the team so any and all advice given to you is purely about building you up even if it feels like criticism. Only internalize what you need to fix, not that it means anything about you. I've learned over nearly 30 years of judging and coaching that while there are kids whom take to this immediately, that there are also kids who seem like they can't handle this at all and drop terrible rounds in their first year or even two, whom end up becoming TOC and Natty quals debaters that blow you away. I've seen it over and over. Debate (and especially policy debate) is a gauntlet that takes years to develop your skills, and so long as you stick with it, you'll succeed. The fact that you are here means that you're already one leg up on winning arguments in regular meatspace as is, but stick with it and it'll change your life over a myriad of domains.

If you think I'm not paying attention to you, you're wrong. I have probably one of the most detailed flows you're ever going to see, which you won't, but you get my drift. I just try very hard to look almost disinterested so you don't really know what I'm thinking and so it won't mess with you, though there are points where something does trigger a response and you should notice that, but anything else is just me trying to give you nothing visual to go off of. Just never confuse it with anger or indifference or whatever. Like, if you do something egregious, you'll know because I'll tell you. Otherwise, there's no subtext or hidden meaning behind anything I'm relaying to you as I'm extremely direct. I promise you I don't hate you.

Time yourselves, across all levels of debate, including novices. Y'all can handle this and take responsibility for each other by keeping tabs on both your and your opponents time.

Straight up don't go whole hog on disclosure. There was no disclosure when I debated. There wasn't even really "let me see your evidence" my novice year. You went in raw dog and dealt with it. That's not to say that I don't understand the whys here, it's just that I really don't find them compelling versus the debate we still could have with you ripping through open ev quick-like. If your opponent is being intentional here, didn't disclose or did something different than what their wiki said or what they told you, I think you have a path to argue presumption tilting your way but I still really need you to debate the actual debate rather than dumping a ton of time into an argument I would honestly feel dirty voting for. If you want to run disclosure, honestly do not spend more than 30 seconds in a constructive or rebuttal on it. Make your violation, set your standard, show how they violate, move on to actual substantive issues. You're just never going to win a "5 min on disclosure in 2NR" strat with me. Do other stuff.

If your Neg strat involves multiple off and post Aff-response you kick out of a ton of stuff that the Aff responded to and just go for something that was severely undercovered, yes, I'll still maybe vote for this because technically you are winning, but this won't engender good speaks, and the other team really has to mismanage it. I don't believe this is all that educational of a debate (hint: there's an in-round arg here) and I think smart Affirmative teams should challenge this strat within the confines and rules of the round (meaning I think there's an argument you can construct, esp w/in policy, to check against this strat in your 2AC/1AR). To be clear, I am not anti-speed whatsoever, but a straight dump strat and then feasting on the arg that they had at the bottom of the flow with few responses is just like meh. It's honestly poor form. You're telling me you cannot beat this team heads up on the nuts and bolts argumentation. Affs are responsible for handling this, no doubt, but we're walking a fine line here when it comes to previous exposure and experience, and if it's clear this is not a breaks team and your whole strategy is just making debate less educational for them by spreading them out of the round, I'm not going to dole you out rewards beyond the technical win.

Unless the other team insults your character, microaggression/community critiques are an almost auto-loss for me for the team that runs them. If one team is being a bunch of dongs, I may say something in round, but if I don't it's because it has not risen to the level wherein my intervention is necessary. Otherwise, this is something to solely bring up with your coaches and bring to tab; it's not in-round argumentation PERIOD and turning it into offense is well beyond problematic to me. My degree is in psychology and this greatly informs my position on this across a variety of domains, and one of the central reasons is argumentation like this used as offense almost entirely is not followed up with any kind of tournament debrief between tab and the two teams and their coaches. Because no one wants to nor cares about that in these rounds where the offense is beyond subjective. If these are such severe circumstances that you're claiming rises to the level of an ethics violation, there's a process here that involves a lot of parties and time and I've yet to see this happen at all in rounds where the violation is tenuous at best. As one of the judges in both the '22-'23 MN State Final Round in policy between Eagan and Edina and '20-'21 Nat Quals policy round between Rosemount and Edina, I rejected both of these arguments with prejudice. Character assassinating a kid in round will *NEVER* fly for me and if this kid is such a well known problem, then coaches, tab, and the state high school league must be involved before they even sniff the morning bus to the tournament, let alone in the round itself. This has nothing to do with the Role of the Ballot and is extrinsic to why we're here to debate. Again, I will not have rounds I judge turn into character assassinations of individual debaters just because you don't like their personality. If they drop something offensive, like actual name calling, I'll even bring it to tab, but a little friendly sparring does not make the activity unsafe and not liking how someone speaks or their intonation sets a precedent that makes it even harder for neurodiverse kids (and adults) to participate. Make no mistake, this is not a "kids these days are too soft" boomer doomer arg. It's expressly about protecting everyone and not having DEBATE rounds devolve into some inquisition about a teenager's however unsavory-to-you approach. Racist, sexist, ableist, etc. comments are squarely different from this, though I believe teams who make an honest mistake and apologize should not be rejected and we should continue to move on, with the understanding that I'll likely mention something to your coaches to make sure the mistake is noted beyond the confines of the round.

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Policy:

I view the intent of debate to be about education while simultaneously playing an intellectual game. I think that the word education itself is up for debate, but I would tend to view it as both mastery of epistemology and praxis. I am open to a discussion of that truth but I enter the world of debate with a certain set of beliefs about larger issues that should the round conform to that precondition, I am likely to vote there.

I would outwardly suggest that I am a tabula rasa judge who will vote for anything (that isn't reveling in things that make all debaters unsafe and are conscientious of specific situations that tend to be more unique for particular populations), but if you pinned me down on what I tend to think of when I think "policy debate," I would likely default to being a policymaker who attempts to equally weigh critical debate, meaning if the analysis/evidence is good, I can be persuaded to buy "cede the political," but it's not my default position.

Within the realm of policy, I believe a lot is up for grabs. The rules themselves are up for debate, and I think this can be a wonderful debate if you really want to go there. And just because I say I'm a policymaker doesn't mean that I'm against critical arguments; quite the contrary. I will vote on anything so long as the reasoning for it is sound. My preference is to hear about a subject that the affirmative claims to solve and why I should or should not vote for it. If that means that the policy entrenches some problematic assumption, that's 100% game; if it means something beyond the USFG, that's also fine.

Brass tacks, I'm not going to deny it: you give me a solid policy style round, I'm gonna love it. But I'm right there with you if you want to toss all that aside. As a debater, I chose to run arguments (borders K in 94/95) for an entire season that over half of my judging pool rejected on face as a valid form of argumentation with some making a drammatic display of holding their pen in the air while I was speaking and placing it on the table and then folding their arms to let me know just how horrific my choice of argumentation was. So for critical teams know that outside of Donus Roberts in the back of the room, I was a K debater who intentionall ran Ks in front of judges that thought I was ruining the activity and exacted punishments against me throughout my entire senior year basically destroying my experience. These were grown ass adults. While I might hedge towards policy as policy, I was a K debater myself so I am open to anything. I ran what I wanted to run, and I think the debaters of today in policy should run what they want to run, and our job as judges is to fairly adjust to how the activity adapts while connecting the activity to the constructs that best define it. That said, the further you diverge from the resolution on the aff, the more neg presumption is not just fair, but warranted.

I believe debate is also much more about analysis of argumentation than just reading a bunch of evidence. It's awesome you are able to quickly and clearly read long pieces of evidence, but absent your analysis of this evidence and how it impacts the round/clashes with the other team's argumentation, all you've done is, essentially, read a piece of evidence aloud. I need you to place that evidence within the context of the round and the arguments that have been made within it. I don't need you to do that with ALL the evidence, just the pieces that become the most critical as you and your opponents construct the round. Your evidence tells the story of your arguments, and how far they'll go with me.

If you hit truth, I'm there with you, but I can't make the arguments for you (I lean more truth than tech but I just can't make the arguments for you). When rounds devolve into no one telling me how to adjudicate the critical issues, you invite me to intervene with all my preconceived notions as well as my take on what your evidence says. To keep me out of the decision, I need you to tell me why your argument beats their argument based on what happened in the round (evidence, analysis, clash). I need you to weigh for me what you think the decision calculus should come down to, with reasons that have justification within the sketch of the round.

If you're a critical team reading this, know I've voted for K affs, poetry affs, narratives, and the like before. I'd even venture to guess my voting record on topics venturing far from the resolution is probably near 50/50. But I will buy TVA, switch-side and the like if they're reasonably constructed. The further you are from the resolution, the more I need you to justify why the ballot matters at all.

I believe line-by-line argumentation is one of the most important parts of quality debate. Getting up and reading a block against another team's block is not debate. Without any form of engagement on the analysis level, the round is reduced to constructives that act like a play. I want you to weave the evidence you have in your block into the line-by-line argumentation. This means even the 1NC. Yes, you are shelling a number of arguments, but you do have the ability as a thinking brain to interact with parts of the 1AC you think are mistagged, overstated, etc.

2AC and 2NC cause significant in-round problems when they get up and just group everything or give an "overview" of the specific arguments and then attempt line-by-line after I've flowed your 15 arguments on the top of the flow. Don't do this. Weave case extensions within the structure of replying to the 1NC's arguments.

The strongest Negative critical argument to me is "One Off" in the 1NC and then just horizontally eating that team alive the whole round on this one argument. I don't care how good the Aff is, "ONE OFF" uttered as the roadmap in 1NC sends chills down anyone's spine. Honestly, I HATE "6 off" and then feasting on the one arg the Aff fumbles. As I grow older, I'm less and less and less inclined to dole out the win on this strat. I also probably am not the best judge to run condo good against if the way you operationalize stuff is a pump and dump strat.

The following specific speech comments of this paradigm are more focused for novice and junior varsity debaters. At the varsity level, all four debaters should feel free to engage in cross ex, though, if you are clearly covering for a partner who seemingly cannot answer questions in varsity, that's going to impact their speaks and you highlighting it by constantly answering first for them is kinda crappy, kid.

Specific Speech Thoughts:

Cross Examination:

I do not like tag team cross ex for the team that is being questioned. Editing this years on, and I think the way this is phrased is misleading. A digression: some of the best cross-exes I've ever seen involved all four debaters. That said, the time was still dominated by those who were tasked with the primary responsibilities. And I think saying "I do not like tag team cross ex" makes it seem like I would be against the thing I just described as being great. This is only meant regarding scenarios in which it is clear one person is taking over for another for whatever reason. Taking over for your partner without allowing them the opportunity to respond first makes it look like they don't know what they're talking about and that you do not trust them to respond. Further, doing this prevents your partner from being able to expertly respond to questioning, a skill that is necessary for your entire team to succeed. I have little to no qualms about tag team questions, meaning if it's not your c/x and you have a question to ask, you can ask it directly rather than whispering it to your partner to ask. Again, however, I would stress you should still not take over your partner's c/x. Also, I'm generally aware when it's a situation where there is a pull up and the team has to make due. Obviously speaks will be attenuated, but also do think this is some kind of "I'm angry at you," deal. I can generally recognize in these scenarios and don't worry if you're trying to help your pull up.

Further, there is no "preparatory" time between a speech and cross ex. C/x time starts as soon as speech time ends.

Global (all speeches):

• I was an extremely fast, clear, and loud debater. I have no issue with real speed. I have an issue with jumblemouth speed or quiet speed. I especially have an issue with speed on a speech with little to no signposting. Even if you are blindingly fast, you should ALWAYS slow down over tags, citations, and plan (aff or neg). Annunciate explicitly the names of authors. Seriously... "Grzsuksclickh 7" is how these names come out sometimes. Help me help you.

• Need to be signposted in some way. This means, on a base level, that you say the word "NEXT" or give some indication that the three page, heavily-underlined card you just read had an ending and you've begun your next tag. Simply running from the end of a piece of evidence into more words that start your next tag line is poor form. It makes my job harder and hurts your overall persuasion. Numbering your arguments, both in the 1AC and throughout the round, goes a long way with me.

• Optimize your card tags to something a human can write/type out in 3-5 seconds. Your paragraph long tag to a piece of evidence hurts your ability for me to listen to your evidence. No one can type out: "The alternative is to put primary consideration into how biopower functions as an instrument of violence through status quo education norms. Anything short of fundamentally questioning the institution of schooling only reifies violence. The alternative solves because this analysis opens space for discovery and scholarship on schooling that better mitigates the harms of status quo biopolitical control" within about 5 seconds, while you are reading some dense philosophical stuff that we ostensibly are supposed to listen to while trying to mentally figure out how to shorthand the absurdly long tag you just read. And yes, that's a real tag and no, it's not even close to the longest one I've heard, it's just the one I have on hand.

• The ultimate goal is to not be the speech that completely muddles/confuses the structure of the round.

1AC

• It's supposed to be a persuasive speech. It's the one speech that is fully planned out before the round. You should not be stuttering, mumbling, etc. throughout it. You've had it in your hands for an ample amount of time to practice it out. Read it forwards and backwards (seriously... read your 1AC completely backwards as practice, and not just once but until you get smooth with it). It's your baby. You should sound convincing and without much error. If you are constantly stumbling over your words, you need to cut out evidence and slow down. Tags need to be optimized for brevity and you should SLOW DOWN when reading over the TAG and CITATION. And you should be able to answer any question thrown at you in c/x. 2A should rarely, if ever, be answering for you.

1NC

• Operates much like a 1AC, in that you have your shells already fully prepared, and only really need to adjust slightly depending on if the 1AC has changed anything material. If you are just shelling off case, then you are basically giving a 1AC, and you should be clear, concise, and persuasive. As with 1ACs, if you are stumbling over yourself, you need to cut out evidence/arguments. If you are arguing case side, you need to place the arguments appropriately, not just globally across case. Is this an Inherency argument? Solvency? Harms mitigation? Pick out the actual signposted argument on case and apply it there. As with 1A, your 2 should not be answering questions for you in c/x.

2AC

• If the 1NC did not argue case, I do not need you to extend each and every card on case. "Extend case," is pretty much all I need. Further, this is a great opportunity to use any of the 1AC evidence against the off-case arguments made. Did you drop a 50 States Bad pre-empt in the 1AC? Cross-apply it ON THE COUNTERPLAN. I don't need you extending it on case side which literally has zero ink from the 1NC on it. KEEP THE FLOW CLEAN.

• You should be following 1NC structure, and line-by-lining all their arguments. Just getting up and reading a block on an argument is likely going to end up badly for you, because this is shallow-level, novice-style debate, that tends to miss critical argumentation. I need you to *INTERACT* with the 1NC argumentation, and block reading is generally not that.

2NC

• First and foremost, you need to make sure you are creating a crystal clear separation between you and the 1NR in the negative block. Optimally, this means you take WHOLE arguments, not, "I'm gonna take the alt on the K and my partner will take the rest of the K." Ugh. No. Don't do this. Ever. It's awful and it ruins the structure and organization of the round. If there were three major arguments made in 1NC, let's say T, K, and COUNTERWARRANTS, you should be picking two of those three and leaving the third one completely untouched for the 1NR to handle.

• Use original 1NC structure to guide your responses to 2AC argumentation. Like the above, you should not be reading a block to 2AC answers. You need to specifically address each one, and using the original 1NC structure helps keep order to the negative construction of argumentation.

1NR

• Following from the above, you should not be recovering anything the 2NC did, unless something was missed that needs coverage. You should be focused on a separate argument from the 2NC. As above, don't just get up and read a block. Clash! Line-by-line! Make the 1AR's job harder.

1AR

• The hardest speech in the game. This is a coverage speech, not a persuasive speech. By all means, if you can be persuasive while covering, great, but your first job is full coverage. You do not need to give long explanations of points. Yes, you do need to respond to 2NC & 1NR responses to 2AC argumentation, but much of the analysis should have already been made. Here's where you want to go back and extend original 1AC and 2AC argumentation, and you only need to say "Extend original 1AC Turbinson 15, which says that despite policies existing on the books in the SQ, they continue to fail, everything the Negs argued on this point is subsumed by Turbinson, because these are all pre-plan policies." The part you don't need to do here is get into the *why* those plans fail. That's your partner's job to tell the big story. Again, if you are good enough to pull this off in 1AR, that's amazing and incredible, but no one is expecting that out of this speech. All judges are looking for from the 1AR is a connection from original constructive argumentation to the 2AR rebuttal. Rounds are generally NEVER won in 1AR, but they are often lost here. Your job, as it were, is essentially to not lose the round. Great 1ARs, however, begin to combine some of the global, story-telling aspects of 2AR on line-by-line analysis. But one thing none of them do is sacrifice coverage for that. Coverage is your a priori obligation and once you master that, then start telling your 1AR stories.

• Put things like Topicality and the Counterplan on the top of the flow.

2NR & 2AR

• Tell me why you win. Weigh the issues and impacts. Tell me what they are wrong about or analysis/argumentation they dropped. Frame the round.

Specific Argumentation

Topicality

• I tend to believe that any case that is reasonably topical is topical. You have to work hard to prove non-topicality to me, but that does not mean I will not vote for it. 2AC should always have a block which says they meet both the Neg definition and interpretation, as well presents their own definition and interpretation.

Kritik

• And as a bit of history, when I was a debater, the Kritik was an extremely divisive argument, with more than half of the judges my senior year (1994/95) demonstrably putting their pen down when we'd shell it and would refuse to flow or listen to it. We decided that we were not going to adjust for these judges and ran the K as a pretty much full time Negative argument and we were the first team in the State of Minnesota debate to do this. This made sense at the time as the topic was Immigration and a solid 75% of the cases we hit were increased border partrol, or ID cards, or reducing slots, etc. So, I'm quite familiar with the argumentation and I'm sympathetic to it. But I also feel it is overused in a sense when much more direct argumentation can defeat Affs and I would venture to guess many of the authors used in K construction would not advocate its use against Affs which seek redress for disadvantaged groups. I want you to seriously consider the appropriateness of the link scenario before you run a K.

• Negs need to do a lot of work to win these with me. It can't just be the rehashing of tag lines over and over and over. You need to have read the original articles that construct your argumentation so you can explain to me not only what the articles are saying, but are versed on the rather large, college-level words you are throwing around. Further, I find kritiks to be an advocacy outside of the round. I find it morally problematic to get up in the 1NC and argue "here are all these things that impact us outside of the round because fiat is illusory" and then kick out of this in the 2NR.

• I also want you to seriously consider the merit of running these arguments against cases which seek to redress disadvantaged groups. While I get the zeal of shoving it down some puke capitalist's throat, I question whether running said argumentation against a case which seeks, for example, to just provide relevant sex education for disabled or GLBTQ folx as appropriate. You're telling me after all these years of ignoring educational policy which benefits straight, cis, white guys that *now's the time* to fight capitalism or biopower or whatever when the focus on the case is to help those who are extremely disadvantaged in the SQ. This is an argument that proffers out-of-round impacts and I certainly understand the ground that allows this kind of argumentation to be applied, but a K is a different kind of argument, and I think it runs up against some serious issues when it attempts to lay the blame for something like capitalism at the feet of people who are getting screwed over in the SQ.

• I'm going to copy my friend Rachel Baumann's bit on the identity K stuff: "I will also admit to being intrigued with the culture-based positions which question the space we each hold in the world of debate. I have voted both for and against these arguments, but I struggle with which context would be the appropriate context in which to discuss this matter. The more I hear them, the less impressed I am with identity arguments, mostly because, again, I struggle with the context. Also, there is the issue of ground. Saying "vote against them because they are not... X" (which is an actual statement I heard in an actual round by an actual debater this year) seems just as constraining as the position being debated, and does not provide the opposing team any real debatable ground."

Case

• I will vote on IT ALL. Their barrier is existential? Well, that's an old school argument and I will totally vote on an Aff not meeting their prima facie burden, and I will not find it cute or kitsch or whatever. It is a legitimate argument and I am more than happy to vote there, but you have to justify the framework for me.

• Negatives must keep in mind that unless you have some crystal clear, 100% solvency take out, you are generally just mitigating their comparative advantage. Make sure that you aren't overstating what you are doing on case and that you weigh whatever you are doing off case against this.

Theory

• Also into it all and will vote on it. I think Vagueness and Justification and Minor Repairs all are quite relevant today with how shoddily affirmatives are writing their plans. Use any kind of argumentation that is out there, nothing is too archaic or whatever to run. Yes, this means counterwarrants!

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Lincoln Douglas:


Much of the above for Policy crosses over into LD. I often sit in LD rounds where the criterion and value are mentioned at the front end of the debate and then never again. It would seem to me that these help bolster a framework debate and you're asking me to lock into one of these in order to influence how I vote, so then never really mentioning them again, nor using them to shape the direction of the debate always confuses the heck outta lil ol' me. Weigh the issues, write the ballot for me. Not locking argumentation down forces me to go through my flows and insert myself into the debate. Will vote on critical argumentation on either side (check my responses on 'distance from the resolution' up in the policy part, applies here as well) and you can never go too fast for me so don't worry.

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Public Forum:

The requisite "I'm a policy coach, you can do whatever with me in PF" applies. Just tell me how to vote.

Adapted from a fellow coworker:

Likes

- Voters and weighing. I don't want to have to dig back through my flow to figure out what your winning arguments were. If you're sending me back through the flow, you're putting way too much power in my hands.

- Clear sign posting and concise taglines.

- Framework. If you have a weighing mechanism, state it clearly and provide a brief explanation.

- Unique arguments. Debate is an educational activity, so you should be digging deep in your research and finding unique arguments. If you have a unique impact, bring it in. I judge a lot of rounds and I get tired of hearing the same case over and over and over again.

Dislikes

-Just referencing evidence by the card name (author, source, etc.). When I flow, I care more about what the evidence says, not who the specific source was. If you want to reference the evidence later, you gotta tell me what the evidence said, not just who said it.

-SPEED. I'm a policy coach. There is no "too fast" for me in PF. Seriously. There's no way possible and anti-speed args in PF won't move me in the slightest. Beat them heads up.

-Evidence misrepresentation. If there is any question between teams on if evidence has been used incorrectly, I will request to see the original document and the card it was read from to compare the two. If you don't have the original, then I will assume it was cut improperly and judge accordingly.

-Don't monopolize CX time. Answer quickly the question asked with no editorializing.

-"Grandstanding" on CX. CX is for you to ask questions, not give a statement in the form of a question. Ask short, simple questions and give concise answers.

-One person taking over on Grand CX. All four debaters should fully participate. That said, I really don't need any of the PF niceties and meta communication. Just ask away. Seriously. The meta performance of cordiality seems like a waste of time in a format with the least time to speak.

-K cases. I'll vote for em. K arg's same. If you hit a K arg, don't deer-in-headlights it. Think about it rationally. Defend your rhetoric and/or assumptions. Question the K's assumptions. Demand an alternative. Does the team running the K bite the K themselves? What's the role of the ballot under the K? There's plenty of ways to poke a sharp stick at a K. Simply sticking your head in the sand and arguing "we shouldn't be debating this" is not and will never be a compelling argument for me and you basically sign the ballot for me if the other team extends it and goes for the K with only your refusal to engage it as your counter argumentation.

General

-Evidence Exchanges. If you are asked for evidence, provide it in context. If they ask for the original, provide the original. I won't time prep until you've provided the evidence, and I ask that neither team begins prepping until the evidence has been provided. If it takes too long to get the original text, I will begin docking prep time for the team searching for the evidence and will likely dock speaker points. It is your job to come to the round prepared, and that includes having all your evidence readily accessible.

-If anything in my paradigm is unclear, ask before the round begins. I'd rather you begin the debate knowing what to expect rather than start your brutal post round grilling off with one-arm tied behind your back. ;)

Weighing

I do bring a policy comparative advantage approach to PF. In the end I believe there are two compelling stories that are butting heads and which one both 1) makes the most sense, and 2) is backed up by argumentation and evidence in round. I am pretty middle of the road on truth vs tech, requiring a lot less when the arg aligns with the truth, but if you are cold dropping stuff there's no amount of reality I can intervene to make up for that. You are each attempting to construct a scenario to weigh against the other and I'm deciding which one makes more sense based on the aforementioned factors. Point out to me how you've answered their main questions and how your evidence subsumes their argumentation. Point out your strongest path to victory and attempt to block their road. Don't just rely on thinking your scenario is better, you must also harm theirs.

No one really gets their full scenario, it's all a bunch of weighing risk and probability and if you can inject doubt into the other teams scenario, it goes a long way towards helping weigh the risk of your scenario against yours. Keep the flow clean and do this work for me and you'll get your ballot.

Email - chulho.synn@sduhsd.net.

tl;dr - I vote for teams that know the topic, can indict/rehighlight key evidence, frame to their advantage, can weigh impacts in 4 dimensions (mag, scope, probability, sequence/timing or prereq impacts), and are organized and efficient in their arguments and use of prep and speech time. I am TRUTHFUL TECH.

Overview - 1) I judge all debate events; 2) I agree with the way debate has evolved: progressive debate and Ks, diversity and equity, technique; 3) On technique: a) Speed and speech docs > Slow no docs; b) Open CX; c) Spreading is not a voter; 4) OK with reading less than what's in speech doc, but send updated speech doc afterwards; 5) Clipping IS a voter; 6) Evidence is core for debate; 7) Dropped arguments are conceded but I will evaluate link and impact evidence when weighing; 8) Be nice to one another; 9) I time speeches and CX, and I keep prep time; 10) I disclose, give my RFD after round.

Lincoln-Douglas - 1) I flow; 2) Condo is OK, will not drop debater for running conditional arguments; 3) Disads to CPs are sticky; 4) PICs are OK; 5) T is a voter, a priori jurisdictional issue, best definition and impact of definition on AFF/NEG ground wins; 6) Progressive debate OK; 7) ALT must solve to win K; 8) Plan/CP text matters; 9) CPs must be non-topical, compete/provide NB, and solve the AFF or avoid disads to AFF; 10) Speech doc must match speech.

Policy - 1) I flow; 2) Condo is OK, will not drop team for running conditional arguments; 3) Disads to CPs are sticky; 4) T is a voter, a priori jurisdictional issue, best definition wins; 5) Progressive debate OK; 6) ALT must solve to win K; 7) Plan/CP text matters; 8) CPs must be non-topical, compete/provide NB, and solve the AFF or avoid disads to AFF; 9) Speech doc must match speech; 10) Questions by prepping team during prep OK; 11) I've debated in and judged 1000s of Policy rounds.

Public Forum - 1) I flow; 2) T is not a voter, non-topical warrants/impacts are dropped from impact calculus; 3) Minimize paraphrasing of evidence; I prefer quotes from articles to paraphrased conclusions that overstate an author's claims and downplay the author's own caveats; 4) If paraphrased evidence is challenged, link to article and cut card must be provided to the debater challenging the evidence AND me; 5) Paraphrasing that is counter to the article author's overall conclusions is a voter; at a minimum, the argument and evidence will not be included in weighing; 6) Paraphrasing that is intentionally deceptive or entirely fabricated is a voter; the offending team will lose my ballot, receive 0 speaker points, and will be referred to the tournament director for further sanctions; 7) When asking for evidence during the round, refer to the card by author/date and tagline; do not say "could I see your solvency evidence, the impact card, and the warrant card?"; the latter takes too much time and demonstrates that the team asking for the evidence can't/won't flow; 8) Exception: Crossfire 1 when you can challenge evidence or ask naive questions about evidence, e.g., "Your Moses or Moises 18 card...what's the link?"; 9) Weigh in place (challenge warrants and impact where they appear on the flow); 10) Weigh warrants (number of internal links, probability, timeframe) and impacts (magnitude, min/max limits, scope); 11) 2nd Rebuttal should frontline to maximize the advantage of speaking second; 2nd Rebuttal is not required to frontline; if 2nd Rebuttal does not frontline 2nd Summary must cover ALL of 1st Rebuttal on case, 2nd Final Focus can only use 2nd Summary case answers in their FF speech; 12) Weigh w/o using the word "weigh"; use words that reference the method of comparison, e.g., "our impact happens first", "100% probability because impacts happening now", "More people die every year from extreme climate than a theater nuclear detonation"; 13) No plan or fiat in PF, empirics prove/disprove resolution, e.g., if NATO has been substantially increasing its defense commitments to the Baltic states since 2014 and the Russian annexation of Crimea, then the question of why Russia hasn't attacked since 2014 suggest NATO buildup in the Baltics HAS deterred Russia from attacking; 14) No new link or impact arguments in 2nd Summary, answers to 1st Rebuttal in 2nd Summary OK if 2nd Rebuttal does not frontline.

she/her

"topshelf"

I debated on the NatCirc every year in HS under Canyon Crest with various partners

Post-rounding is encouraged -- I love yapping but understand that's not for everyone

Include me in email chains: michisynn@gmail.com

Any racist / homophobic / sexist, etc etc argument will earn you a loss and the lowest speaks I can possibly give at the tournament. This should go without saying.

TLDR

• I vote on what's in summary and FF
• I'm fine with speed but PLEASE keep things organized or else I will miss things aka SIGNPOST
• winning your offense + winning weighing = winning the round ????
• warrant all of your arguments ESPECIALLY your internal links well
• I generally give high speaks (28.0 +)
• I am bad at judging prog but will if I have to
• All of the suggestions below are based on my personal debate style. I would never punish a debater for not reading my paradigm or debating exactly like me. Just please have fun and learn something!

ROUND LOGISTICS

• Keep evidence exchanges quick. Set up an email chain before round. Yes, I want to be included.
• No skipping Grand Cross for prep because a) you should be budgeting your prep wisely and b) grand cross is funny
• For online debate, I am generally very sympathetic towards technical difficulties, so PLEASE do not take advantage of the format to steal prep / generally commit abuses
• Send docs if reading 250 WPM + (normally I judge MS so I will be confused if you do this LOL)

CONSTRUCTIVE

• Make your internal links crystal clear, especially if you are terminalizing to nuke war or extinction
• Send a doc if you are speaking 250+ WPM
• I am completely fine with paraphrasing, as long as you can provide the cut card to check back for abuse

REBUTTAL

• Signpost clearly
• Number responses if possible
• Implicate responses well rather than just reading debate jargon
• 2nd rebuttal must frontline (respond to the 1st rebuttal's attacks on your case)
• Let me know when you're going to their case if you are a 2nd rebuttal speaker

SUMMARY

• You must cover in some way, shape, or form: offense, defense, frontlining, weighing. I don't care in what order you do this, but these components must be in summary.
• High level weighing with good warranting is very strategic
• Please extend your entire link, internal link, impact (and uniqueness if that's important to the topic)
• On their case, 2 implicated responses >>> 4 unimplicated responses. Also, defense is not sticky.

FINAL FOCUS

• Collapse in this speech if you haven't done so already
• In my opinion, this speech should be heavy on big picture analysis and weighing, but as long as you cover their case, your case, and weighing you should be good.

PROG

• My opinions on this are very brief because I have limited experience with prog.
• Framing --> Run it well. Provide well researched and well thought out warranting as to why your impacts are more important, not just "education," "we brought it up first," "discourse"

• Theory --> No friv theory PLEASE. Logical analytical responses >>>> brain dead circuit responses (like the theory baiting response). Theory comes before substance b/c it's prefiat so I would suggest narrowing the debate to theory after the constructives (or whenever it's brought up)

• Ks --> I strongly dislike topical Ks because the alts are vague, but feel free to run one and I will up you if you win on the flow. I don't have strong feelings one way or another about nontopical Ks. Again, I will up you if you win on the flow.
• Regardless of what kind of K you are reading, please make the lit accessible during the round. If someone asks you about any of the "isms" in cross, please provide a basic explanation rather than spouting off buzz words. Debate is ultimately an educational activity.
• Also, please provide TWs if you are reading graphic depictions of violence and give the opposing team a document with the offensive / violent language blurred out. Warning people ahead of time is in my opinion never a bad thing and allows people in round to mentally prepare for what they are about to hear. You can still read your advocacy -- I would not want to limit or censor debaters.

• Tricks / High Theory / Friv Theory / anything strange and peculiar --> I am not the judge to run this on. Read this on Justin Wang and Derek Song :3

Ask me any questions before the round and please reach out if there were issues in the round / at the tournament! This activity is really important to me, and it's critical that debaters feel safe and confident.

Hello there!

My name is Halimat Ojone Usman (she/her). I was a regular debater and public speaker until I graduated. Now, I employ my vast speaking and judging experience to judge and coach speech and debate. I have gathered ample experience judging different speech and debate formats including British Parliamentary (BP), Asian Parliamentary (AP), World Schools Debate Championship (WSDC), Canadian National Debate Format (CNDF), Public Forum (PF), Congress, CX, LD, Extemp, Impromptu, Radio Broadcast, Ethics Olympiad among others.

Email address: ojonehalimat@gmail.com

Conflicts: I do not have any.

PERSONAL NOTE:

When you encounter me in a room, please note that I hold in high regard, positive, fair, equitable and proper engagements during discussions and cross engagements. Iappreciate debaters who c heck out all the boxes of expectations including role fulfillment, efficient engagements of debate burdens, contentions and clashes and equitable and effective engagements to confrontations.

It is imperative that you note that even in instances when you do not agree with the contexts and frames provided by the other team, I advice that you still engage the team’s case alongside presenting your counterfactual where necessary. Following the ethical rules of the game would be great.

To restate (because it is important), please be sure to follow all equity rules and guidelines when engaging other debaters and judges.

Finally, I employ all debaters to keep time as I do so too to ensure that you’re keeping track of time spent on different aspects of your speech. It would be nice to hear you wrap up your speech, just in time and not in a rush.

Special Considerations for Virtual Debates:

Please keep your cameras on at all times. Be sure to communicate valid reasons if at any time, you can’t have your video cam on and we’ll be sure to pardon and make an exception in this case.

Other Remarks:

I prefer medium paced speeches. Do note that I listen very attentively and will very much note down everything you have said. Also, I am very aware of human diversity and I am well equipped to understand everyone and be equitable to everyone at all times.

In Public Forum Debate, I will prioritize the students' capability in creating further analysis in regards to the facts and materials that they deliver during their speeches. Giving away facts is cool but letting people know the step-by-step process as to how the facts are materialized is even cooler. Rebuttals and responses are better to not be one-liner or "they say-we say" debate, a deeper reason to prove why your opponents are wrong will be more credited. I expect a debate where students are able to cite factual and scientific resources such as journals and papers which has gone through scientific methods and researches rather than newspaper or website, although I wouldn't penalize you just because you cite them because they may also provide important facts and information. The team that wins, would be a team that can provide more tangible examples and facts that may be impactful to us in the future.

Name: Mike Wascher

School Affiliation: Lake Highland Prep

Number of Years Judging Public Forum: 10

Number of Years Competing in Public Forum: 0

Number of Years Judging Other Forensic Activities: 15

Number of Years Competing in Other Forensic Activities: 8

If you are a coach, what events do you coach? Public Forum, extemp

What is your current occupation? Debate coach

Please share your opinions or beliefs about how the following play into a debate round:

Speed of Delivery As long as it is clear, speed is not important

Format of Summary Speeches (line by line? big picture?) Turning point in the debate where the debater should take from the line by line the arguments they envision as being the decision points. Whether it is organized by the same order as the line by line or re-cast in voting issues makes no difference.

Role of the Final Focus Tell me what arguments you win, explain why those arguments, when compared to your opponents arguments, means you win the debate. The comparative work is crucial. If the debaters don’t do it the judge has to do it and that is a door debaters should never leave open.

Extension of Arguments into later speeches While I have no autocratic rule, I would imagine that something you plan to go for would be something that is extended throughout the debate. If argument X is a winner it just seems reasonable to me that it should be included in all speeches.

Topicality Sadly, this argument isn’t advanced much because the time it takes to present it is generally critical time lost on case arguments and the trade off is seldom worth. Having said that, I would vote on a T argument.

Plans Specific plans are, by rule, not allowed. Generic ideas about solving problems necessarily discusses policy options. The general idea of those options is the resolution when were have policy topics.

Kritiks If Public Forum is supposed to be debate about how current events are debated in the real world I find little room for theoretical ideas that are not considered by real world policy makers. If, however, the critical argument has specific links to the topic, (and history suggests that few I’ve heard do) it should not be rejected because it is critical.

Flowing/note-taking I flow the key parts of the argument and sometimes flow authors. I find myself noting dates when they seem to be old (and possible dated). I listen to cross fire and sometimes make notes when I heard something worthwhile.

Do you value argument over style? Style over argument? Argument and style equally? I value argument and I especially value warrants (which aren’t tag lines) that explain why your claims are persuasive.

If a team plans to win the debate on an argument, in your opinion does that argument have to be extended in the rebuttal or summary speeches? Not a hard and fast rule with me but I can’t imagine why a winner would be left out.

If a team is second speaking, do you require that the team cover the opponents’ case as well as answers to its opponents’ rebuttal in the rebuttal speech? Also not a hard and fast rule with me but strategically it is probably important you get back to some of your case, unless you plan to win offense on turns on your opponents case.

Do you vote for arguments that are first raised in the grand crossfire or final focus? Never!

If you have anything else you'd like to add to better inform students of your expectations and/or experience, please do so here. The three things I would like to hear more often in Public Forum debates are:

1) Comparative work. Explain why you win the debate not just win some arguments. You can win every argument you discuss but still not have a better story than your opponent. Take the time to explain why the arguments you win form a better story than your opponent’s offering.

2) Warrants. Claims are not persuasive. Why your claim is true, significant, harmful, etc., make for a persuasive argument. The best claim from the most qualified author is generally useless and it is sad when those “Best” authors write warrants and debaters fail to cut that evidence and read it.

3) Paraphrasing. I recognize that the PF world is at this point. I don’t like it. I believe there are ethical issues when one cites three different authors, for example, and none of the three are working on the same argument but rather writing one line that fits in and is found in a google search. I also find it problematic that some think they can summarize a master’s level work in six words. Paraphrasing opens the world to a lot of potential evil. I read a lot on our topics and do not be the person that is misrepresenting an author by a poor paraphrase. It’s as bad as clipping. Given the power to change the world I would mandate we go back to reading evidence but then again I can’t find enough people, maybe even one other person, willing to give me that power. So we will paraphrase but we will properly represent the evidence.

Last Updated: March 11 2023

Spencer ("SkyCat") – never "judge" – he/him

Was the Assistant Coach at Edgemont

OES 2020 (3 years of HS Policy, 8 bids)

Yes email chain, please include an informational title – spencersunwilliams@gmail.com

Important: I am currently on chemotherapy. This means I am very tired and will likely give short RFDs. I debated on the treaties topic 3 years ago for Harvard Debate and I read a NATO aff. I have been out of college and debate and college since to pursue cancer treatments.

Short Version:

1) Do what you do best, be smart and passionate, and you'll be fine.

2) Tech determines truth unless your argument is offensive or an insult to obvious reality. The content of my paradigm only states my predisposed beliefs, but you can convince me of anything if you debate well.

3) As a debater, I am most frustrated with RFDs that are removed from the reality of the round. Whether that be allowing new rebuttal answers, voting based on predetermined personal beliefs, or not flowing, I will try to correct against those things as much as possible as a judge.

4) Clarity over speed. I will stop flowing if I have to "slow" or "clear" you more than 3 times.

5) I am increasingly frustrated by teams that ask for massive flow clarifications. This includes: "Before cross begins, did you read X card?" and "Can you send out a version of the speech doc that excludes the cards you didn't read?" If you do this, then it is clear you aren't flowing, and I will dock your speaks. :(

K Debates:

On K's in general:

I do not hack for any argument. This means "big if true" claims such as people of color already live in a state of extinction that outweighs biological extinction, Blackness is ontological, subjectivity is shaped by debate, the aff causes queer genocide, etc., require substantive proof just like any other argument.

In terms of running a K on the neg, if you do not extend an alt, you need to explain to me what that means for the rest of the K. No big overviews please, just do line by line. Also, links of omission are silly.

On K affs:

These are my favorite affs to judge! I love judging good K affs, but I believe that the affirmative needs to have a sustainable interpretation of what the topic looks like to win. What that looks like is up to you, but I am not persuaded by interpretations of the topic that do not leave a role for the negative to adequately engage with the affirmative.

Topicality arguments are not prescriptively violent. I am more persuaded by affirmatives that respond to framework by introducing a more effective model for political or institutional engagement than affirmatives that argue all politics or institutions are irredeemable. Affirmatives that prescribe homogeneity based on one identifying factor for an otherwise diverse group of people will have difficulty convincing me.

Most out of my element in K v K debates. Explain your position thoroughly and have clear reasons why your theories of power are incompatible.

T Debates:

The quality of evidence matters when it comes to T. A good T card should have intent to define, intent to exclude, and compelling author qualifications. It isn't impossible to win without those three qualities in front of me, but the T argument is significantly more convincing with them. If your opponent's card is lacking, point out specifically what the piece of evidence needs to be persuasive.

Impact and caselist comparisons are essential to winning my ballot; I probably value them more than the average judge does. In T debates, argument interaction and clash are especially critical to prevent running circles around arguments.

Unpack and compare, do not rely on buzzwords. Your T blocks should be specific to the argument you're running. "Vote neg because our interp sets a limit on the topic" or "vote neg for limits and ground" are neither warranted nor complete arguments unless you explain why and how the topic established by the negative's interpretation is net better than the affirmative's for reasons of better education, deeper clashing debates, etc.

Non-Negotiables:

Rehighlightings must be read and not inserted unless they were read in CX.

Speech times are not flexible. I will not flow your partner if they interrupt during your speech unless they are speaking as part of a rehearsed 1AC/1NC.

I will not explicitly intervene in any debate round unless a debater makes it clear that they do not want the round to continue. I believe in the educational value of allowing a debate to happen. If there is clipping in a round, however, I will dock your speaks and email your coach(es) with the evidence/recording.

I will drop you if you misgender anyone.

Speaker Points:

Stolen from Zidao. <3

If you opensource everything, let me know before the RFD and I'll add .3 to your speaks.

29.5+: One of the top speakers of the tournament. Should be in deep elims.

29-29.5: Good debater that I expect to break and get a speaker award.

28.5-28.9: Competent debater with good grasp of fundamentals. Not at the level of clearing yet.

Good luck at the tournament and take care!

To start, I want you to know I enter every debate/round neutral and unbiased on the topic of discussion. I do not bring my own opinions/beliefs or reasonings from prior debates/rounds into my decision for the round I am judging at that time. Like a juror I listen to and watch both sides then make a decision on which team did better in their presentation and convinced me they should prevail. Each round is different. Just because the pro side won the last round does not mean the con won't win the next round (& vice-versa).

Facts/evidence and referencing supporting documentation/sources are important and necessary but the presentation is just as important as the facts. I can’t judge or be convinced of anything if what your saying is unintelligible or I can’t follow your argument. Don’t talk too fast. Annunciate, use commas, periods and strategic pauses. I realize you may have a lot to say/present but if it is not comprehensible and/or everything you say is one big sentence, that does not help your case. If you talk in a monotone voice, I may fall asleep. Keep my attention. Make eye contact. Don’t stare down on your notes/paper the whole time. Glance down/away as needed. Be organized, professional and courteous. Being eager, animated and/or passionate is good but I have an aversion to unprofessional, discourteous, smug and condescending behavior. Being argumentative is okay but excessive badgering and/or interrupting the other side needlessly is frown upon.

Good luck and have fun.

yang.juliax@gmail.com - she/her - 2n for four years, not debating anymore. read plans on the aff and attempted to be flex on the neg

give the email chain a reasonable subject line please (ex. [tournament] round # - [team code] aff vs [team code] neg)

topic things: i judged a little at the georgetown debate seminar but that mostly just means i heard a lot of cap and process cp debates. assume i don't know what you're talking about, which means you'll have to really explain what your model of debate looks like for theory/t debates (though i suppose you should be doing that anyway). i will probably feel bad for the neg

for online: keep track of prep + put it in the chat. prefer camera on but i get that tech can be wonky and will lean towards being more forgiving with any hiccups there

dropped args are true but you need to explain why they matter. number your args, do line by line, not a huge fan of big overviews sorry!

i like t, the cap k, and case debate a lot. any good k link should turn case. i think aff teams ask for very little with fw in k debates - usually it just ends up being "please let us weigh the aff" which 1. is not a fw 2. okay yeah. i feel like a lot of judges will just default to "you get the aff but we should also care about links"

t vs k affs: "fairness is an impact if explained right" (from shree's paradigm). affs would do well to critique neg definitions and provide counter-definitions.

also the usual shtick, be nice, have fun etc etc

hi, i'm AJ! i graduated from Plano West in 2021 and competed in PF on the national circuit. my pronouns are they/them, and my email is ayi@college.harvard.edu.

- priority #1 is safety; be cognizant of your presence in the round/community, don’t be a problematic human being, use correct pronouns, provide content warnings with opt outs, etc.

- would strongly prefer if y’all came in preflowed and coin flipped/ready to go!

- outside of that, do whatever makes the debate enjoyable :) below are my preferences that might make it easier for you to win, but really do whatever you like. if you are compelling and/or justify decisions against my preferences below, you will likely be okay!

things i like in debate / things to know about me as a judge:

- i think about debate pretty similarly to renee li, alyssa nie, and aditya kumar.

- i'm quite expressive in response to what y'all say (though i also just nod/furrow my eyebrows in confusion a lot). i don’t like most pf arguments and still vote off of them so don’t be intimidated! but feel free to use my facial cues as you see fit.

- please prioritize warrants throughout the round, do not be blippy with them, and have clear extensions of your entire link chain and impact in the second half for anything you want me to vote on (including turns). any offense i vote on must be extended clearly in both summary and final focus and include good warranting.

- please collapse as much as possible. i really like smart analytics and strategic decisions, much more than blippy, unintelligent dumps of as much as you can possibly get through.

- new warrants are new arguments and will be treated as such

- you don't need to frontline defense in 2nd rebuttal, but whatever you don't fl can be extended straight into 1st ff. i think it probably makes for a more in depth debate if you fl defense and collapse in 2nd rebuttal, but it's up to you.

- on weighing: being comparative between the actual nuanced arguments on the flow (as opposed to the general idea of an argument i.e. climate change) when weighing or responding is really really important to me. i am not too impressed with the meta of broad prereq weighing that doesn’t actually make sense when considering your link chain’s effect on the impact.

- that said, please weigh, and please start it by summary!

- dislike: doc botting, blowing up blips in final, independent DAs in 2nd rebuttal, excessively unclear speed, overgeneralizations of arguments or of the squo, jargon (define terms if absolutely necessary) being called judge, friv theory (unless its actually funny)

- don’t really care about: crossfire (feel free to take 1.5 min of prep instead of gcx), author names (just cite stuff consistently), most presentation things (sit/stand/whatever you’d like)

- super down to give as detailed feedback as y'all want, but i know thats not always what anyone wants to listen to immediately after an rfd. so i'll default to giving just the rfd - if you want advice beyond that ask me after round/message me. also please reach out even if you just want to talk about debate/hs/life! AJ Yi on FB, @aj__yi on Insta

Judging experience: 4 rounds, Public Forum in NSDA

I am a parent judge. This is my first time judging online, therefore please do not spread. Good luck everyone on your debates.