I'm a coach focusing primarily on PF and LD. My preference is on a traditional style of LD with strong connections of contentions to your V/C. My ballot will normally go to whoever can show they best link up to the  winning value in the round (hint: try to show me why you can achieve both).I'm ok with a fair amount of speed (8/10), but if you want your tag lines to make my flow keep them short or slow down a bit for them.

There is not a huge progressive focus on our circuit, so I'm not overly experienced with progressive LD styles, but I've judged a fair amount of CX and am not entirely closed off to the idea of progressive strategies. I'm not overly familiar with a lot of the theory arguments that are being run, so don't expect me to grasp your advanced esoteric theory arguments without explaining them well (please share cases with me if possible). Additionally, if you a re running CPs be sure you can prove uniqueness, or if running Ks they are not absurd. I want reasonable arguments, and the less reasonable they are, the easier they are to be taken down.

High School Debate is a competition and a chance to prepare you for the real world at the same time. There is a high chance in real life that you will have a job that will require you to argue, defend, find, and propose solutions for many of the real problems we have in life. Whether you are an aspiring doctor, scientist, lawyer, businessman, CEO, IT computer scientist, plumber, carpenter, mechanic, engineer, politician, etc. skills you learn in debate prepare you for the vast majority of jobs in the real world. Public Speaking, teamwork, and problem-solving skills greatly improve while doing high school debate. Many of the most successful people who have ever walked this earth did debate at some point in their lifetime. That said, debate is an opportunity to learn and grow, and that you may not get it right the first time, but the important thing is to keep learning and being civil to one another!

For all congress rounds, I look for overall content, argumentation/refutation, and delivery. To go over the fundamentals of strong content and argumentation, I want to see your claim, warrant, and impact for each argument you make! Your claim should be clear and concise, and your warrants need to explain WHY and HOW your claims and data are true. For example, there is a difference between saying Drinking water is important, and Drinking water is important because according to (a source), you can’t survive more than 4 days without water. Finally, your impacts need to explain why does this matter? This is where you get to explain how this saves money and/or lives and connects it with the constituents that you are representing in the congress. This is where quantification with specific numbers and impact calculus (scope, magnitude, probability, and timeframe) become important for your fellow representative to be more bought in on your claims! How effectively you explain your impacts can make or break your speech! Always, always, always make sure to have all 3 components! If you forget one or more of them, then your speech will have quite a bit of holes in it for others to attack you!

To emphasize the importance of refutation, I look for how you interact with the congress under the present circumstances and your arguments overall. If you are not the author, sponsor, or first neg, I expect you to at least address the content already brought up and/or refute one or more of your fellow representatives. REFUTATION IS ESSENTIAL!!!! You need to have it! Without it, this isn't debate! Refutation also indicates that you are being an active listener and just makes your speech stronger by at least connecting your arguments with those already presented in the round!

Overall speech adaptation and round awareness are very important for this event. For each piece of legislation, you are essentially working as a collective group on your side to explain why your side is the side we should all pick! I am a firm believer that where you speak in the round must be well adapted to where we are in the debate! For every bill, the first 2 speeches (Authorship/Sponsorship, and 1st NEG) need to set the stage well, explain ambiguous terms, and contextualize with historical or current events! Then, the next 6-12 speeches need to be adding NEW content to the debate and back-and-forth REFUTATION! Finally, once numerous arguments and speeches have been given, your speech should be based almost entirely on refutation and should be crystalizing/consolidating arguments already brought up to convince your fellow representatives to choose your side unless you have something NEW and substantial to bring up! On this note, please avoid rehash at all costs! Rehash does nothing for a round and just wastes everyone’s time! Rehash either indicates a lack of awareness of what is going on in the round, or the unwillingness to adapt your speech to the appropriate stage in the debate!

For delivery, I would like to see eye contact, fluency, and poise throughout the speech. Being able to talk without depending on a word-for-word paper is the biggest key to mastering delivery! Practicing and learning to give speeches with simple notes and not scripts will help you in the long run. Congress and Debate in general are supposed to be dynamic events as opposed to static events. It's okay if you are one of the first 2 speakers on a bill, but after that, it’s important to be able to adapt as the round goes on and speak on the fly with simple notes and not word-for-word papers. This will also help you immensely with refutation in your speeches! To use a sports analogy, your first few plays can be scripted, but after that, you need to pull out your playbook and adjust to what the other team is throwing at you, and if you just stick to your set of pre-determined strategies no matter what, you likely will not succeed.

If you do all or most of these things mentioned above, your speech will score very high and it's a great way to ensure you have high-quality speeches! I look for overall quality over quantity! 2 home run speeches are better than 5 mediocre/bad ones! Giving the most speeches does not necessarily give you the win, and not being able to speak on a bill is not going to set you back! It’s always better to choose your spots wisely to speak. In Congress, you have a very finite amount of opportunities to speak! Therefore, it’s always better to put your best speeches on display if you can, and not waste those opportunities on sub-par speeches, but of course, some speech is better than no speech. The big picture is to just be aware of what you have prepared and be strategic when you speak. If you know that you don’t have a good speech on this bill, but you know you will for the next one, it’s wise to give your best one in that case, and know how to make that speech better next time! While it’s not the end of the world if you cannot speak on every piece of legislation due to certain circumstances, try to give a speech for the vast majority of legislation available. If you can’t speak on a bill for some reason, you can always participate in questioning to show that you are still involved in the round!

My Scoring Rubric: (Out of a 6 point NSDA rubric)

6 - Great Argumentation, Evidence, Sources, and Impacts. Well Developed-Refutation. Speech was well structured as a whole and mostly delivered without the use of a word-for-word paper. Points were original with no rehashed arguments. You used the 3 minutes well, and the speech made a great contribution to the round. Responses to questions were very prepared and professional. Also, the speech was well adapted to the appropriate stage in the debate. (This score is not easy to get, If you get one from me, you should feel very proud and expect a very good rank on your ballot).

5 - Argumentation was solid with evidence and impacts. Refutation was included and made a positive contribution to the debate. Speech was delivered solidly with minimal lapses and made an effort to make eye contact with your fellow representatives. There may be a small area or two of improvement needed in your speech that will likely earn you a 6 next time. Overall, this is a very great score and a couple of pieces of improvement will be scoring you at a 6 in no time.

4 - Speech may be missing a couple of key components such as sources, impacts, or refutation. Argumentation could be smoothed out a bit with more structure. Speech had some good components to be proud of. Speech is going in the right direction. Integrate my feedback and you should be scoring much higher in the future. Overall, this score means that you did some things well and have some improvement to do at the same time.

3 - Normally the bare minimum I give. Speech is missing a few key components. Speech may be too short, not developed enough. Argumentation may need some specific improvement. Rehash and dependence on a pre-written script may be present. Speech structure and development may be needed. Speaker may need to be more prepared to respond to questions next time.

2 - Speech had no purpose. Speaker was off-topic and made no contribution to the round. Speech may have no evidence and impacts and was just a few sparse sentences. This score normally is not given unless the speech was very sparse.

1 - Speech was given on the wrong side or speech was under a minute with no substantial information brought up. This score will also be automatically given if your speech was rude or offensive or even trying to offend another student. Any major rude or offensive behavior will result in a warning and be reported to your coach and you will not be ranked on my ballot for that tournament. PLEASE BE RESPECTFUL TO EACH OTHER!

As parliamentarian, I will look for overall decorum, parliamentary etiquette, and adherence to Robert's Rules of Order! This means taking initiative by making motions when appropriate, addressing the chamber if something is not right, and functioning as a coherent house and not just for your self-interest. Also, being attentive to the round (Taking Notes and Researching is fine) and not being a distraction in the round also factored in when evaluating overall decorum.

Also, it's your job to make motions and understand where we are in the parliamentary procedure! The PO should not have to remind you to make motions! Understanding parliamentary procedure and the order of proper motions is key to making the congress sessions very efficient! Although decorum and etiquette are not reflected in the points you earn, they can be used to help determine and nuance your final rank at the end of the session.

A note about POs

Presiding Officers have a crucially important job in each session. One could argue, the Presiding Officer is the most important student in the round because of how procedural-based Congress Debate is. Because of this, I am more than willing to rank POs anywhere on my ballot. However, PO rankings are not an entitlement by mere virtue of being the PO. I evaluate POs on how they handle Robert’s Rules of Order throughout the round as well as parliamentary procedure and should run an efficient congress. As a PO, you were chosen by your fellow representatives for a reason and you owe it to them to run an efficient congress before them. For varsity rounds in particular, make sure to practice and really know the parliamentary procedure before deciding to be PO. Ideally, the PO should be able to run the entire session with little to no help from any of the judges. This means reminding the chamber if something is wrong! It’s ok if you screw up once or twice, but overall make sure you know what you are doing! Practicing before you do it in a session of Congress is the biggest key to performing the best during a round!

Have Fun! I want to see you all succeed! Best wishes!

Please ask me before a round if you have any questions!

Hi! email: rodneyedwards402@gmail.com

Former School: Millard North High School (Omaha, Nebraska)

Competition Record: Competeted in LD, Congress and Extemp for 3 years. Qualified to nationals my senior year in the House.

Judging Record: Judged Congress at Nationals in Prelims and Sems. Judged local Nebraska PF and LD Circuit for 5 years.

Congress

-Direct clash is critical. You are not speaking in a vacuum.

-I don’t care about in-depth explanations about who you’re citing as long as you’re citing it truthfully and the warrant is there/true.

-Make your speeches interesting by actually telling me something new or important.

PF

I'm pretty comfortable in just about any round. I'm open to voting for unorthodox arguments, as long as they're fleshed out and weighed well. Weighing your arguments should be your go to in front of me. Speed shouldn't be an issue. If there is an evidence issue, address it in the round. I'm not morally opposed to theory in PF, but it better actually be abusive.

LD

I'm pretty familiar overall with the format and argumentation styles. (Theory, T, Phil, CP's...) Try not to get hyper-specific with any jargon. Please send me docs and tell me if you didn't read certain cards. I enjoy hearing interesting philosophical arguments, and I don't like tricks. I'm open to different types of arguments as long as you explain well what the role of the ballot is supposed to be. I default to a "competiting worlds" paradigm. If you want me to vote for something, tell me and argue why. I'll usually always disclose. If there is any likely tech issue, try to inform me before the round if possible, but I will be understanding if something happens in round.

If something's not addressed here, feel free to ask before the round!

Ten Commandments to be Good at Debate:

1. relax and have fun!

2. signpost in speeches

3. start weighing early

4. for novices at little lex: if you are first rebuttal, PLEASE do not extend your case if you don't know what else to say, just end it early.

5. frontline turns and DA's in 2nd rebuttal

6. 3 min summary should have offense, defense, and WEIGHING in it

7. summary and ff should collapse and mirror each other. I love great back half narratives so literally, paint a solid picture of how you are winning and I'll pick you up.

8. Progressive stuff:

- Don't read theory unless there was an actual harmful abuse conducted by the other team. If you are a PF debater who thinks they are *tech* by reading disclosure/paraphrase/random frivolous theory for easy wins please stop (also, if you are reading prog args against inexperienced debaters it is abusive).

9. speaks (not the same for novice tourney)

29.5-30: you are raw

29-29.5: you are really good

28.5-29: you are pretty nice with it

28-28.5: you are above average

27-28: you can do better

<27: you are toxic

10. don't be toxic, a lot of novice rounds are just people yelling at each other, be chill to everyone and it will make the activity much more enjoyable. Any sort of -ism's in round finna get you auto dropped and I will tank your speaks, so be kind and accepting to everyone :)

good luck,

raaj