Last changed on
Mon January 15, 2024 at 11:42 AM CDT
Table of Contents: PF, MS Parli, Congress, Policy/LD, BQ
If you remind me, I'll give you my email in round for email chains or feedback.
Coaches: Tim Scheffler, Ben Morris
(Former) PF Partner: Sorin Caldararu
Schools: Madison West '22, Swarthmore College '26 (econ/math), judging for Strath Haven now.
Qualifications: 3 TOC gold bids in PF, doubles at TOC, won Dowling, broke 3x at Wisconsin PF State (made finals once), finals in state Congress twice, almost competed in extemp a couple of times, judged a few MSPDP and BQ rounds, judged a lot of PF rounds.
Varsity PF (JV/Novice/Middle School is Below):
TL;DR: Standard flow judge. Tech over truth but I admire appeals to truth when done well. Proud hack for evidence ethics. Below are some areas where I may deviate from circuit norms.
- Fairness > Education > Winning. Anything you do that is discriminatory will get you dropped and get your speaks tanked. PLEASE READ THIS ARTICLE.
- LOCAL CIRCUIT: Disclo and parahrasing theory are not norms, so I'm going to need a pretty high bar of in-round abuse for me to justify a ballot. This is especially the case since local circuits tend to have much more extensive rules, including about evidence ethics, which could cover disclosure and paraphrasing if necessary. It is much easier to make rule changes in the local circuit. Thus, I need to know why the round, not coach meetings in the summer, should be where disclosure is made a norm.
- Now you know the wiki exists: https://opencaselist.com/hspf22. Not disclosing is now your choice. If you don't know what that means, ask me.
- If you're a small school and you're up against a team from a big prep school, I am a judge you want. I debated a lot on the national circuit, but I went to a public school that barely funds its debate program. Unlike a lot of judges who consider themselves "flow," I don't care if you use the same useless circuit buzzwords I use and I'm really not impressed by people that read 5 poorly warranted turns in rebuttal that one of their 15 coaches wrote for them in a prepout.
- If you go to a privileged school, are facing an underprivileged school, and spend the round commodifying the issues of underprivileged schools in an unnuanced disclosure/paraphrasing shell, your speaks will be capped at a 26 and I will be very tempted to drop you for it. If your entire strategy for winning rounds is to weigh extinction impacts over everything else, your speaks will be capped at a 28.5 unless you present some type of interesting nuance in the weighing debate. If I have to flow you off a speech doc, your speaks are capped at 28.5.
- I don't care if you provide an "alternative" in framework/theory debates (you need one in K’s though). I don't think second case ever needs to interact with first case, even in progressive debate.
- I reserve the right to intervene if I dislike your theory. That said, prefiat impacts almost always outweigh postfiat impacts. If prefiat debate is initiated, generally we're not gonna be debating substance. That doesn't make theory abusive – if you hit theory you can win by responding to it.
- Norms that DEFINITELY should be enforced through the ballot: not being ___ist, not misrepresenting evidence, not being rude. Norms that should be enforced through the ballot: disclosure, having cut cards, being able to share evidence efficiently, not stealing prep time, trigger warnings. Norm that should be encouraged through word of mouth but not the ballot: reading cards.
- Weighing should be done early. Don't wait until final focus. Metaweigh, too.
- Frontline in 2nd rebuttal. No sticky defense.
- I don't flow author names.
- Collapse early. To that end, don't read a whole new contention in rebuttal for no reason.
- If I have no offense on the flow, I default to the team that would win if I were a lay judge.
- You can ask me to call for evidence (from your side or your opponents' side) after the round in one of your speeches (or cross-ex if that floats your boat). I will probably not remember. After the round, say "remember when I asked you to look at the Caldararu card?" and I will look at it.
- Don’t misrepresent who wrote your evidence. If the article comes from the opinion section or is an academic study, you cannot cite it solely by institution. The New York Times does not publicly agree or disagree with what Ross Douthat or Bret Stephens writes for them (and I’m sure it would often vehemently disagree, as would I), so citing his op-eds by saying “the New York Times says...” is incorrect. You should say "Douthat of the New York Times says..." or "Douthat says..."
- "If you pronounce “Reuters” as 'rooters' or "nuclear" as 'nook-you-ler' I will be sad." –Sorin Caldararu, my brilliant debate partner.
- I'm going to Swarthmore College (one of the most left-leaning colleges in America), I live in Madison, Wisconsin (one of the most left-leaning cities in America), and my debate coach was a civil rights lawyer. This should give you a sense of my political views.
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JV/Novice/Middle School Paradigm:
I have judged some Middle School Parliamentary rounds before, and I have a lot of experience in novice/JV public forum.
- There are essentially three parts of debating: making arguments, responding to arguments, and weighing arguments (i.e. comparing your arguments and with those of your opponent). Ideally, you should start by mostly making arguments, and by the end you should mostly be weighing arguments that have already been made. You can make that very clear to me by saying things like "now I'm going to respond to my opponent's argument about ______."
- An argument usually has to involve saying something will cause something else. Say we're debating whether the government should create a single-payer healthcare system. If you are on the proposition, saying "healthcare is a right" isn't really an argument. Rather, it's a catchphrase that hints at a different argument: by making healthcare single-payer, the cost doesn't change whether you go to the doctor or not, making people more likely to get care that improves their quality of life and could even save lives. The difference between the first argument and the second is pretty subtle, but it's important for me as a judge: saying "healthcare is a right" doesn't tell me how single-payer gets people healthcare, and it also doesn't tell me who I'm actually helping by voting in favor of single-payer. The second argument answers those questions and puts those answers front and center. And that makes it much easier for me, as a judge, to vote for you.
- To that end, I'm not a fan of new arguments in late speeches. It makes the debate feel like whack-a-mole: a team makes one argument, but once it's rebutted, they present another argument, which then gets rebutted, and so on.
- Generally, I find logic to be more compelling than moral grandstanding. For example, if we're debating if it should be legal to feed kids McDonalds and you argue that it shouldn't because McDonalds is unhealthy, it doesn't help to say stuff like "they're basically stepping over the bodies of dead children" in a speech. It sounds like overkill and makes me not want to vote for you as much.
- Tell me your favorite animal to show me you've read this for an extra speaker point. The WDCA hates fun, so I sadly cannot give you your extra speaker point if you are in Wisconsin.
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Congress:
Short and sweet:
- I probably would rather judge PF. Try to change my mind. (just kidding)
- I was a huge fan of really weird yet hilarious intros, and had one for just about every speech freshman year. It was then squeezed out of me by a combination of tremendous willpower and coaching. (I once said that Saudi Arabia was acting like Calvin from Calvin and Hobbes).
- Don’t re-word a speech someone else just gave two minutes ago.
- I shouldn’t be able to tell if you have a background in policy or PF debate. Don’t speak like you would in a PF or policy round.
- If you give a late-cycle speech, you should have something valuable to say. If you don’t have something valuable to say, don’t speak.
- You should vote to call the question, but not if it will prevent someone who needs to speak from speaking. Basically, if you are bored of debating a given bill, call the question. If you believe that calling the question would be a good underhand ploy to prevent somebody from speaking, don't call the question.
- Don’t speak right after someone spoke on your side, unless you absolutely have to (you probably don't have to).
- Don’t use precedence/recency to give the first pro speech if the writer of the bill is in the chamber and wants to speak. I have no idea if writing a bill allows you to give the first pro speech regardless of precedence and recency, but that should be a rule. This should give you an indication of my level of experience with Congress.
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Policy/LD: If I am judging you in policy or LD, I might have a slight bias towards a more PF style of debate. Read my PF paradigm since most things will apply. I find the ideas and concepts in policy and LD interesting and worthwhile even though I'm not inclined to participate in those styles of debate. Just keep it under 300wpm, use PF-level lingo, and keep in mind I can flow spreading but I can't flow it as well as an actual policy or LD debater. I'm probably more down for progressive debate than most PF judges, especially in those events. I know I can be a hard judge to adapt to for circuit policy and LD, so I'll cut you some slack with speed and clear you like 10 times before I stop trying to flow.
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BQ:
I judge BQ exactly like I judge PF, but obviously framework matters more because it's philosophy. Just read the PF section. It all applies.
