I debated in PF for 4 years (2016-2020) in MN, I'm now an assistant coach for Blake. Please put me on the email chain before round and send full speech docs + cut cards before case and rebuttal: lillianalbrecht20@gmail.com and blakedocs@googlegroups.com (For PFBC, you only need to include my personal email)

Evidence ethics and exchanges in PF are terrible, please don’t make it worse. Start an email chain before rounds and make exchanges as fast as possible. Sending speech docs to everyone before you read case and rebuttal (including your evidence) makes exchanges faster and lets you check back for your opponent's evidence. I find myself evaluating evidence a lot more now, so please make sure you're reading cut cards.

I tend to vote on the path of least resistance, meaning I’ll vote for clean turns over messy case args. I'm kind of a lazy judge that way, but the less I have to think about where to vote the better. But if a turn/disad isn’t implicated or doesn’t have a link, I’m not gonna buy it. Most teams don't actually impact out or weigh their turns, so doing that is an easy way to win my ballot.

You need to frontline in second rebuttal. Turns/new offense is a must, but the more you cover the better.

Everything you want to go for has to be in summary and FF. This includes offense and defense--defense is not sticky for 1st summary. If you don't extend your links and impacts in summary/FF I can't vote for you.

I’m generally good with speed, but I value quality over quantity. I typically flow on paper and will not flow off the doc, so slowing down on tags + analytics is appreciated. I will clear you if I cannot understand you, typically for unclear speaking rather than the speed itself.

Please signpost, for both of our sakes. Clear signposting makes it easier to understand your arguments and easier to vote for you. Line by line is preferred, but whatever you do, just tell me where to write it down.

The more weighing you do the better. Weigh every piece of offense you want to win for best results.

The more you collapse in the second half of the round, the easier it is for me to vote for you.

Speaker points are kinda dumb, but I usually average 28. Good strat + jokes will boost your speaks, being offensive/rude + slow to find evidence will drop them.

I'm fine with theory if there's real abuse. I won't vote on frivolous theory and I'll be really annoyed judging a round on the hyper-specifics of a debate norm (ie, open-source v. full-text disclosure). Good is good enough. Generally, I think that paraphrasing is bad and disclosure is good, but I'll evaluate whatever args you read in front of me. That being said, I really do not want to judge theory debates, so please avoid running them.

I don't mind K debate theoretically, but I have a really high threshold for what K debate should be in PF. I have some experience running and judging Ks, but I'm not very familiar with the current lit + hyperspecific terminology. I'm also really opposed to the current trend of Ks in PF. If your alt doesn't actually do anything with my ballot you don't have any offense that I can vote for you on. If you want to read a K in front of me, you need to go at 75% of your max speed. Far too often teams read a bunch of blippy arguments and forget to actually warrant them. Going slower and walking me through the warranting will be the way to win my ballot--this includes responses to the K as well. However, similar to theory, I really do not want to judge a K round, so run at your own risk.

Feel free to email me with any questions you have about the round!

pronouns: she/her/hers

email: madelyncook23@gmail.com & lakevilledocs@googlegroups.com (please add both to the email chain) -- if both teams are there before I am, feel free to flip and start the email chain without me so we can get started when I get there

PLEASE title the email chain in a way that includes the round, flight (if applicable), both team codes, sides, and speaking order

Experience:

• PF Coach for Lakeville North & Lakeville South in Minnesota, 2019-Present
• Speech Coach for Lakeville South in Minnesota, 2022-Present
• Instructor for Potomac Debate Academy, 2021-Present
• University of Minnesota NPDA, 2019-2022
• Lakeville South High School (PF with a bit of speech and Congress), 2015-2019

I will judge the debate you want to have. Go at whatever speed you prefer - I enjoy fast AND slow rounds as long as the warranting is good. A conceded blip barely means anything to me. I want to see a well executed collapse strategy with good cohesion between summary and final focus. Probably not the best judge for theory or kritiks, but I've listened to and enjoyed both when done well. If you plan to do either, please read the more detailed sections below. I'll give an RFD after the round.

General:

• I am generally happy to judge the debate you want to have.
• The only time you need a content warning is when the content in your case is objectively triggering and graphic. I think the way PF is moving toward requiring opt-out forms for things like “mentions of the war on drugs” or "feminism" is super unnecessary and trivializes the other issues that actually do require content warnings while silencing voices that are trying to discuss important issues.
• I will drop you with lowest speaks allowed by the tournament for bigotry or being blatantly rude to your opponents. There’s no excuse for this. This applies to you no matter how “good at technical debate” you are.
• I can probably keep up with whatever speed you plan to go. For online rounds, slow down more than you would in person. Please do not sacrifice clarity or warranting for speed. Sending a doc is not an excuse to go fast beyond comprehension - I do not look at speech docs until after the round and only do so if absolutely necessary to check evidence.
• Silliness and cowardice are voting issues.

Evidence Issues:

• Evidence ethics in PF are atrocious. Cut cards are the only way to present evidence.
• Evidence exchanges take way too long. Send full speech docs in the email chain before the speech begins. I want everyone sending everything in this email chain so that everyone can check the quality of evidence, and so that you don’t waste time requesting individual cards.
• Evidence should be sent in the form of a Word Doc/PDF/uneditable document with all the evidence you read in the debate.
• The only evidence that counts in the round is evidence you cite in your speech using the author’s last name and date. You cannot read an analytic in a speech then provide evidence for it later.
• Evidence comparison is super underutilized - I'd love to hear more of it.
• My threshold for voting on arguments that rely on paraphrased/power-tagged evidence is very high. I will always prefer to vote for teams with well cut, quality evidence.
• I don't know what this "sending rhetoric without the cards" nonsense is - the only reason you need to exchange evidence is to check the evidence. Your "rhetoric" should be exactly what's in the evidence anyway, but if it's not, I have no idea what the point is of sending the paraphrased "rhetoric" without the cards. Just send full docs with cut cards.
• You have to take prep time to "compile the doc" lol you don't just get to take a bunch of extra prep time to put together the rebuttal doc you're going to send.

Specific Preferences:

• I think this should go without saying in 2024, but frontline in second rebuttal. Dropped arguments in second rebuttal are conceded in the round. You should cover everything on the argument(s) you plan on going for, including defense.
• Collapse in summary. It is not a strategy to go for tons of blippy arguments hoping something will stick just to blow up one or two of those things in final focus. The purpose of the summary is to pick out the most important issues, and you must collapse to do that well.
• Weigh as soon as possible. Comparative weighing is essential for preventing judge intervention, and meta-weighing is cool too. I want to vote for teams that write my ballot for me in final focus, so try to do that the best you can.
• Speech organization is key. I literally want you to say what argument I should vote on and why.
• The way I give speaker points fluctuates depending on the division and the difficulty of the tournament, but I average about a 28 and rarely go below a 27 or above a 29. If you get a 30, it means you debated probably the best I saw that tournament if not for the past couple tournaments. I give speaker points based on strategic decisions rather than presentation.
• I'm not going to vote on an argument that doesn't have an internal link just because the impact is scary - I'm very much not a fan of war scenarios read by teams that are unable to defend a specific scenario/actor/conflict spiral. I do really enjoy war scenarios that are intricate and specific, probably much better than a lot of other extinction scenarios.

Theory:

I’ve judged a lot of terrible theory debates, and I do not want to judge more theory debates, like even a little bit. I generally find theory debates very boring. But if you decide to ignore that and do it anyway, please at least read this:

• Frivolous theory is bad.
• I probably should tell you that I believe disclosure is good and paraphrasing is bad, but I will listen to answers to these shells and evaluate the round to the best of my ability. My threshold for paraphrasing good is VERY high.
• Even if you don’t know the "technical" way to answer theory, do your best to respond. I don't really care if you use theory jargon - just do your best.
• "Theory is bad" or "theory doesn't belong in PF" are not arguments I'm very sympathetic to.
• neither are RVIs
• or IVIs for that matter
• I will say that despite all the above preferences/thoughts on theory, I really dislike when teams read theory as an easy path to ballot to basically "gotcha" teams that have probably never heard of disclosure or had a theory debate before. I honestly think it's the laziest strategy to use in those rounds, and your speaker points will reflect that. I have given and will continue to give low point wins for this if it is obvious to me that this is what you're trying to do.

Kritiks:

I have a high threshold for critical arguments in PF because I just don’t think the speech times are long enough for them to be good, but there are a few things that will make me feel better about voting on these arguments.

• I will listen to anything, but I have a much better understanding and ability to evaluate a round that is topical.
• I often find myself feeling a little out of my depth in K rounds, partly because I am not super well versed on most K lit but also because many teams seem to assume judges understand a lot more about their argument than they actually do. The issue I run into with many of these debates is when debaters extend tags rather than warrants which leaves the round feeling messy and difficult to evaluate. If you want to read a kritik in front of me, go ahead, but I'd do it at your own risk. If you do, definitely err on the side of over-explaining your arguments. I like to fully understand what the world of the kritik looks like before I vote for it. If I can't articulate the kritik back to you in my rfd, it's not something I'm going to feel comfortable voting for.
• Any argument is going to be more compelling if you write it yourself. Probably don't just take something from the policy wiki without recutting any of the evidence or actually taking the time to fully understand the arguments. K lit is very interesting, and getting a good understanding of it requires going beyond reading the bolded text of cards cut by someone else.
• I think theory is the most boring way to answer a kritik. I'll always prefer for teams to engage with the kritik on some level.

Pet Peeves:

• Paraphrasing.
• Long evidence exchanges - just send docs.
• I don’t flow anything over time, and I’ll be annoyed and potentially drop speaker points if your speeches go more than 5 or so seconds over.
• Pre-flow before you get to the room. The round start time is the time the round starts – if you don’t have your pre-flow done by then, I do not care, and the debate will proceed without it.
• The phrase "small schools" is maybe my least favorite phrase commonly used in debate. I have judged so many debates where teams get stuck arguing about whether they're a small school, and it never has a point. Literally any school can be a "small school" depending on what metric you use.
• The sentence "we'll weigh if time allows" - no you won't. You will weigh if you save yourself time to do it, because if you don't, you will probably lose.
• If you're going to ask clarification questions about the arguments made in speech, you need to either use cross or prep time for that.

Congress:

I competed in Congress a few times in high school, and I've judged/coached it a little since then. I dislike judging it because no one is really using it for its fullest potential, and almost every Congress round I've ever seen is just a bunch of constructive speeches in a row. But here are a few things that will make me happy in a Congress round:

• I'll rank you higher if you add something to the debate. I love rebuttal speeches, crystallization speeches, etc. You will not rank well if you are the third/fourth/fifth etc. speaker on a bill and still reading new substantive arguments without contextualizing anything else that has already happened. It's obviously fine to read new evidence/data, but that should only happen if it's for the purpose of refuting something that's been said by another speaker or answering an attack the opposition made against your side.
• I care much more about the content and strategy of your speeches than I do about your delivery.
• If you don't have a way to advance the debate beyond a new constructive speech that doesn't synthesize anything, I'd rather just move on to a new bill. It is much less important to me that you speak on every bill than it is that when you do speak you alter the debate on that bill.

If you have additional questions, ask before or after the round or you can email me at madelyncook23@gmail.com.

1st year out PF debater from Wayzata High School in MN. Haven’t judged in a bit, so please don’t go too fast. I judge very similarly to my partner, Neev Mangal.

Pre-Round

Please set up an email chain for evidence exchange and put me on it: ethancordeiro747@gmail.com. If you plan on reading fast or are paraphrasing, I’d definitely like to see a case doc before constructive and rebuttal.

I use he/him/his pronouns

General

Tech > Truth. I evaluate virtually any argument that doesn’t involve an oppressive discourse.

You need 2 big things to win my ballot.

A. Weighing:It needs to be in summary and final focus—extra points for incorporating into rebuttal! All weighing should be comparative, so don’t just make assertions about prob/mag/timeframe etc., explain to me why I should prefer it to opposing arguments.

B. Extensions of the whole argument: Extend a warrant, a link, and an impact (at least) for every argument you go for in every speech. Anything less than that makes it harder for me to extend cleanly. I feel strongly about this because otherwise, teams can abusively spread many poorly-warranted arguments in the back half.

Evidence

I don’t like paraphrasing, but I also recognize that one could just cut evidence really egregiously and it would be just as unethical as misrepresenting evidence while paraphrasing.

I flow card names but I may write them down wrong, so don’t rely on repeating them in the back half.

Failure to produce evidence within 1 minute means a drop in speaker points.

If there is a significant debate about a particular piece of evidence, I will look at it before making a decision.

Crossfire

I don’t flow it, but if the opponents make a key concession in cross I might evaluate it if you bring it up in speech!

I do not like those questions where you ask the opponent to just list examples of places or situations where an argument has materialized. I understand the merit in analyzing real-world cases, but the questions themselves need to facilitate analysis. Please don’t use this time to make a “gotcha” moment out of an opponent’s failure to rattle off 18 nations where their argument “happened” with no context.

NO GRANDSTANDING. This is a time to ask questions, not to spend 1 minute teeing up for a question by making an argument. If you catch your opponent grandstanding and ask “so where’s the question?” I’ll probably boost your speaks.

Progressive Stuff

Most Ks I’m fine with listening to. I’m not super experienced with them, though, so they’re not a sure-fire way for you to win.

I’m far less receptive to progressive args if you’re reading them against a team that’s significantly less experienced than you are.

Speaking

Just so you know, I will never factor your outward appearance or physical habits into assigning speaker points.

Default is 28. Moves up and down from there.

Hi! I'm a second year out (second year at UVA) and debated PF on the nat circuit for Blake for 3 years, qualifying for the gold TOC twice. I now coach for Blake in a limited capacity.

Add me on the email chain: wyattdayhoff@gmail.com AND blakedocs@googlegroups.com please :)

TLDR: I'm a tech judge, I'll evaluate pretty much whatever. Most of my takes come from Joshua Enebo and Christian Vasquez, so take a look at their paradigms and they will for sure be more in depth than what I say :D

Few highpoints:

• you have to frontline in 2nd reb
• defense is NOT sticky

• You get prep outside of your 3 mins when the other team is getting evidence to send to email chain. If they can't get it in a reasonable time I'm open to striking it from the flow
• Weigh, weigh, weigh, weigh! It's easily the biggest factor in determining my ballot
• I hate paraphrasing so don't do it– I'm likely to vote on paraphrasing theory
• I'm open to any prog argumentation but I'm inexperienced with it so be very clear if you do run it
• I hate friv theory and prob won't vote for it

General:

- I can probably flow basically any speed, but please send a speech doc if you are going to spread

- If you want me to evaluate something, it better be in summary. I won't evaluate anything new in FF unless it's responding to new weighing coming from 2nd summary. To be clear, weighing for the first team should start in 1st summary. If you don't extend a link in summary clearly, I won't vote on it.

- Please weigh. It's your best friend in round because even if you lose their case, you can still win the round. If you don't weigh your argument, it's really hard for me to vote on it. Also, weighing needs to be comparative. Don't just tell me why you're case matters, tell me why it matters more than the other team's argument. Just saying "we outweigh on probability" means absolutely nothing.

- Debate should be a fun activity, so please try to be as chill as possible, it makes the round better for everyone and will probably earn you higher speaks.

- I will not tolerate racist, homophobic, or sexist comments in round and will give you a 20 at best, and drop you at worst.

Evidence:

- I hate paraphrasing. I think it's a scourge to debate ethics and makes debates overly sloppy and warrantless. I'll be very happy to vote on paraphrasing bad, but I will legit never vote for paraphrasing good. Just don't read it in front of me. While I'm not as gung ho as him, refer to Josh's paradigm and I tend to agree with him.

- If you don't read a card name in your rebuttal (regardless of if it's paraphrased or not), it's an analytic. I won't consider a card that you send if you didn't say the name in speech, that's super abusive because you can just pick any card you want.

- If you can't find your evidence (PROPERLY CITED) in 2 mins or less, I'm striking it from my flow and treating it as an analytic. It will be clear if you actually have your evidence or not.

- I would much prefer that you do an email chain rather than a Google doc. If you do a Google doc, there should be copy access and you should not remove the other team's access after the round– that defeats the purpose of sharing evidence.

- As much as I like evidence, please don't just extend a card name without the warrant that accompanies it. Evidence alone can't win you the round unless you explicitly tell me why the evidence is so godly.

- If you want me to prefer your evidence over the other team's, you need to explain why. Just saying it's the most recent doesn't explain why recency is more important in that specific instance.

Theory:

- I rarely ever ran theory during my career, but I will evaluate it and I think it's important for the debate space. That said, I think frivolous theory (shoe theory, social distancing, etc) is stupid and I will neither understand it nor vote for it.

- As you probably saw in the evidence section, I will vote on paraphrasing bad, not paraphrasing good. If you go for paraphrasing theory, though, please try to direct me to one specific piece of ev that is horrendously paraphrased.

- I will absolutely vote on disclosure theory, I think it's a good practice for debate and I always did it.

- I've never run into trigger warning theory before so I don't really know how to evaluate it, but I'm willing to listen to it.

- IVIs have been used and abused recently and I really am not a fan. Please just be nice to each other, debate is not a personal attack on anyone.

Kritiks:

- I never ran any Ks in my time debating, but I think(?) I get the gist of them and will listen. Just don't expect me to always make the right decision because of my limited experience.

Cross:

- I won't flow it, but I will for the most part be listening. If you want something that happened in cross to appear in round, you gotta say it explicitly in speech.

- Cross is a time for questions. If you are asking follow up after follow up you are making cross unproductive and I'll lower your speaks.

- I already said this in the general section, but please be chill. Cross is the place where I see emotions boil over the most so please try to be patient with yourself and your opponents.

Speaks:

Unless you say something problematic, I'll evaluate speaks on a 26-30 scale.

26- this was rough– really hard to get this low of speaks

27- below avg

28- avg

29- you were good

30- you were unbelievably good, best I've seen at the tournament.

Preface

Speech and Debate are educational activities. My goal as a judge is to pick the debater(s) who best argues their case or the speaker(s) who best meet the criteria of a given event. But I also am seeking a round that is educational. Abusive arguments and rhetoric have no place in debate. Treat each other with kindness. We are all here to learn and expand our knowledge and experience. Racist, sexist, ableist, homophobic, transphobic, xenophobic, etc. arguments should not be made. Everyone is welcome in the debate community, do not marginalize and silence folks with your argumentation.

Also, since speech and debate are educational activities, feel free to ask me questions after the round. I'm here to help educate as well. As long as we have time before the next round has to start (and I've got enough time to submit my ballot before Zach Prax comes looking for me), then I'm always happy to answer questions.

Background

Director of Debate at Wayzata High School (MN) since Sept. 2020, I've been coaching and judging locally and nationally since 2013. I also coach speech at Wayzata and at the University of Minnesota.

I am a licensed, practicing attorney. I work as a criminal prosecutor for a local county in Minnesota and I have a MA in Strategic Intelligence and Analysis with a concentration in International Relations and Diplomacy.

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.Please, please, please make your voters clear.

- Clear sign posting and concise taglines.

- Framework. I like a solid 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 who said it.

-Off-time roadmaps are often a waste of time. If all you are doing is telling me that the Neg Rebuttal is "our case their case" then you don't need to tell me that. If you are going to go FW, then some cross-application, then your case, then their case, then back to FW, then that is something you should tell me. More importantly SIGN POST, SIGN POST, SIGN POST.

-SPEED. This is Public Forum, not Policy. If you spread, you're probably going to lose. I flow on my computer so that I can get as much on my flow as possible, but if you're too fast and unclear, it's not on my flow. If it's not on my flow, it's not evaluated in the round.

-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.

-Shouting over each other on CX. Keep it civil. Don't monopolize the time.

-"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. If you aren't participating, then I assume it's because you do not have anything more to add to the debate and/or that you aren't actively involved in the debate and I likely will adjust speaks accordingly.

-K cases. I do not like them in public forum, especially if they are not topical. However, a K that is topical and actually engages with the topic and is generally within the topic meta is something I *may* vote off of. But it must be topical, otherwise I will not vote off the argument.

-Loud, annoying, alarms at the end of speeches. Especially the rooster crow. Please no rooster crow.

-Speaking of timers, if you're going to critique your opponents for going over time, you should probably make sure that you aren't going over time yourself. Also, you don't need to turn your timer to show me that your opponent is over time. I'm aware of their time, it just comes across as rude.

General

-I'm generally a flow judge, but I don't always flow card authors/names. My focus on the flow is getting what the evidence claims and what the warrant is, rather than who the source was. Referring back to your "Smith" card isn't enough, but giving a quick paraphrasing of the previously cited card, along with the author/source is much more beneficial and effective. Similarly, "Harvard" is a collegiate institution, not an author. Harvard doesn't write anything. Harvard doesn't publish anything. They may have a publishing company or a magazine that publishes, but Harvard does not, and last time I checked, John Harvard has been dead since 1638, so I doubt he has anything pertinent to support your argumentation.

-I'm an expressive person. I'll make a face if I believe you misstated something. I'll nod if I think you're making a good point. I'll shake my head if I think you're making a poor point. This doesn't mean that I'm voting for you or against you. It just means I liked or didn't like that particular statement.

-I like CX, so I tend to allow you to go over time a bit on CX, particularly if team A asks team B a question right before time in order to prevent them from answering. I'll let them answer the question.

-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 complain later!

Lincoln Douglas

I'm a PF coach, however I judge LD frequently and I often assist LD students throughout the season.

- I find that it is best to treat me as a "flay" judge... I will flow, but I'm lay. I am very familiar with most of the traditional value/criterion/standards. If you have some new LD tech that is popular on the circuit or something, then I'm probably not the judge for you to run that, unless you are going to fully explain it out because I probably don't know it.

- Speed kills. I do not want to have to strain myself trying to flow your speech. I do not want you to email me your case in order for me to be able to follow it. As noted above in the PF section, if I do not get it on my flow, it probably does not end up impacting the round. I am not afraid to say speed or clear, but by the time I realize I have to say it, it's probably too late for you.

- K debate. I really have no interest in judging a K.

Congress

- I really want some speech variety from y'all. Often, when I'm judging a congress round, I'm serving as a parliamentarian so I'm with you for several sessions. As a result, I should be able to get to see you do a variety of different speeches. I actually have a spreadsheet I use to track everyone's speeches throughout the round, what number speech they gave on each bill, which side they argue for, how often they speak, etc. After the round is over and I'm preparing my ballot, I will consult that to see whether you gave a variety of speech types. Were you consistently in the first group of speakers? Did you give mid-round speeches where you bring clash and direct refutation? Did you mainly give crystallization speeches? Or, did you do a mix of it all? You should be striving to be in the last category. Congress is not about proving you can give the best prepared speech or that you can crystallize every bill. It's about showing how well-rounded you are.

- Speaking of prepared speeches. My opinion is that you should only come in with a fully prepared speech if you are planning to give the authorship/sponsorship or the very first negative speech. After that, your speeches should be no more than 50% canned and the rest should be extemporaneous. This is a debate event. It is not a speech event. Prepared speeches in the mid and late stages of debate are a disservice to yourself and your fellow congresspersons.

- PREP. I have judged a lot of congress over the years. I've judged prelims, elims, and finals at NSDA, NCFL, and the TOC. I am franklyCOMPLETELY AND UTTERLY TIRED of y'all having to take a 10+ minute break in between every piece of legislation to either A) prep speeches; B) establish perfect balance between aff and neg; or, C) do research on the bill. A and C really frustrate me. I know y'all are busy. I know that sometimes legislation comes out only a few days before the tournament. And I know that sometimes there are a lot of pieces of legislation to research. But y'all should be spending time to prepare your arguments and have research so that all you're doing mid-round is finding evidence to refute or extend something that happened in the round. And the way tournaments are structured these days, it is rare for a round to have so many people in the chamber that not everyone can speak on a bill.

POLICY

Never thought I’d be adding this section but here I am. If you read everything above, you should have a pretty good idea of my background and what I like/dislike in other debate events. You’ll notice that I really don’t like speed. That’s still true for policy. I want to be able to understand the debate not have to read it. You’ll also notice I don’t like K debate. That’s much more related to PF (where there’s little value in having a K debate) and LD (where I don’t think there’s enough time or ability to effectively develop the K) so ignore that I guess?

Best practice would probably be for you to ask me questions before the round. We’ll both learn something that way.

I am very unlikely to give oral disclosure.

Blake '21, UChicago '25

I did PF on the national circuit for 3 years, and now am an assistant coach at The Blake School in Minneapolis.

Tl;dr

- I flow.

- Tech>truth.

- Please read paraphrasing theory in rounds where the opponents are paraphrasing. Paraphrasing is an awful practice, evidence is VERY important to me, and I am happy to use the ballot to punish bad ethics in round.

- Send speech docs before each speech in which cards will be read.

- All kinds of speed are fine, spreading too as long as you are not paraphrasing.

- 2nd rebuttal must frontline, defense isn't sticky, and if I'm something is going to be mentioned on my ballot, it must be in both back half speeches.

- Please weigh.

- I will let your opponents take prep for as long as it takes for you to send your doc or cards without it counting towards their 3 minutes, so send docs pls and send them fast.

- The following people have shaped how I view debate: Ale Perri (hi Ale), Christian Vasquez, Bryce Piotrowski, Darren Chang, Ellie Singer, and Shane Stafford.

- Please add both jenebo21@gmail.com AND blakedocs@googlegroups.com to the email chain.

- Feel free to contact me after the round (on Facebook preferably, or email if you must) if you have questions or need anything from me.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

General Paradigm

Rules

I will time speeches and prep, though you are encouraged to do the same. I will enforce excessive and flagrant intentional violations of speech time rules with the ballot, if necessary. In most cases, this is not needed recourse, and I will simply stop flowing once the time has elapsed.

Speeches

Roadmaps: In most PF rounds, roadmaps aren't necessary, just tell me where you are starting and signpost. If there are more than 2 sheets, then I will ask for a roadmap.

The Split: 2nd rebuttal must frontline; turns and defense. Any arguments dropped by the second rebuttal are considered dropped in the round.

The Back Half: If I am going to vote on it, or in any way going to be apart of my RFD (all offense or defense in the round), it needs to be both in the summary and the final focus. Weighing needs to start in summary, and final focus should be writing my ballot for me. See below for a caveat.

Sticky Defense: In almost all scenarios, defense is not sticky. It is completely incoherent to me that the first summary does not need to extend defense on contentions that the second summary might go for. However, the sole exception to this will be if a team does not frontline to any arguments on a contention in the second rebuttal. The first summary can consider that contention kicked. This is already pretty solidified as a norm, and allows second speaking teams to kick arguments without literally saying “there is no offense on Contention X.” An extension of this contention, that was clearly kicked in second rebuttal, by the second summary will allow the first final to extend defense from the first rebuttal on that contention specifically.

Speed: I am comfortable with all speeds in PF. More often than not, clarity matters more than WPM. I know debaters who speak at 400+ WPM, and I can understand every word. Likewise, I know debaters who don't speak fast but are still super unclear. I will say clear if I can’t follow. You can spread IF you are doing it like it is done in policy (spreading long cards, not a bunch of paraphrased garbage, slow down on tags/authors, sending out a speech doc is a must). If you spread AND paraphrase, however, your chances of winning points of clash immediately plummet.

Speech docs: Please send speech docs with cut cards. This vastly decreases the amount of wasted time in rounds sending various individual cards at different times.

Weighing: The team that wins the weighing debate is nearly always winning the round. I start every RFD with an evaluation of the weighing debate, and it frequently is what controls the direction of my ballot. Please start weighing as early as possible, it will help you make smart strategic decisions without making the round a total mess. I would highly encourage you to go for less and weigh more.

Collapse: Please collapse. I don't want to sift through a flow with tons of tags and zero warrants or weighing. Pick an argument to go for, and weigh that argument. That is the easiest way to pick up my ballot. Debate isn't a scoreboard, winning 3 arguments doesn't mean you get my ballot if your opponent only wins 1 argument.

Abusive Delinks: I cannot believe I have to make this a part of my paradigm, but no delinks or non-uniques on yourself to get out of turn offense. This does not mean you cannot bite defense read, or make new frontline responses to turns, rather it means you cannot overtly contradict your initial arguments with a piece of defense your opponents did not read to get out of offense they read. This applies in situations as clear cut as the aff saying X, the neg responding with X is actually bad, and the aff responds with “not X.” This almost never happens, but is astonishingly abusive when it is attempted.

Framework: If the 1st constructive introduces framework, the 2nd constructive probably should respond to it, or make arguments as to why they get responses later in the round. I don't know where I stand on this technically yet, but this is where I am leaning now. In general, if the 1st constructive introduces framework and the 2nd constructive drops it, I think its ok for the first rebuttal to call it conceded unless otherwise argued.

Advocacies/T: In general, I will evaluate the flow without prejudice on what ground the aff or neg claims to have. Because the neg doesn't get a counter plan in PF, the aff advocacy does not block the neg out of ground. Both the aff and neg can make arguments about what the aff would most likely look at, and should garner advantages and disadvantages based off of those interpretations. I will evaluate whose is more likely to be correct and go from there. An example would be the neg could still read a Russia provocation negative on the NATO topic (Septober 2021) even if the aff does not read a troop deployment advocacy for their advantages unless it is argued that troop deployment is not a feasible implementation of the aff. Alternatively, if the neg can get a CP then I suppose the aff can get an advocacy. Either way works.

Safety issues: I will be quick to drop debaters and arguments that are any -ism, and I won't listen to arguments like racism, sexism, death, patriarchy (etc) good. The space first and foremost needs to be safe to participate in.

Housekeeping: I take the important parts of the debate incredibly seriously, but there are aspects that I find frivolously pretentious. Be nice and respectful, but keep it somewhat light and casual if you can! Debate is supposed to be at least somewhat fun, so lets treat it as such. I don't care what you what you wear, where you sit, if you swear (sometimes a few F-bombs can make an exceedingly boring debate just a little less so!), if you do the flip or enter the room before im there, etc.

Evidence

Disclaimer: I like cut cards and quality evidence, I hate paraphrasing. This section is going to seem cranky, but I don't mind well-warranted analytics. I just hate paraphrasing. Evidence is always better than an analytic, but if you introduce an argument as an analytic, I won't mind and will evaluate it as such. But if your opponents have evidence, you will likely lose that clash point.

Bottom line: Evidence is the backbone of the activity. I do not fancy fast paced lying as a debate format. Arguments about evidence preference are very good in front of me, and I will certainly call for cards if docs are not already sent. Evidence quality is exceedingly important, and I will have no qualms dropping teams for awful evidence. This applies regardless of if you cut cards or paraphrase, because cutting cards doesn't make you immune to lying about it.

Paraphrasing: The single worst wide-spread practice in PF debate today is paraphrasing. Luckily, it seems on the decline! Regardless, it is bad for the quality of debate, it is bad for all of its educational benefits, and it ruins fairness. Please cut cards, it is not difficult to learn. If you insist on making me upset and paraphrasing, keep the following in mind:

1. You must have a cut card that you paraphrased from. It is an NSDA rule now.

2. Your opponents do not need to take prep to sort through your PDFs, and if you can’t quickly produce the evidence and where you paraphrased it from, I'm crossing the argument off my flow. I have very little tolerance for long, paraphrased evidence exchanges where you claim to have correctly paraphrased 100 page PDFs and expect your opponents to be able to check against your bad evidence with the allotted prep time.

3. Paraphrasing does not let you off the hook for not reading a warrant. 40 authors in 1st rebuttal by spreading tag blips and paraphrasing authors to make it faster is not acceptable and your speaks will tank.

4. If you misrepresent a card while paraphrasing, not only is that bad in a vacuum, but I will give you the L25. If you realize its badly represented OR you can’t find it when asked and you make the argument to "just evaluate as an analytic," I will also give an L25. If you introduce the evidence, you have to be able to defend it.

5. Don’t be mad at me if you get bad speaks. There is no longer world in which someone who paraphrases, even if they give the perfect speech gets above a 28.5 in front of me. I used to be more forgiving on this, but no longer.

Producing evidence: If reading the header "paraphrasing" meant you skipped over that part of my paradigm, I will reiterate something that is important regardless of how you introduce the evidence. If you can’t produce a card upon being asked for it within reasonable time frame given the network or technical context, your speaks will tank.

Evidence Preference: Even if not a full shell, arguments that I should prefer cut cards over paraphrased cards at the clash points are going to work in front of me.

Author Cites: This is yet another thing I should not need to put in my paradigm. You need to cite the author you are reading in speech for it to be counted as evidence as opposed to an analytic. If you read something without citing an author, I will flow it as an analytic and if your opponents call for that piece of evidence, and you hand it to them without citing it in the round, I am dropping you. It is blatant plagiarism and extremely unethical. In an educational activity, this should be exceedingly obvious.

Progressive Paradigm

Debate is good: Deep in my bones, I believe that debate is good. It may presently be flawed, but I believe the activity has value and can be transformative in the best possible way. Arguments that say debate is bad and should be destroyed entirely (often this is the conclusion of non-topical pessimistic arguments, killjoy, etc) will be evaluated but my biases towards the activity being good WILL impact the decision. This does not make them unwinnable, but probably not strategic to read.

Disclaimer: I'm receptive to all arguments, including progressive ones in the debate space, but they have been getting very low quality recently. I worry about the long-term impact about some of these in the activity. I beg of you, think about the model you are advocating for, and think about if its sincerely going to make the space better for the people growing up in it. The impact you can leave on the activity could be positive or negative and will outlast your time as a debater.

Theory

CI/Reasonability: I default to competing interpretations unless told otherwise, but that doesn't really mean much if you read the rest of this section. I am going to evaluate the flow, so if you read theory arguments that I won't intervene against, I am going to evaluate the flow normally.

RVIs: I generally think no-RVIs. The exception to this is an RVI on an IVI.

IVIs: These are really bad for debate. If there is a rules claim to be made, make it a theory shell. If there is a safety issue, then stop the round. Almost all of the time, IVIs are vague whines spammed off in the span of 4 seconds without any explanation. This proliferation is nearly existential for the activity, and it needs to stop. My threshold for responses to these is near zero.

Frivolity: I have no problem intervening against frivolous theory (i.e. shoe theory), so if you run theory in front of me, please believe that its actually educational for the activity. This does include spikes and tricks. I don't like them, please don't run them. If the theory is frivolous, and I reserve the right to determine that, I won't vote on it no matter the breakdown of the round. I won't vote for auto-30 speaker point arguments.

Introduction: Theory needs to be read in the speech following the violation. Out of round violations should be read in constructive.

Paraphrasing is bad: I will vote on paraphrasing bad most of the time, as long as there’s some offense on the shell. I will NEVER vote on paraphrasing good, I don't care how mad that may make you to hear, I just won't do it. If you introduce cut cards bad or paraphrasing good as a new off (like before a paraphrasing bad shell) I will instantly drop you. That said, you can win enough defense on a paraphrasing shell to make it not a voter. Paraphrasing theory is the exception to the disclaimers outlined above, I think paraphrasing should be punished in round and am happy to vote on it.

Disclosure is good: Disclosure is good, but how you disclose matters. These days I prefer open source disclosure, where tags, cites, and highlights are all included. "Open source" with no highlights or tags, where teams put up walls of unformatted text and expect people to do precisely anything with it, is a huge pet peeve of mine and interps that punish teams that do this will be received favorably. My predisposition towards disclosure is slightly less severe than mine towards paraphrasing, but my decisions cannot help but to be impacted by them. It is not impossible, but probably not easy, to win disclosure bad in front of me. Ideally, you would just disclose. I have decided the activity should probably start moving in the direction of disclosing rebuttal evidence as well, so do with that what you may. I will listen to reasons why that is bad, though I struggle to see the conceptual difference between a link turn and a case link from a disclosure perspective.

Trigger warnings: I think trigger warnings in PF are usually bad, and usually run on arguments that don’t need to be trigger warned which just suppresses voices and arguments in the activity. You’ll find Elizabeth Terveen’s paradigm has a good section on this that I generally agree on. You can go for the theory, but my threshold for responses will be in accordance with that belief typically. Obviously, egregiously graphic descriptions are an exception to this general belief, but they are almost never run in PF. The mention of something is not a good enough reason for a trigger warning.

Kritiks

General disposition: I am somewhat comfortable evaluating most kritikal arguments, although I’m not as experienced with them as I am with others. I will be able to flow it and vote on it as long as you explain it well. I am quite comfortable with capitalism, security, and fem IR.

Disclaimer: Blake 2021 made me think about this part of my paradigm a lot, and I think the activity is just going through growing pains that are necessary, but some of these debates were really bad. The proliferation of identity, pomo inspired kritiks that vaguely ask the judge to vote for a team based on an identity and nothing else is not good. Moreover, methods that advocate collapsing the activity are unlikely to be well received. In any case, please articulate exactly what my ballot does or what specifically I am supposed to be doing to improve the activity. This means implicating responses or arguments onto the FW debate, or the ROTB.

“Pre-fiat”: No one thinks fiat is real, so let’s be more specific about how we label arguments and discourse. Make comparisons as to why your discourse or type of education is more important than theirs, this is not done by slapping the label "pre-fiat" onto an argument.’

Discourse: I am pretty skeptical that discourse shapes reality. If you go for this, you best have excellent evidence and good explanations.

Speaks

I will probably give around a 27-28 in most rounds. I guess I give lower speaks than most PF judges, so I’ll clarify. 27-28 is middling to me with various degrees within that. 26-27 is bad, not always for ethical reasons. Below a 26 is an ethical issue. If you get above a 29 from me you should be very happy because I never give speaks that high almost ever. I will not give a 30, there are no perfect debaters.

Hi, I'm Parker or Mr. Klyn, whichever you are most comfortable with.

I am the Director of Forensics at Theodore Roosevelt High School (Des Moines, IA).

I coach national circuit PF and hopefully LD soon. I'm on the NSDA Public Forum Topic & Wording Committee.

Come learn debate from me: NDF: Public Forum – Summit Debate

"I believe judging debates is a privilege, not a paycheck," and "Most judges give appalling decisions." <-- Two quotes from a legendary coach that illustrate my views on judging. My promise to you as a judge is always giving you 100% of my attention and rendering decisions that I honestly believe in and can defend/justify.

I judge for three reasons:

1. I love debate and enjoy judging.
2. Judging great debaters allows me to grow as a coach and judge.
3. Fulfilling my team's obligation.

More in-depth 2024-2025 judging record for your convenience and for transparency: Parker Klyn judging record

If the round starts in 60 seconds and you don't have time to read the whole paradigm...

Public Forum: I am a standard national circuit PF flow/tech judge who can handle speed and is open to any form of argumentation, whether substantive or "progressive." Good luck!

Lincoln-Douglas:

Policy/LARP: 1

K: 1

T/Theory: 1

Phil: 2

Tricks: 3

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Public Forum

Add me to the email chain (klynpar@gmail.com). In national circuit varsity/bid PF rounds, send speech docs with cut cards ahead of (1) case & (2) all speeches where you read new evidence. (i.e. not a link to a google doc, not just the rhetoric, etc.) This is non-negotiable. (1) It makes the debate and by extension the tournament run on time and (2) it allows me to be as non-interventionist as possible.

I’m a tech/blank-slate judge, I flow on my computer using Flower. Judge instruction is key. The best debaters essentially write my RFD for me in final.

The above means that I will vote on anything. However, due to time constraints and neg's ability to go first, I generally believe the format's best debates are substantive rounds over the resolution. With that being said, run whatever arguments (substance, K, theory, Spark, etc.) you would like in front of me if you feel they will earn you the win. Debate is a game.

Be kind and respectful, I will never change a ballot on this but I will lower speaks especially when it comes to experience/age/resource imbalances.

I vote on offense/defense, that includes framework and specific weighing mechanisms. Probably don't go for presumption in substance rounds, I have literally never seen zero risk from both sides aside from egregious drops/concessions (in which case you're winning anyway).

(Side note: I'm confused at the number of judges who include "I presume [aff/neg] assuming no offense" in their paradigms in PF specifically. Where are these rounds occurring where neither side extends a single offensive argument through every speech? This always comes across like judge intervention to me.)

Speed is fine, go as fast as you want, although I will not flow off a speech doc so you do actually have to be clear and intelligible. I will do my best but if I literally can't understand you it probably won't be flowed or evaluated.

I always disclose my decision alongside some feedback. Feel free to ask questions afterwards. Let's leave the round feeling like we had a positive, enjoyable educational experience.

Speaks are based on technical execution, not some arbitrary standard of what makes a "good speaker." My speaks are pretty standard although I find I am particularly generous (29.5+) to great debaters and particularly stingy (27-27.9) with debaters that miss the mark or make major strategic errors. In order to promote good norms, I will bump your speaks by +0.1 each if you (1) send speech docs with cut cards and (2) indicate to me that you open-source disclose.

Long story short, Just win baby~!

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Lincoln-Douglas

Email: klynpar@gmail.com

People get scared when they see a primarily PF coach in their circuit LD judge pools -- I promise, I can handle what you're throwing at me as long as you do the effective work in judge instruction.In any debate event, capable judging is a must-have, and I will live up to that expectation.

Overriding judge philosophy is blank slate/no judge intervention. Debate's a game, do what you have to do to win.

You are welcome to run whatever you want, but based on what I've watched, I am most comfortable with: Policy/LARP, Ks (of both the Aff and the debate space), and topicality/non-friv theory i.e. disclosure. Love scouring the opencaselist for unique, creative arguments. I am not confident in evaluating performance, academic philosophy, or postmodernist arguments -- these would probably require lots of warranting and explanation, but if that's your lane, don't feel the need to adjust to me.

Go as fast as you want as long as you're flowable (I will not flow off a doc; this is the one place where it's up to the debaters to adapt, not the judge).

I value the intellectual freedom that debate provides -- running arguments and justifications that exist outside the academic norm is one of the event's true benefits. The only arguments I will not vote on are unwarranted IVIs and "new affs bad."

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Congress

If you're in Iowa and you do the literal bare minimum (speak as much as you can, provide sources for your arguments, REFUTE OTHER SPEECHES, ask questions), you're practically guaranteed to finish in the top half of my ballot. Seriously, why are so many of y'all just seemingly along for the ride!

Smaller things: Crystallization speeches are lazy unless it's like the 7th speech of a bill and there has been actual clash the entire way down (make actual arguments instead!), being charismatic/entertaining is a good tiebreaker but doesn't replace a well-argued speech, good POs are hard to beat and bad POs make debate no fun (unless literally nobody else was willing to do it -- then I'll reward you on the ballot), treating bills as having real-life implications around the world >>> LARPing as US legislators

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Speech

Just like debate, speech is very hard. Because I value your long hours of preparation, I promise I am fully invested in your performance and will evaluate it to the best of my ability. I look forward to seeing what you have prepared!

Extemp: Don't just answer the question accurately, but implicate it -- why is this even question being asked? Confident facial expressions and humor are always appreciated.

Platform (OO/INFO): Topic selection is massively important. I don't care how technically proficient you are; if your thesis boils down to "we should be nice to each other" or "here's some information about something" you will probably not get a high rank. I put strong emphasis on actually taking a bit of a risk for your topic selection and eschewing "safer" options.

Interp: I do not have much expertise when it comes to these, although I adore POI as the work involved in crafting a strong program feels far more intellectually robust than simply performing a dramatic or humorous piece. All interp performances should feature believable acting, clear storytelling structure, distinct characters, and intentional blocking. I do NOT value excessive trauma in DI; it feels very cynical and almost exploitative to me. HI should obviously make me laugh. The interplay between performers in DUO is fun. And in POI, the most important thing I'm looking for is a clear theme or thesis that ties your program together.

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Debate thoughts:

1) Flow. It is so easy to tell when you're not flowing.

2) You should not need a marked doc when only a couple cards were skipped.

3) Despite the time and energy I spend in this wonderful activity, I am a glorified volunteer. I teach literacy to struggling readers and my stipend averages to about $2/hour. Many debate coaches, even those at the highest levels, are in similar situations -- be kind and empathetic to them.

4) Be kind and reasonable to everyone in the activity, whether you are a judge (don't bully children in your RFD, don't arbitrarily change speaker points because they brought you food) or competitor (welcome novices with open arms, practice epistemic humility, thank the adults in your life who have allowed you to find a home in debate).

5) Stick with debate. I emphatically believe is the best thing you can do with your time in high school.

About me:

Director of Forensics of Theodore Roosevelt High School in Des Moines, IA, former coach for Ames (IA)

I debated PF in high school in rural Iowa and had no exposure to the national circuit. Since then I have coached multiple partnerships to TOC and state champions.

My favorite debate event is Public Forum and my favorite speech events are Extemp and Oratory.

Coaching forensics and attending tournaments are among my favorite things in life~ I feel so lucky to be able to do this a couple dozen weekends every year.

About me:

I have been coaching and judging PF for eleven years. I judge on local circuit tournaments and have also judged many national circuit tournaments, including the TOC. I am familiar with the topic, but that does not mean that you should not explain your arguments. As a coach I am very aware of all the nuances of Public Forum debate.

Put me on the email chain: nkroepel@district100.com and belviderenorthpf@gmail.com

Round specifics:

Tech>truth (I always try to be tabula rasa and not interject my knowledge into your round). I will vote on just about anything besides abusive, offensive arguments. I will take arguments as true, unless otherwise argued by your opponent for the scope of the round.

I can flow speed, but I prefer not to. I do not want you to use it as a way to exclude your opponents. In the end, Debate is about intelligible conversation, if you are going too fast, and don't do it well, it can get in the way of clarity of expression, which upsets me.

I do not flow cross-fire, but I do pay attention to it. However, if you make an excellent point in cross-fire, you will have to bring that information up in a subsequent speech. Also, DO NOT be rude, I will reduce your speaker points for it. It is inappropriate for teams to make their opponent's feel inferior or humiliate them in the round.

If you are speaking second, please address your opponent's responses to your case, especially turns. It does not have to be an even split, but make sure it is something that you do. Defense is not sticky, you need to extend it.

I expect that summary and final focus are cohesive to each other. First summary needs extend defense. Second summary needs to address responses on your case, especially in areas you are going to collapse on, and it should also respond to turns. I do expect that you collapse and not go for everything on the flow in summary. I WILL NOT vote on an issue if it is not brought up in summary. Please weigh in your final two speeches and clash your arguments to those provided by your opponent.

As I expect the summary and final focus to be consistent, that also means that the story/narrative coming from your partnership also be consistent. I may not give you a loss because of it, but it is harder to establish ethos. Defend a consistent worldview using your warrants and impacts.

Make it easy for me to fill out my ballot. Tell me where I should be voting and why. Be sure to be clear and sign-post throughout.

Extensions need to be clean and not just done through ink. In order for you to cleanly extend, you need to respond to responses, and develop your warrant(s). You cannot win an impact without warranting. In rebuttal, please make sure you are explaining implications of responses, not just card dumping. Explain how those responses interact with your opponents' case and what their place in the round means. DO NOT just extend card names in subsequent speeches.

The flow rules in my round for the most part, unless the weighing is non-existent. I will not call for evidence unless it is a huge deal, because I view it as interventionist.

DO NOT make blippy arguments-warranting matters!

DO NOT make the round a card battle, PLEASE. Explain the cards, explain why they outweigh. A card battle with no explanation or weighing gets you nowhere except to show me why I shouldn't vote on it.

And finally progressive debate-I'd strongly prefer you do not read atopical arguments. I think most kritikal positions are exceptionally unpersuasive on a truth level, but this should not explicitly influence how I evaluate them, except to say that I'm probably more willing than most to evaluate intelligent analytical defense to Ks even if your opponents have "cards" to make their claims. I am still learning when it comes to judging/evaluating theory. I need a slower debate with clear warranting-neither K or T are a big part of my judging experience either. You CAN run it in front of me but combining it with speed makes me even more confused. I can't promise that I will always make the right decision.

*conflicted with BREAK LD, Seven Lakes, and Atascocita

Email chain/questions: tuyendebate@gmail.com

Additionally, please add the following emails depending on your event:

PF: sevenlakespf@googlegroups.com

LD: sevenlakesld@googlegroups.com

CX: sevenlakescx@googlegroups.com

Round should start at start time. I will dock your speaks by .2 for every minute past start time that the first constructive has not been sent.

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Background/Important info:

University of Houston (Policy debate '21 -'23), BCHS (LD ‘19-‘21), debate coach at Seven Lakes HS (‘23-Current)

***I will not vote on anything that happened outside of round (except disclosure) -If you are about to debate someone that makes you feel unsafe or uncomfortable please sort this out with TAB before round rather than making it an in-round voting issue.

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GENERAL (for all debates):

TLDR: I am primarily a policy debater and tend to evaluate rounds like a policy judge

Policy/Cap > Security/Set Col > Identity Ks/Phil > Tricks/Friv Theory/PoMo Ks

Debaters work hard and I will always try my best to adapt to you, but my experience and knowledge of args varies. For the most part, you can run what you want and I will vote on anything, but your burden of explanation increases the further you move down the list above. That being said I would suggest that you do not over adapt. You are more likely to win running an argument you’re good at and know well. I tend to understand most arguments as long as they are explained well.

Tech > truth in most cases - but truth determines your burden of proof. You still need to make a complete argument with warrants/ev/adequate explanation.

I think almost everything is debatable, will vote on almost anything with a warrant and impact

Will evaluate the round exactly how you tell me to - The more weighing and judge instruction you give the less likely I’ll have to intervene to make a decision. If you do neither of these things do not be upset when I have to arbitrarily decide how to evaluate the round.

I will vote off the flow - I evaluate ev when the arg is contested. I think more debaters should be punished for reading terrible evidence, but i will not do the work for you. I only flow the things said in your speech, but I will still follow along on the doc to check for clipping. (Horrendous clipping is an auto L).

Time yourself and your opponents

Things I default to but can be convinced to consider otherwise: judgekick if no offense, condo good, disclosure good, debate good, competing interps

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Specific Args:

LD, CX, PF are combined below. Read what applies and skip what doesn’t. If it is not here, assume I have no specific thoughts about it. Everything that is here is easily changeable via technical debating.

K --- I have and will vote on any K that is debated well, HOWEVER:

I prefer Ks that critique structures over identity Ks. Two reasons:

1. Unfamiliar with the lit bases - I am often unsure of what the alt to these Ks do. I have no idea what death drive, black ontology, etc means as an alt, however, I have voted on all of them before.

2. In round violence- I think that the way some debaters run K args introduces new violence into the round that wasn't previously there. This makes me sad because I think K lit is interesting and great, but it’s implementation in debate has pushed me towards policy args. An articulation that is just an ad hom is a losing one.

Ks on the AFF: All of the reasons above make me quite receptive to FW against K AFFs. Specifically, if you read a K AFF but cannot provide a reason for why your arguments should be negated then I am more likely to be convinced by FW.

Ks on the NEG: I like clash rounds and I am much more likely to vote for a K on the neg than a K on the AFF. Specifically if you run Ks like cap like a cp+da or security like a case turn. Ks which are able to interact with the aff on the fiat-consequences level have a much higher chance of getting my ballot than Ks that garner offensive from proximate violence impacts.

Theory (excluding T)—- My threshold for voting on theory is slightly higher than for other args since it’s premised on being able to prove abuse.

The greater the time constraints in the debate event the more I err towards the team defending against theory since that minimizes the need for judge intervention. In policy debate there is enough time to develop arguments and thus I tend to view theory in policy as a legit strategic tool. In PF theory makes me want to cry.

friv theory is stupid, I do not like when debaters are afraid of clash.

Disclosure: If you have screenshots/evidence of non disclosure you should put it in the doc. Things said/shown to me during the speeches are the only things I will evaluate.

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Extra notes for specific events:

PF ---

Read less and better args - I can no longer bring myself to vote on these horrifically warranted link chains that have 0 explanation in ff. Because ev practices in PF are so bad and no one reads warrants my ballot has increasingly been decided on purely which link chain I understand more. Better warranting and better ev will win you the round.

Please collapse in the ff. it is not possible for you to adequately explain 4 diff pieces of offense in 2(?) minutes.

Procedural stuff - If you send all the cards you are going to read before your speech and don't paraphrase I will boost your speaks

You must start the prep timer if you want to ask a question outside of CX period.

Weighing - I will judge the round like a policy maker under an offense defense paradigm unless you tell me otherwise. If there is no offense in the final focus you will probably lose.

I notice that in most PF rounds, weighing doesn’t end up playing a large part in my decision making process despite the fact that the impact is the first place I look to when evaluating the round. This is because PFers tend to weigh in a vacuum- ie they do not contextualize the weighing to the amount of the impact that is actually accessed or do meta weighing.

K: You can run it if you think you can explain it to me in 4 minutes

Defense is not sticky: I will only evaluate things that get extended throughout the debate all the way into the last speech.

Second rebuttal must extend case but I do not require you to give an overview - responding to lbl is considered an extension i.e. answering the no link is extending your link but you must also extend arguments dropped by the other team if you want me to evaluate them at the end of the round. I will not extend args for you just because they are dropped.

LD ---

I read phil and did mostly traditional LD in high school because my program was small, but I have done policy debate in college and have been judging on the circuit long enough for you to treat me like a regular tech judge.

what this means:

I judge Phil like an LDer and everything else like a policy debater. It is important that you tell me how to evaluate the round since I do not have a strong opinion on whether LD should be about, for example, testing the resolution or comparative worlds.

- Phil: while I know phil lit. bases I have not thought about them extensively in the context of debate arguments. I have a pretty good background content wise for all the very basic and generic phils (Kant, Hobbes, any other enlightenment philosopher, etc.). I prefer substantial over tricky phil

- Theory/Tricks: I am unfamiliar with a lot of LD specific theory and tricks. This means my capabilities to flow your 32 point analytical 1NC shell significantly decreases.

________________________

Spreading: I don’t care how fast you go if you're clear, but if I don't hear you it's your fault. I will say clear if I cannot understand you.

Speaks --- I'll start at 28 and move up or down from there

Speaks + : make good strategic decisions, creative, show good understanding of the topic/args, are efficient, organized. I reward the most speaks to debaters who are kind and make debate an enjoyable and welcoming space

Speaks - : Make personal attacks, are unorganized, don’t clash, waste time/steal prep

GBX 2023

- send constructive and rebuttal docs with cards to both emails before you read them

- set up the chain BEFORE you come into round

- I have done a considerable amount of topic research

- I think open source is a good norm

Westwood '22

Coach for Westwood

Email for email chains (I want to be on it)/questions/anything really: amoghdebatedocs@gmail.com AND westwoodpfdocs@gmail.com

I will flow every speech and be focused on the round. I love the activity and know how much time you put in - you deserve a judge that pays attention and that cares. Go as fast as you want but be clear. More often than not you don't need to read 4 contentions or go as fast are you're going - quality is way more important than quality.

Speaks are a function of strategy (good collapsing, weighing, going for dropped turns and doing it well, etc) and practices (disclosure, cut cards, etc). I do not care what you wear. Speaks will range from 28 to 30 unless you do something unacceptable.

I will research most, if not all, of the topics. So, you can assume I have background knowledge, but if you're reading something super specific explain it and your acronyms.

Smart analytics > bad evidence or paraphrased blips.

If you want a short version - I agree with Akhil Bhale.

Non-negotiables:

- No prep stealing (it's quite obvious)

- Have the cut card for any piece of evidence that you read easily accessible (bare minimum), if your going to send links to large PDFs please strike me.

- I am uninterested in listening to and will not vote for arguments that endorse self-harm or suicide. Spark and other hypothetical impact turns are fine.

- Do not use racist/sexist/misogynistic rhetoric.

- I will "flow" cross-examination and it is binding (it exists for a reason). I hate it when teams don't understand their own arguments and this is the time to make it obvious. Probably won't be a voting issue but could be made into one.

"Preferables" (your speaks will automatically improve but I won't hold it against you unless convinced otherwise by theory etc.) :

- Disclose previously broken positions on the wiki (personally think new Affs/Negs are good but that is a debate to be had)

- Read from cut cards

- Send constructive and rebuttal docs with all the cards before your speech. I will never call for specific evidence after the round. If I think the evidence will decide or influence my decision I will go to speech docs to read it, if it isn't there too bad. Sending evidence after the round is just a way for debaters to send new evidence they didn't read, highlight evidence, cut parts out - I don't want to deal with that. TLDR: It helps both you and the debate if you send docs. I am a sucker for good evidence. If you have some really good evidence make sure I know about it - call it out by name. Again not an excuse for not debating - don't hide behind your evidence.

- Pre-flow before the round.

General:

- Tech > Truth (to an extent) - if an argument is dropped it is considered true but still has to be an argument for you to win on it (ie. it must be extended with uniqueness/link/internal link/impact), new implications or cross applications justify new responses to the specific implication. If you blow up a 2-second rebuttal blip - my threshold for responses won't be very high. More stuff on progressive arguments later.

- Read whatever you want to read - do your own thing. More on specific progressive arguments later.

- Open CX is fine (both people can speak/explain during cross-examination). Flex prep is fine and often good (ask questions during your prep time).

- 2nd rebuttal should collapse and frontline everything on the argument you're going for. Efficiency will be rewarded with good speaks. Defense is not sticky. Most "weighing" is new responses more on that later - at the latest 1st final but that's probably way too late and justifies 2nd final responses which isn't good for you anyway. 0 risk is a thing, but most defense will be evaluated on a probabilistic scale. 1st summary is the last time, I will flow new arguments. (There is a distinction between new arguments and new weighing - be careful.)

- Most substantive questions will be revealed on a probabilistic scale - comparative risk of the arguments. In 99% of debates, both sides will win some offense so comparative weighing and impact calculus can and often decides rounds. Procedural arguments often have to be evaluated on a yes/no basis (does the AFF violate the interp, RVIs or no RVIs, etc.)

- Turns. I love them but they are often done terribly. 99% of link turns need uniqueness to be offensive (ie. If the AFF tells me there is no negotiation in the status quo, and the NEG goes for a link turn about how the AFF makes negotiation worse, I have no idea what the impact to negative negotiation is.) Impact turns are also often interesting debates - if the link is contested (I hope it isn't if you're going for an impact turn) or if your opponents go for a different argument, then extend it clearly. If both teams seem to agree to the link and it just becomes an impact debate, I don't really care about link extensions too much. There are only 2 types of turns. Link turns and impact turns. New DAs and ADVs are often labeled as turns but you won't fool me and don't try - more on that later.

- Weighing. Also something I love but is often done wrong. There are three weighing mechanisms: probability, timeframe, and magnitude. Any other mechanism is either a subset of those three (ie. scope is a subset of magnitude) or isn't a weighing mechanism (ie. clarity of the strength of the link or whatever people like to say.) Unless convinced otherwise (which is easily possible), link weighing/debating > impact weighing. I often find that nuclear war outweighs climate change or poverty outweighs death is irrelevant with good link weighing. I will give examples of link weighing below: at the latest these arguments need to be introduced by 1st summary. Probability link weighing are no-link arguments or "mitigatory defense." Stuff like "it is hard for terrorists to get BMDs because of monetary and technical constraints" is definitely link defense and needs to be in 1st summary at the latest. Probability is a function of how much defense you win on an argument, I will not arbitrarily assign probabilities (ie. say climate change is more probable than nuclear war) - you have to explain to me why that is the case which often is just link defense. Timeframe link weighing can be great. Arguments like the NATO bank at the earliest even if created won't get funding for years etc. Magnitude link weighing is really good and often underused (ie. "scope of solvency"). Solving bitcoin emissions won't solve climate change writ large etc. That being said, I can be convinced that impact weighing comes before link weighing. Arguments like extinction first and Bostrom and viable and can also be good. I hope everyone knows what impact weighing is so not going to go too in-depth on that. Last note - turns case is really, really good and also really, really underutilized in PF. Conflict probably ends negotiations, climate change probably makes war more likely, economic growth probably resolves underlying conditions for crime, etc. These types of arguments can really help you frame a round and establish why your came case comes first. Impact weighing and turns case can come by 1st final by the latest.

- Try or die can be convincing if done well. It is often a great strategy if you are going for an extinction impact and the NEG has conceded uniqueness. This is not an excuse for not frontlining - 0 risk is a thing. Timeframe is a really good weighing mechanism in try or die/extinction first debates and can often implicate probablity.

- Framing debates are also really interesting - extinction first etc. Framing arguments are not a substitute for link debate but a supplement. If you win policy paralysis and the other team wins a very large risk of their extinction scenario, the other team has probably won the round.

"Substance":

- Quality > quantity. Not too many interesting thoughts here. Good weighing and link debating wins rounds - avoiding clash, being shifty, and dumping blips doesn't.

- Empirics aren't arguments but can help your position combined with warrants. If you have good empirics that are specific to the mechanism of the resolution/your argument you're probably in a good spot.

- I could care less about quantified impacts. They are often random predictions by conspiracy theorists or terrible models. Even worse, debater math. I would much rather your impact be economic growth than some math you did with different studies and percentages. Extinction is an impact, recession is an impact, etc - I do not care about your 900 million card.

- Kicking case in reading a new DA/ADV in 2nd rebuttal is a bad idea. You essentially just wasted half of the debate. I will have a very low threshold for responses and encourage theory. This is different from reading 4 minutes of turns (ie. kicking case and just going for prolif good). I am perfectly fine with that, in fact, that would be quite fun.

Below are some thoughts on progressive argumentation. Don't read these arguments to win rounds - it's quite obvious. You disclose for the first time and read disclosure theory, change from full text to open source for 1 tournament to meet your interp, etc. I will still vote for it if you win but your speaks won't be great. Also, don't read progressive arguments just to beat novices - I will give you the worst speaks I possibly can.

Theory:

- I have mixed feelings on disclosing broken interps - could be convinced either way. In general, meta-theory is interesting and under-used.

- Topicality is also interesting. Define words in the resolution. Intent to define and evidence quality is extremely important. Unlike most theory debate, precision, your interpretation, and the evidence matter a lot more to me than the limits/ground debate.

- While I will not "hack" against these arguments be aware it is an uphill battle if you are defending paraphrasing good or disclosure bad. If you win your CI and everything on the flow of course I will still vote for you. If it is a close-round, you know which way I am probably going to vote.

- I default to competing interpretations, no RVIs, spirit of the interp, and drop the debater. I can easily be convinced otherwise. If paradigm issues are dropped/agreed upon they do not need to be extended in every speech. If the debate devolves to just theory under competing interps - I am voting for the better model of debate, I could not care that you won no RVIs (personally, no RVIs doesn't mean you can't win on a counter-interp in my mind)

- Reasonability is a good tool against mis-disclosure (open-source versus full text etc) and frivolous shells. You should still read a counter interp - but explain why the marginal differences in your models of debate are outweighed by substance crowd out etc.

- Read your shell the speech after the violation (if they paraphrase in 2nd rebuttal - feel free to read paraphrasing theory in 1st summary.) Theory after that is fairly late and really hard to have good clash, thus probably will result in intervention but if you think its necessary read it (bad language etc.)

- For some reason, small school counter-interps are quite popular and I get why (I read them myself a few times.) However, I am inclined to believe that arbitrary entry limits are just that arbitrary. Also, a lot of small schools are in big prep groups with a lot of resources, or just don't have a lot of people competing etc.

- Theory is unaccessible is a terrible argument - there are tons of resources out there and if you need more help/advice feel free to email me. It is just like responding to any other argument.

- Theory cards, in most cases, are overrated and are often just written by former debaters and will be evaluated on the same level as any other standard/argument. This is different from topicality interpretations and impact weighing/cards against Ks.

K's:

- "Substantive Ks" like Cap K or Security K are great but probably will just be evaluated as DAs or impact turns. Reading it as a K is often just an excuse to get out of the uniqueness debate, and when your alternative is just rejection, I don't think that gets you very far.

- Non-topical positions are also fine - I am familiar with most of the stuff people read in PF, but if you're reading high-theory or something confusing - slow down and explain it. I won't vote for something I can't explain back to you. This is my one exception to disclosing new Affs/Negs. I strongly believe non-topical positions should be disclosed before the debate to allow for clash.

- I slightly lean towards T/FW against K affs/negs probably because K debate in PF isn't done very well - but can easily be convinced otherwise. K teams should go for impact turns, weigh the K against the shell, and have a good CI that mitigates the limits offense. Do not read a K based on research about x argument and discourse and then make a prepouts bad argument on theory - that doesn't make too much sense. Weighing is really important in these rounds and I find that the theory teams get away with some stuff too easily (answer stuff like fairness is key to participation which comes before your method.)

- I am also down for a method v method debate, or PIKs etc. Conditionality is probably good against a new K aff/neg (ie. fine with T/FW combined with a PIK etc)

- Long pre-written overviews are not as useful as line-by-line and specific weighing.

- Also, please have an actual method. If you say "vote for me because I pointed this out," you probably won't get my ballot.

- Paraphrased Ks are a big no. Non-negotiable.

If you got this far, thank you for taking the time to read this. If you have any questions feel free to email me whenever. I will always disclose unless the tournament explicitly tells me not to. Postrounding is good if it is constructive and educational - but this time, I will have already submitted my ballot and will not be able to change it. Feel free to email me questions after the round as well.

Background

I graduated last year (Senior, debated all four years varsity, mostly local tournaments and a few circuit tournaments) at Wayzata High School in Plymouth, Minnesota. I judge very similarly to my partner, Ethan Cordeiro.

Current affiliations: Wayzata High School, MN

Pronouns: he/him/his

Email Chains: Teams should start an email chain—it's the fastest way to exchange evidence and the best way to maintain evidence ethics. Add my email (nmangal@caltech.edu). That being said, I don't mind if you choose to show evidence on your computer to the other team at in person debates.

Evidence

I don't really like paraphrased evidence. I'm fine if you read it, but you should be able to provide a cut card with clear indication of which parts you paraphrased upon request (you should be able to provide a cut card regardless of if you are paraphrasing or not).

Each card read must have author's last name (or publication name, if no author is listed) + year.

PF Specific

I evaluate the round primarily based on the flow.

I don't extend dropped arguments, and I expect that you extend your arguments correctly.

Speed is fine It's been a while since I've debated, I can still handle speed but not too fast ????.

There's a difference between a spirited debate and a rude one.

How you win my ballot

1. Weigh!

2. Collapse.

3. Extend correctly & drop strategically--I would rather hear a specific, coherent narrative in summ/ff than a slew of card names or broad statements. Focus on your strongest 1-2 link(s).

4. Signpost (tell me where you are on the flow).

Rebuttal

2nd rebuttal needs to respond to everything said in 1st rebuttal.

Weighing in rebuttal is always welcome.

There is no need to extend your case in rebuttal. If you have extra time, I would much rather hear weighing or responses.

Summary

Extend offense and defense, this means case, turns, responses.

I don't mind if you go down the flow or use voter issues. Just make sure to signpost where you are on the flow.

If you opponent drops a turn, feel free to go for it as a voter.

2nd summary is too late to introduce new evidence.

Collapse.

Final Focus

Should mirror summary.

Final comparative weighing.

Speaks:

Everyone starts at a 28 and goes up or down from there. I won't give 26 or lower unless you're rude or racist/sexist/homophobic etc.

I'll assign speaks being conscious of the division I'm judging in, i.e. my threshold for a novice 30 is lower than that for a jv 30.

Timing:

I will keep time for all speeches and also keep track of prep (force of habit). While I expect debaters to keep their own time, feel free to ask me how much prep time you have left.

I stop flowing 5-10s (max) after the speech ends and will indicate that your time is up.

Cross:

1st speaking team asks the first question. Ask for a follow-up if you want one. If your opponent is talking for ~30s and you want to ask a follow-up, politely interject.

Crossfires are unique in the round. I don't flow them, but I do listen. If you want to bring something up in the round, doing it in cross and making sure it is in speeches as well is a good strategy. Be nice and polite in cross!! We want people to continue this activity, not quit it because of rude crossfires.

Focus crossfires on asking and answering questions. If you're not answering a question, you should be asking one. I think "responding" to your opponent's answer just wastes time because cross is not on the flow. Save arguments for speeches. If you catch your opponent grandstanding, ask them “where’s the question?".

Be clever with your time; clarify what you need to clarify and use your questions to poke holes in your opponents' arguments.

Other Things

I will only call for evidence if the round depends on the card or if you specifically tell me to call it.

If there's no weighing I evaluate the round based on who accesses their argument the most clearly.

K's/non-topical arguments/theory/etc.

I will evaluate anything you put into the round. I’m not super experienced with all forms of progressive args, though.

Note for local tournaments: I’m less receptive to progressive args if you’re reading them against a team that’s significantly less experienced than you are.

Important Note, copied from my coach's (Cody Dorumsgaard) paradigm:

Debate is an educational activity. My goal as a judge is to pick the debater(s) who best argues their case. But I also am seeking a round that is educational. Abusive arguments and rhetoric have no place in debate. Treat each other with kindness. We are all here to learn and expand our knowledge and experience. Racist, sexist, ableist, homophobic, transphobic, xenophobic, etc. arguments should not be made. Everyone is welcome in the debate community, do not marginalize and silence folks with your argumentation.

Also, since debate is an education activity, feel free to ask me questions after the round. I'm here to help educate as well. As long as we have time before the next round has to start (and I've got enough time to submit my ballot so the tab room doesn't come looking for me), then I'm always happy to answer questions.

Chad Meadows (he/him)

chadwickmeadows@gmail.com

If you have interest in college debate, and would be interested in hearing about very expansive scholarship opportunities please contact me. Our program competes in two policy formats and travels to at least 4 tournaments a semester. Most of our nationally competitive students have close to zero cost of attendance because of debate specific financial support.

Debate Experience

College: I’ve been the head argument coach and/or Director of Debate for Western Kentucky University for a little over a decade. WKU competes in NFA-LD and CEDA/NDT

High School: I’ve been an Assistant Coach, and primarily judge, for the Marist School in Atlanta, Georgia for several years. In this capacity I’ve judged at high school tournaments in both Policy Debate and Public Forum.

High School Topic Exposure

I am not a primary argument coach or participant at Summer institute for high school policy debate, and do not have in-depth knowledge of IP topic trends.

Argument Experience/Preferences

I feel comfortable evaluating the range of debates in modern policy debate (no plan affirmatives, policy, and kritik) though I am the most confident in policy rounds. My research interests tend toward more political science/international affairs/economics, though I’ve become well read in some critical areas in tandem with my students’ interests (anti-blackness/afropessimism in particular) in addition I have some cursory knowledge of the standard kritik arguments in debate, but no one would mistake me for a philosophy enthusiast. On the Energy topic, almost all of my research has been on the policy side.

Though I don't feel particularly dogmatic about the plan/no plan debate, my preference is that the affirmative should advocate a topical plan and the debate should be about the desirability of that plan. I do not enjoy clash debates, and in those rounds HEAVILY appreciate some novelty/pen time/judge instruction PLEASE.

I have few policy preferences with regard to content, but view some argumentative trends with skepticism: Counterplans that result in the plan (consult and many process counterplans), Agent counterplans, voting negative any procedural concern that isn’t topicality, reject the team counterplan theory that isn’t conditionality, some versions of politics DAs that rely on defining the process of fiat, arguments that rely on voting against the representations of the affirmative without voting against the result of the plan.

I feel very uncomfortable evaluating events that have happened outside of the debate round

Decision Process

I tend to read more cards following the debate than most. That’s both because I’m curious, and I tend to find that debaters are informing their discussion given the evidence cited in the round, and I understand their arguments better having read the cards myself.

I give less credibility to arguments that appear unsupported by academic literature, even if the in round execution on those arguments is solid. I certainly support creativity and am open to a wide variety of arguments, but my natural disposition sides with excellent debate on arguments that are well represented in the topic literature.

To decide challenging debates I generally use two strategies: 1) write a decision for both sides and determine which reflects the in-round debating as opposed to my own intuition, and 2) list the relevant meta-issues in the round (realism vs liberal internationalism, debate is a game vs. debate should spill out, etc.) and list the supporting arguments each side highlighted for each argument and attempt to make sense of who debated the best on the issues that appear to matter most for resolving the decision.

I try to explain why I sided with the winner on each important issue, and go through each argument extended in the final rebuttal for the losing team and explain why I wasn’t persuaded by that argument.

Public Forum

Baseline expectations: introduce evidence using directly quoted sections of articles not paraphrasing, disclose arguments you plan to read in debates.

Argument preferences: no hard and fast rules, but I prefer debates that most closely resemble the academic and professional controversy posed by the topic. Debate about debate, while important in many contexts, is not the argument I'm most interested in adjudicating.

Style preferences: Argumentation not speaking style will make up the bulk of my decision making and feedback, my reflections on debate are informed by detailed note taking of the speeches, speeches should focus their time on clashing with their opponents' arguments.

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

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

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

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

Argumentation...

Theory/Topicality:

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

Framework:

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

DA:

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

CP:

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

K:

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

K Affs:

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

Perms:

Perms are a test of competition unless I am told otherwise and 3+ perms is probably abusive but that's for theory.

Judge Intervention:

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

Speaks:

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

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

PF Specific

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

LD Specific

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

Quick Bio

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

Background: I did PF for 4 years at Eagan High School and graduated in 2020. I went to the U and graduated in 2023. I've been coaching/judging PF ever since high school for Wayzata High School. Outside of debate, I work as an immigration paralegal for Fredrikson & Byron P.A. in Minneapolis.

***Add me to the email chain! (email chain > doc) feel free to ask me questions before the round or to shoot me an email: shailja.p22@gmail.com

For Varsity and JV Rounds:

General:

- Off-time road map: My biggest pet peeve is when you give me an off-time road map and then don't follow it. Keep it short; I just need to know where you are starting unless you are doing something weird.

- Speed: I consider myself a flow judge. tech>truth. A case doc doesn't replace your speech. I can flow fast but don't spread. Naturally, the slower you go the more I comprehend. So do with that as you will.

- Ks, Theory, etc...: I a) I don't have enough experience with these kinds of arguments and thus don't feel comfortable evaluating them and b) think they create a barrier in the debate space. You gonna lose the round if you run these arguments with me.

- Framework: This is pretty obvious - if a team gives me a framework I will vote based on that (as long as it makes sense) - if you have an FW and the other team doesn't that doesn't mean you win. Just a personal preference, I don't like cost-benefit frameworks. I think they take up time at the beginning of your case and you're just telling me you're going to "debate", your going to be weighing the costs against the benefit of the arguments.

Plz, do not aggressively post-round me :) Ask me questions but don't yell at me - I'm not going to switch my decision.

How to win my vote:

- Weighing: Say the words " we outweigh because..." it makes it easier for me. Do comparative weighing!!

- Signposting: Just do it.

- Voters: Have them and write the ballot for me. Don’t go for everything and condense!

- Evidence: Evidence ethics have gotten so bad in debate these days. Don't take forever to find evidence (speaks will go down). Make sure you have cut cards. Do not paraphrase.

- Extensions: Don't just extend through "ink". Don't just say "flow Smith over". Explain to me what Smith says and why it matters in the context of the round. Make sure if you say something final focus it is/was in summary and vice-versa. If you are the second speaking team you must respond to offense from 1st rebuttal. Defense is not sticky. This is given, but if you want me to vote for it at the end of the round have it in every speech. I need links, warranting, and impacts in every speech if you want me to vote on it.

For Novice Rounds:

- In the round, this is how I'm judging you: 1) Do you have a narrative? Do you have a "story" when you tell me your argument? and 2) How effectively can you explain to me why your arguments mean you win over your opponents? Can you show me that you understand what you are arguing for?

At the end of the day know this: debate is hard. You're not going to be perfect and you have people on your side that want to see you succeed in this activity. Ask me questions after the round and I will do my best to guide you on how you can do better in your next round! Each round is a learning opportunity.

For Everyone:

- Overall, please have fun while still being nice and respectful. no one likes to watch an aggressive debate round.

The quick version: I flow, much better for policy than for the K or theory but fine with most things, be smart and thoughtful above all else.

The most important thing to adapt to me: please make complete arguments. If you are not explaining things, you will be very frustrated by my decision. In all honesty, I think my bar on this is now well above the average PF tech judge, so adapt accordingly, at least if you'd like high speaks. I reserve the right to think about your arguments.

Background: I graduated in 2021 from Blake. I now compete in APDA and BP for UChicago. For email chain: alperri@uchicago.edu and blakedocs@googlegroups.com

Back in the Stone Age when I competed, I thought the increasing trend of theory and "progressive" debate was mostly good for PF. This assessment was almost certainly wrong. I would so much rather watch two well-prepared teams have a stock topical debate than listen to really any variety of theory or nontopical advocacy.

I still do believe that arguments like the security and cap K have important roles in checking our assumptions and sometimes possess remarkable explanatory power for social problems. That said, with all due respect to the scholars who publish this sort of research, most of the other critical theories I've encountered in PF have not been rigorous, well-proven, or really logical at all. I'm also skeptical of any argumentation based on your own identity, school, or social position-- trying to fix what is unfair in debate by tallying up our respective disadvantages seems like a fool's errand.

Being that it is emphatically your format and not mine, I'll evaluate nearly anything you put in front of me, but I hope you reflect on whether your own arguments are true, well-supported, and plausible. It will make me a happier judge and, more importantly, make you a better advocate.

Mechanics: defense isn't sticky, 2nd rebuttal must answer the 1st, any speed fine but I won't flow your doc, you must bite defense in the subsequent speech to which it is read to kick turns, I will not evaluate defense you read on yourself, no offensive arguments, you'll lose if you're rude (seriously) or if you cannot produce evidence. Feel free to post-round as much as you like.

Progressive debating:the background hopefully explains my position on these arguments. I will not vote on tricks, IVIs, or frivolous theory.

The rest is up to you, but three tips for these debates:

1. I would encourage you to read theory against K alts that seem to violate the PF rules on negative fiat (hint, there are a lot of them)-- not an auto-win, obviously, but I think an underutilized variety of argument.

2. Procedural fairness is actually quite important. I'm not sure that a structural fairness first model of debate is a good one and I hope teams feel comfortable arguing that the rules of the game matter in and of themselves.

3. I really don't care for most nitpicky disclosure interps at this point. Highlight, underline, full text, first three-last three, rebuttal, round reports, or whatever other variety of disclosure violation you can conceive of will make me think you are an unserious person. Very willing to vote on arbitrariness/interp-shifting responses in these debates.

Arguments I dislike: "Fairness bad/irrelevant" -- these arguments are illogical because they presume fair evaluation. "Probability first because that's what policymakers care about" metaweighing -- this is facially false and begs the question. "Do X thing to minimize intervention" -- almost invariably your attempts to reduce my intervention actually make me intervene more. "The resolution doesn't actually happen when you vote Aff"-- are you going to tell me the sky is blue next? "Discourse shapes reality"-- it kinda observably doesn't.

Any questions-- ask. I do actually have opinions on PF, I just don't think they are particularly relevant to how I judge anymore.

Hello! I'm Sofia, I debated four years of Public Forum for Blake and I am currently a first year at UChicago.

Please add these to the email chain: saperri@uchicago.edu,blakedocs@googlegroups.com

If you are a novice, scroll down to the bottom of my paradigm to the "for novices" section

HOW I JUDGE:

Tech > Truth. I will be flowing all your speeches and will make my decision based on the flow, with as little intervention as possible. If you want me to vote off something that happened in cross, you must bring it up in a speech. Evidence is super important; please read cut cards, and if your opponents ask you for evidence you must be able to send the fully cut card (not just a URL!) to the email chain. Keep track of your own prep time. In speeches, I'll stop flowing at 5 seconds over if you're finishing a thought but if you start a new response overtime I won't flow it. Don't be unnecessarily rude, I'll tank your speaks. I do love some snark tho; you don’t always have to be nice in debate. Racism/sexism/homophobia/ableism/etc will not be tolerated and will result in an auto L.

Please send speech docs with cut cards before your speech!!!!!

SUBSTANCE DEBATE TAKES I HAVE:

Defense is not sticky – you must extend all defense that you want to matter for my ballot, even if it was conceded, in the first summary. Additionally, second rebuttal has to frontline and objectively, from a strategic standpoint, should frontline before it attacks the opponent's case.

Weighing– make your weighing comparitive and warranted, and you must respond to your opponent's weighing and explain why yours is better. I cannot emphasize this enough. Weighing preferences: Say probability instead of strength of link. Saying you outweigh on probability because the argument was conceded is stupid- think of some real warrants. Outweighing on timeframe isn't just "our impact happens now, theirs happens in 10 years" - you need to implicate this claim, ie the solution to their impact doesn't have to be the aff (intervening actors solve). Tbh, I think metaweighing is stupid 99% of the time- a better strat when trying to win a weighing debate is to match all their mechs/respond to them, and use your extra mechanisms to "break the tie". Weighing should start in 2nd rebuttal and the last place where new weighing is ok is 1st final (already kinda cheeky– don't read 4 new mechs, it has to build off of summary's weighing)

Extensions – Extend uq/link/IL/impact of the argument you are going for. My link/impact extension threshold is relatively low, but warrants do still have to exist. I personally don't think you have to extend case in second rebuttal– extensions should start in the summaries. Additionally, you should never go for both contentions, or both links of one contention, it's a waste of your time. Go for one piece of case offense, and 1-2 pieces of turn offense. Or just go for turns

Framework– Framework is great when done correctly; otherwise, it's a massive waste of everyone's time. For example, DO NOT read cost-benefit analysis framework– framework is meant to frame your opponents out of the debate. Reading the implicit, universal rules of a debate round as your framework is not strategic at all. Additionally, if you are reading SV framework, you should probably make the the warrants for the framework specific to the group you are impacting to (women, indigenous people, etc). Otherwise, you allow the opponent to get away with some very sketchy link-ins which defeats the purpose of framework. PF is having this stupid trend of kids spending 15 seconds reading "fRamEwOrK" that essentially says "SV is bad, vote ___ to break the cycle"– this is not what good framework looks like. There should be several, smart warrants for why your framework is important as well as a clear ROTB with warrants as well.

Evidence comparison– do it. post-date, empirical, meta-study, greater sample size, etc. Please don't make me intervene when there's two competing claims/warrants just sitting there on the flow– evidence comparison is key in these scenarios.

Speed– When done well, I love it. I think it allows for more interesting, technical debates with more clash. However, if you can't spread, DON'T DO IT. I will not flow off your doc. Your speaker points will suffer. You can still win rounds with efficiency + good word economy; please please don't try to go fast if it sacrifices your clarity.

Off-time roadmaps– Most of the time these are goofy. Just tell me where you are starting and sign-post from there. If there are three sheets or more then please tell me the order of the sheets but that’s lowk it

PROGRESSIVE DEBATE TAKES I HAVE:

Theory

I default to competing interps, but essentially I'll just evaluate the flow (not much different than evaling a substance round)

Theory must be read in the speech right after the violation

Out of the shells you could read I will probably be most receptive to paraphrasing and disclosure theory, I have some experience reading these arguments, although not a ton– send the shell to the email chain before you read it. Also stop forgetting to extend drop the debater in the backhalf

PF doesn't seem to understand what an RVI is, so if you want to read a shell know that THIS IS WHAT I CONSIDER AN RVI: All we need to prove is that we don't violate to win this round (ie similar to winning off of defense). HOWEVER, if the responding team concedes no RVIs that DOES NOT MEAN THE SHELL IS CONCEDED. If the responding team wins offense on the shell (ie a counter-interp) they can still win the round. This argument is very simple and I don't understand why there is such confusion surrounding this issue. It's just like a normal round - if you win a turn on your opponent's case, that is a voting issue for you.

Some random preferences that may be useful to you: Don't read a para good counter-interp, I will not vote for frivolous theory, I'm generally skewed towards trigger warnings bad, I think round reports are ultra dumb

EDIT: Theory is done so poorly in PF 99.99% of the time and it's honestly painful to watch/endure sometimes. I cannot promise you your speaks won't be dookie if you read theory. That said, do what you need to do to win, but I would probably advise against reading theory in prelims if I'm your judge.

Kritiks

I have some experience reading and/or debating set col, security, fem, and cap, so those are for sure the three I would feel most confident evaluating. However, just generally run Ks at your own risk with me, I don't know much about most of the lit

Stop running Ks without an alt or reading very goofy alts– please read an actual alt that YOU UNDERSTAND + CAN EXPLAIN. If your opponent asks you "what is the alt" / "how does the alt solve for the harm" / "what is the role of the neg/aff in this debate", and you can't respond without opening your speech doc and word-vomiting policy backfiles, rethink the strat.

Similar to theory debates, I believe K debate extensions should be done off the doc - that’s what I did all throughout my career and I believe it makes things a lot more consistent. If you’re paraphrasing your ROTB and alt differently every speech it could potentially make you a moving target and make your argument a lot more vulnerable to responses. I feel like it also just makes the debate more efficient, especially if the argument is new to you.

IVIs

Literally just no

There are structures and mechanisms in place for you to deal with in-round abuses, DO NOT read a 10 second blip with horrific warranting and expect me to vote on it. Read theory or call a violation with tab

If you are going to read an IVI, I'll feel comfortable voting on any RVIs read against it + evaluate it through reasonability

FOR NOVICES:

TLDR: TO MASSIVELY INCREASE YOUR CHANCES OF WINNING THIS DEBATE, EXTEND ONE OF YOUR CONTENTIONS AND WEIGH IT. Like 70% of novice rounds are won by simply doing this.

Some things I would like to see in round:

1. Every speech after constructives must answer the speech that came before it. For example, in second rebuttal you must respond to the responses the other team put on your case (as well as respond to their case). Also,
"sticky defense" is not a thing- defense must be extended in first summary for it to matter.

2. Please weigh your arguments! Magnitude, probability, Prerequisite, etc. and give a reason why your argument outweighs. If you just say "we outweigh on magnitude" and move on without comparing the impacts and actually explaining why, I can't really evaluate it. Also, make sure to respond to your opponent's weighing, otherwise I'm forced to intervene.

3. In summary and final focus, extend the links/warrants/impact(s) of the arguments you're going for. If you just say "extend Russia" and don't explain what "Russia" is, I can't vote on it. My link/impact extension threshold is relatively low, but warrants+internal links do still have to exist.

4. Please narrow down the back half of the debate! Y'all should really only be going for one contention from case, and don't try to extend every response from rebuttal in summary/final focus. Choose a couple you think are the strongest and you are winning the most, and explain those+weigh them well. In summary you should probably be collapsing on 2-3 pieces of offense (arguments that give me a reason to vote for you, like case or turns) and in final focus you should probably be collapsing on 1-2.

5. Last speech where new arguments are okay is first final focus, and that's just for new weighing (and it should be building off of summary's weighing, not like 3 completely new mechs)

6. Please signpost, order, and label your arguments!!!

MISCELLANEOUS:

My goddesses: ELIZ and TRONK

stay clippin

Most importantly, don't stress and have fun! You got this :)

Debate is a competitive research activity. The team that can most effectively synthesize their research into a defense of their plan, method, or side of the resolution will win the debate. I would like you to be persuasive, entertaining, kind, and strategic.

My paradigm is geared more towards national circuit style Public Forum, because that's what I'm judging most often. I have notes on other events towards the bottom, but everything in my paradigm generally applies to everything I judge.

--

General Information:

he/him

I am conflicted against the following schools: Seven Lakes (TX), Lakeville North (MN), Lakeville South (MN), Blake (MN), and Vel Phillips Memorial (WI). I am separately conflicted against Jason Zhao from Strake Jesuit - he is a former Seven Lakes competitor.

I've been involved in competitive speech and debate since 2014. I am the Director of Speech and Debate at Seven Lakes High School in Katy, Texas. I competed in PF and Congress in high school and NPDA-style parliamentary debate in college at Minnesota.

I now coach and judge every event throughout the season across tournaments that align with UIL, TFA, TOC and NSDA norms and expectations. I occasionally go back to NPDA, too. I have great respect for all formats and styles of speech and debate across the ideological and stylistic spectrum. I try to meet competitors where they are when I judge.

I spend more time every year in tab rooms and doing administrative work rather than judging and coaching. I stay as active as I can, but I can feel myself slowly becoming a dinosaur.

--

Email Chains:

Yes.

Put me on the email chain. Please flip and get fully set up before the round start time. My email is my first name [dot] my last name [at] gmail.com.

Add one of the following emails to the chain if you're in an event where email chains are expected:

sevenlakespf@googlegroups.com -- PF

sevenlakesld@googlegroups.com -- LD

sevenlakescx@googlegroups.com -- Policy

The subject of the email chain should clearly state the tournament, round number and flight, and team codes/sides of each team. For example: "Gold TOC R1A - Seven Lakes AR 1A v Lakeville North LM 2N".

If you're using the Tabroom doc share/etc, that's also fine, just tell me when I get to the round.

--

How I decide rounds:

I am not ideologically opposed to any position you want to stake out, provided that you have a) put in work before the tournament to research your position and b) embrace clash with your opponents, regardless of what your position is.

I would prefer to judge a small but deep debate about the resolution or desirability of a topical plan.

My preference is that you demonstrate mastery of the topic and a well-thought-out strategy during the round and that you're excited to do debate and engage with your opponents' research. The best rounds consist of rigorous examination and comparison of the most recent and academically legitimate topic literature. I would like to hear you compare many different warrants and examples, and to condense the round as early as possible. Ignoring this preference will likely result in lower speaker points.

I flow, intently and carefully. I will stop flowing when my timer goes off. There is no grace period of any length. I will not flow while reading a document, and will only use the email chain or speech doc to look at evidence when instructed to by the competitors or after the round if the interpretation of a piece of evidence is vital to my decision. I will not vote on an argument I did not flow.

There is not a dichotomy between "truth" and "tech". The sooner that you realize that they are two sides of the same coin, the faster you’ll get better at debate. Obviously, the team that does the better debating will win, and that will be determined by arguments that I've flowed and technical skill. I have voted for patently false arguments before and no doubt will again. However, you will have a more difficult time convincing me that objectively bad arguments are true than convincing me that good arguments are true. Between two evenly matched teams on a technical level, I am far more likely to vote for the team that has done better research and has more “true” arguments than a team reading arguments that are poorly researched and constructed. In other words, an argument's truth often dictates its implication for my ballot, because debaters are more persuasive when they make good arguments.

I will not vote for arguments that I cannot explain back to both teams during my RFD – whether that be because a) they did not make sense when presented in the round, b) they were not clearly signposted or articulated by the team introducing that argument, or (often) c) both.

Most debate rounds are decided by mere seconds of argumentation, or a couple of sentences that one debater said. Spending more time identifying and comparing the most significant arguments in the debate will probably improve your odds of winning my ballot.

Zero risk exists. I probably won't vote on defense or presumption, but I am theoretically willing to.

An average speaker in front of me will get a 28.5. My speaker points are roughly normally distributed but slightly skewed left from that mean between 26 and 30.

Critical arguments:

Theoretically, I am a decent judge for critical strategies that are well thought out, related to the topic, and strategically executed. I am happy to vote to reject a team's rhetoric, to critically examine economic and political systems of power, etc. if you explain why those impacts matter.

Practically, however, especially in PF or LD, I often think these arguments struggle with not being fleshed out enough because of the short speech times of these events. If you don’t care much either way, I’d lean towards you picking strategies that lean more towards the policy than the K side of the spectrum, especially in PF or LD.

Additionally, I find that many teams (particularly in PF) choose to employ these strategies as an attempt to avoid clash or obfuscate the debate to the point of unintelligibility. These debaters generally rely on use of jargon and a pompous air of superiority rather than warrants and impacts to win the debate. I dislike this practice. If you cannot explain a link or how voting for you resolves the impact that you have identified, I'm not going to vote for you regardless of how strenuously you said "epistemology first" or "they drop that we're the root cause of violence" or "fiat isn't real" - these are claims, not complete arguments.

I am not a good judge for strategies that ignore the topic entirely. I am an even worse judge for strategies that rely on in-round "discourse" as offense, and a terrible judge for arguments that debate is unequivocally bad. I generally do not think that these strategies solve an impact or outweigh disadvantages to their method. I've voted for these arguments several times, and I still find them unpersuasive - I just found the other team's defense of debate worse.

Theory:

It's boring.

I rarely want to listen to it without it being placed in a specific context based on the current topic.

I would strongly prefer not to listen to debates about setting norms. Disclosure is generally good. Paraphrasing is generally bad. Good is good enough - I don't want to hear disclosure theory if your opponents forgot to disclose last round after disclosing the past 60 in a row. Similarly, I don't want to hear paraphrasing theory or a "clipping IVI" if your opponents miss a sentence in the middle of a card. Presume that your opponents are operating in good faith and that we're all here to have a good time.

If you’re reading some kind of procedural that is specific to the current topic (e.g., Topicality, specification shells with carded evidence, etc.), I’ll probably be more interested in evaluating your position. In PF, zero teams have ever read such a position in front of me.

Here is a non-exhaustive list of arguments which will be very difficult to win in front of me: violations based on anything that occurred outside of the current debate, frivolous theory (defined as procedural arguments with no bearing on the question posed by the resolution), trigger warning/content warning theory, anything categorized as a trick or meant to evade clash, anything that is labeled as an IVI without a warranted implication for the ballot.

I recognize the strategic value of theory and that sometimes, you need to go for it to win a debate. If you decide to do that, you might get very low speaker points, depending on how asinine I think your position is. I will be persuaded by appeals to reasonability and that substantive debate matters more than your position, assuming the abuse story is as silly as I think many of them are.

Evidence ethics arguments/IVIs/theory/etc. will not be treated as theory - I will ask the team who has introduced the argument about evidence ethics if I should stop the debate and evaluate the challenge to evidence to determine the winner/loser of the round. The same goes for clipping. This is obviously different than reasons to prefer a piece of evidence or other normal weighing claims. I reserve the right to vote against teams that I notice are fabricating evidence during the round even if the other team does not make it a voting issue.

LD/Policy:

I don't judge these events as often as PF and I am very rarely in the judge pool at a TOC bid tournament in these events. Please don't read PF as "this man is an idiot". Everything from above applies. I am agnostic on almost all theoretical claims made in LD/CX rounds (e.g., 1AR theory in LD, conditionality, etc.). Frivolous theory and tricks are still silly.

You'll probably want to start and stay slower than the average national circuit judge. I need a little bit to get warmed up to your speed, and I'm out of practice enough that I probably can't get to your top speed. I won't look at the document to fill in my flow - only to evaluate disagreements over what evidence says that are initiated by the debaters in the round.

I'm going to be most comfortable in the back of a round where the aff reads a topical plan. I'm not ideologically against any style of debate, but I will have less experience evaluating these arguments in this context compared to somebody judging these events more frequently, which will likely harm the affirmative more than the negative in rounds where the aff does not defend the topic in a reasonably predictable way. Fine to vote on topicality, T-FW, or other similar positions.

I find rounds between two criticisms often difficult to resolve - isolating an impact external to your opponents' or explaining how you solve an impact(s) better than your opponents goes a long way.

Read good evidence. Evidence quality matters a lot to me. Read more parts of good evidence rather than blips of lots of bad evidence. The more specific you are when warranting arguments and doing impact calculus, the more likely I am to vote for you.

I generally think about debates in terms of which side solves the most significant impact - so when making a decision, I start on the impact/weighing/framework level of the debate and generally work backwards from there.

Topicality is generally a question of limits/ground as an internal link to fairness and education.

The further you get from a clear in-round abuse story on theory, the less likely I am to vote on theory. This is especially true in LD.

Congress:

Actively participate and use good evidence to engage in the most clash that you possibly can. Where in the cycle you speak does not matter to me nearly as much as whether you advanced debate on the item on the floor - though, in my experience, most competitors in Congress are best at giving speeches that are earlier rather than later, because most competitors seem more uncomfortable or less skilled engaging in direct refutation during the round and grouping arguments later on in the debate. The PO will start as my 5 and go up or down depending on how effectively they facilitate debate and how good or bad debaters in the chamber are. Competitors that ask more questions tend to be more engaged in the debate, and therefore are more likely to rank well (though pure quantity of questions asked does not matter to me). Compared to other judges, prioritize content over delivery, though both matter.

Speech/Interp:

You do you. If you've put in a lot of work to get your piece ready for competition, you'll probably do well in front of me. I tend to look more at technical execution and how well-practiced you are rather than big picture things like how your piece made me feel. I come from a debate background, which means I'm less concerned in finding your truth, telling your story, or authenticity than I am excellent technical execution, especially compared to people who more regularly judge (and are more qualified to judge) these events or an average parent.

Extemp:

Everything above, but you really do need to answer the question that is written. You aren't giving a speech about the idea of the question, or the topic area of the question: you need to answer the question. I probably want you to give me more context around the question in the introduction compared to other judges, and each body point should link back to your thesis statement. Compared to other judges, prioritize content over delivery, though both matter.

Other/Misc:

I am Co-Director of Public Forum Boot Camp (PFBC) in Minnesota with Christian Vasquez, Assistant Director at the Blake School. If you do high school PF and you want to come to PFBC, let me know. Last year, we were able to offer ~$50,000 in financial assistance to make sure that everyone that wanted to attend PFBC could.

I have lots of other thoughts on speech and debate that you can read here if you would like - it encompasses some past paradigms, etc.

I strongly believe that every debater and coach is partially a product of their environment. If you're at the bottom of this paradigm, please make sure that you take some time to express gratitude to anybody who has shaped your career.

General:

pronouns: he/him

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

Former Edina High School (MN) policy debater (1991-1995) and captain (1994-1995). Former Wayzata High School (MN) policy coach (2019-2022).
Policy debate judge (1995-present) with ample LD and PF judging experience.

(most of this is tailored to policy, there are specific PF/LD comments below)

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 while simultaneously hearing you already make new, run-on sentences to bank for subsequent paraphrasing. 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.

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.

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 & competent 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.