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Farmington Invitational

2023 — Farmington, MN/US

Lincoln Douglas Paradigm List

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Alida Adams Robbinsdale Armstrong High School None

Tahir Ahsan Eagan High School

Last changed on Sat October 5, 2024 at 3:35 AM CDT

tahir.ahsan0@gmail.com

Debate Bio

LD debater in MN (2012-2016)

Irregular LD Judge (2018-present)

Comfort with non-stock material

If you've sought out my paradigm, this is probably the relevant material for you. As a general note, it's been 5 years since I last encountered the following with any regularity.

Theory: I'll accept it in relevant applications. Unless there is an extreme case, I default to drop the argument when accepting the theory shell.

Kritiks: I'm not entirely opposed to kritiks, but if they are lacking a strong connection to the opposing case and/or come across as something being read regardless of what your opponent brings to the round, they won't mean much to me.

With both theory shells and kritiks, I do not look favorably to instances where these are used merely to create timesinks in the opponent's next speech.

Preferences

Don't misgender your opponent when their pronouns have been provided (seriously, this happens about once a tournament and the most common reason I decrease speaker points). Better yet, just refer to them as "the Aff" or "the Neg."

I am fine with most speed. Please do keep in mind that remote debating conditions may change this. Slow down for tags, sources/authors, and key elements. Arguments that rely on your opponent missing them are not good arguments.

Always roadmap before your speech. I will ask for one before rebuttal starts if it isn't provided. It doesn't have to be a "quick roadmap" either as long as you aren't making arguments during it. The more specific you are the better; it's fine to deviate from the roadmap due to time constraints during the actual speech. Note that you should still be signposting your arguments in the speech.

Flex prep is allowed.

Unless the difference between the values is significant, don't spend time on them. I've spent too many hours hearing meaningless value debates.

Unless the standard/criterion has been conceded (or very one-sided), you'll be much more likely to get my ballot by connecting your impacts into both frameworks.

I won't make your extensions for you. Refuting your opponents argument does not constitute an extension. They are separate. A good extension will be able to inform a late audience member on a round's key argument and it's importance in framework(s) while staying concise.

Weigh the arguments. You should be telling me why your impacts should win you the round even if I didn't buy your rebuttals against the opposing impacts.

Speaker Points

I average 28 on the 30 point scale. Speaks will be lowered as a result of any condescension, bigotry, or over aggressiveness.

Talha Ahsan Eagan High School

Last changed on Mon September 30, 2024 at 1:32 PM CDT

Updated September 2024: Realistically I'm exclusively judging locally and mostly novice debate, so 95% of this isn't useful for you.

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Novice Coach Lincoln Douglas at Eagan High School (2015ish - 2019, 2023-Present)

Lincoln Douglas Debater and Extemporaneous Speaker at Eagan High School(2010 - 2014)

Please signpost. Please. For the love of all that is good, Signpost!

Disclosure: I don't like disclosure theory. I don't like disclosure. If you're in a round with me as a judge, I'm not going to be particularly receptive to arguments about required disclosure.

Theory / Topicality: Not my favorite but I'm willing to hear it. Please understand that I default very strongly towards drop the argument and reasonability. This means if your opponent is being abusive call them out on it, and I'll drop the argument. If you are not running theory in a fully developed nice little shell, I will make the following assumptions for you: education and fairness are voters but whichever one matters more is left ambiguous, that the argument should be dropped whenever possible, and that I should evaluate the argument purely on the role it plays in this round, instead of some broader argument about which positions I would rather see take hold in the current "debate-meta".

Kritiks: I like critical arguments. I did not enjoy how they were being run when I was judging circuit in 2015-2018. I think if you want to run a full critical position it needs to do a few things:

A: It needs to be fully developed. If your "k" is a 2 minute long blitz of arguments with very broad and poorly formed links (both to the Aff/Neg and internally) then I'm going to not care for it. If you're willing to show that you did the reading required for a critical position, and that you're willing to engage in a debate with strong clear links between arguments in a way that flows logically and is well developed then I'll be a happy potato. The rule of thumb for me is the following: if you're spending less than 4 minutes on the K / off-case / whatever you want to call it then you're probably under-covering it. If you're running multiple critical arguments, I'm not going to be happy. That anger will be taken out on your speaks, and potentially will cause you to lose the round.

B: It needs to be clearly laid out logically, I want to see a proper framework, (I lean in favor of cases that don't utilize "Roll of the ballot" arguments but that's purely a framing issue) which in part tells me what arguments I should evaluate, how to evaluate them, why I care, etc etc etc. We're back to novice fundamentals, if you can't explain to me why I should care in a clean and concise manner, I don't see a reason to care.

Speed: I coach novices. I primarily interact with parent judges when it comes to reading ballots. I am somewhat mildly comfortable evaluating arguments relating to dense Marxist positions and to a lesser extent things like Meta-ethics / epistemology. I am not comfortable evaluating those arguments when they're being blitzed out faster than slugs from a railgun. To get an idea of how "out of the circuit" I am, I haven't judged a circuit tournament in a few years, and I plan to keep it like that for the foreseeable future. Slow down for tags, key framework elements like values / standards, and author names. if I don't flow them, I don't evaluate them.

I will say slow twice. Then if you're still too fast, I simply will stop typing. I will yell clear twice. I normally give you five seconds of "grace" to fix yourself before alerting you. Don't presume I caught everything you were saying during the few seconds before and after yelling slow / clear.

Extensions: They need a claim, warrant, and impact. You need to articulate all three very clearly. If someone walks in to the 1AR/2NR and listens to your extensions they should be able to construct a decent synopsis of the case itself. If you don't put in the time and effort to extend things, I won't put in the time and effort required to extend things on my flow. If points are dropped, you can be brief with extending them but I need the claim and impact very explicitly stated still. "My opponent dropped Contention 1 subpoint D subheading iii line 13 so extend it across the flow" Isn't an extension that I'll flow.

Speaker points: I generally evaluate speaker points on things like clarity, argument structure and development, extensions (please for the love of all that is good extend properly), and overall how you carry yourself in the round. If you are openly rude to your opponent or to me, don't plan on getting high speaks. I generally have my speaks average around 27, and I mean that. This isn't "average is 27 but most people get a 28.5", but rather "I will average 27 speaks. Roughly half get more, roughly have get less" so don't be surprised if after a particularly rough round if you leave with a 25 because you didn't care to extend properly. A general description of points and what they mean can be found below. I will modify points due to three things: first, I will deduct speaks if you come up and shake my hand like if I'm a competitor after the round (That was a rule before COVID, it's still a rule now). Second, if you're rude, condescending, overly aggressive, racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, etc If you don't make this round a healthy environment to compete in, I will tank your speaks to the bottom of the Marianna trench. Third, I'll give speaker points to people who provide clean roadmaps. Signposting is a lost art in debate. Bring it back.

25: Rough round, you made several mistakes, each of which is a good reason to not vote for you. This is a good rebuttal redo round.

26: One or two major mistakes, maybe some misarticulating of offense but not near the point where it's a severe issue. You should probably reread your evidence, work on extensions, and work on clarity.

27: average. Some mistakes, some good ideas. Clarity is fine. You showed up.

28: refreshing. I'm optimistic that you'll get a speaker award at least. Clarity is solid, speed is perfectly paced. Extensions were good. Arguments were well crafted. Good job.

29: Very confident. I'm happy with almost everything. Maybe minor nitpicking.

30: Like a 29 but even rarer. Very little really differentiates values in the 29-30 range, it's more about how clean things went in round.

Joseph Annareddy Edina High School None

Janeen Carroll Blaine

Colleen Daman Edina High School None

Christine Davis St. Croix Prep

Benjamin Dickey Moorhead High School

Debbie Fenlason Duluth East High School

Katrina Ferguson Wayzata

Emma Finkenaur Robbinsdale Armstrong High School None

Dennis Geertsema Lakeville

Cody Goodchild Wayzata

Last changed on Sat January 6, 2024 at 3:32 AM CDT

Speed:

I have no problem with speed, as long as clarity doesn't suffer. Read as fast as you want - but if you start slurring words or losing me on arguments, it will be reflected on my ballot. This applies to email chain rounds as well.

Do's:

-I very much value proper argumentation. I need to hear why your information matters, a clear link to the topic and your framework, and why I should value your framework above your opponent's.

-I want you to use your evidence well - don't just drop cards on the flow to drop cards on the flow. I couldn't care less how many cards you use if you don't tell me why they matter.

-I want to see crystallization. A good LD round should get clearer as it proceeds, not more complicated.

-I like philosophical arguments - good philosophy and a well-constructed framework make for an engaging LD round.

-It's really helpful if you make sure to properly extend arguments.

-Be polite on Cx.

-Go ahead and run weird stuff! I honestly love novel or even strange arguments as long as they're made topical. Please don't interpret this to mean you can run nuclear war and extinction on absolutely anything - I need a better link than, for example, implementing the Aff will lead to a bad economy, leading to nuclear war through political instability or whatever.

Don'ts:

-K's. I'm not interested in your K - I want to see a solid debate.

-Don't call things turns if they aren't turns. A response to your opponent's argument is not a turn. If you do find a turn, point it out and by all means proceed to use it to your full ability. Explain to me why it's a turn, and I'll be happy to flow it as such. But don't just call something a turn if it's not a turn.

-No flex prep.

-Don't call something abusive unless it's really abusive. It's just a waste of time and doesn't reflect well on anyone.

-Don't email me your case and expect I'll go back and flow something you read too fast for me to understand. If you feel an email chain is warranted, I won't stop you, but recognize that I'm here to judge a debate, not grade essays with conflicting viewpoints. Speeches and speeches only are what go on my flow.

Meagan Guptill Duluth East High School None

Charlie Huang Rosemount Sr High School

Last changed on Fri October 11, 2024 at 5:12 AM CDT

Background and Contact Information

I debated policy for Rosemount High School from 2016 to 2020 and have been judging since 2020. My undergraduate studies were in economics and political science. For Lincoln-Douglas or Congressional debate, see respective sections at the bottom; all other sections (excluding this section and "Important Points for In-Person Tournaments") apply only to policy debate.

Please include huangdebate@gmail.com on the email chain.

For any questions, speech document requests, or other communications, please email huang.charles.j@gmail.com. I am also happy to answer pre-round questions in the room. This is your chance to clarify my views, so please ask if there's any uncertainty (or if you just didn't get to carefully read my admittedly rather long paradigm).

Debate should be an inclusive, accessible, meaningful, educational, and enjoyable activity for all. I encourage you to do your part to make that possible. If there's anything I can do to help make that happen, either before or during the round, please let me know.

Judging Approach

I am a predominantly technical judge: I seek to decide the round based on the arguments presented and extended through the final rebuttals and the technical execution thereof. I try not to let personal predispositions, especially those concerning argument types, interfere with my decisions. Technical execution of argumentation matters generally matters more than "truth," though I do value logical soundness and high-quality evidence.

When deciding rounds, I identify what the key questions on the macro level are and then attempt to resolve them by looking to key controversies on the micro level. I look heavily to what's said in the final rebuttals, including to frame the key questions and to determine which side prevails on the key controversies. At every step, I try to exercise restraint when possible, but poor argumentation, poor execution, and/or illogical arguments make it harder for me to do so. To prevent me from having to decide a round based on my own contrived analysis, you should provide judge instruction in your last rebuttal and engage in clash with your opponents on the warrant level. I will turn to default assumptions only if there is not even a hint of in-round controversy over it. The barrier for overcoming default assumptions is claiming otherwise and beating any relevant contestation, which is a lower bar than having to convince or persuade me otherwise.

Positions and Strategies

– I am just as happy to evaluate a kritikal/planless affirmative as a policy affirmative. I won't automatically vote on framework, don’t hold kritikal/planless affirmatives to an abnormally high standard, and don’t necessarily think they’re inherently cheating. I enjoy judging both K v. K and K v. Framework rounds. Whether fairness is an impact, whether debate is a game, etc. comes down to which side wins that part of the debate. My voting record in rounds with kritikal affirmatives is pretty even.

– I enjoy judging policy v. policy, "clash of civilizations," and K v. K rounds about the same. I also enjoy judging rounds that come down to theory more than most judges probably do.

– If what I ran as a debater is important for you to know:

– On the affirmative, I ran “big-stick” and “soft-left” affirmatives with plans and frequently made theory the 2AR.
– On the negative, I went for kritiks, topicality/framework, and counterplans/disadvantages each about a third of the time.

– I am probably more willing to vote on topicality (against affirmatives with plans), theory, procedurals, and plan flaws than most judges. I often think teams forgo an easy ballot in their favor by not extending theory into their last rebuttal.

– If the other team straight-up drops any topicality or theory argument that you have previously indicated is a voting issue, simply saying "they dropped X; that's a voter," is usually sufficient to warrant a quick and easy ballot in your favor.
– If the other team has woefully undercovered or misanswered a topicality or theory argument, you probably don't need to spend much time here either and expect to win. Even though it's often advisable to spend either zero or five minutes of your final rebuttal on topicality or theory, if you are contemplating going for such arguments in your last rebuttal but are worried I won’t buy your topicality or theory, consider spending enough time on it to potentially win if I agree with your assessment that it's been undercovered or misanswered (probably about 30–60 seconds) while still leaving time to cover substantive positions.
– How well you justify your interpretation—not what I agree with or think is sensible—matters: I am just as happy to vote for zero conditional advocacies as I am to vote for 10 conditional advocacies.
– It’s pretty hard for me to flow when you speed through your blocks. This is true for both blippy points and super long paragraphs. It’s also hard to evaluate a bunch of blippy standards from both sides without comparative analysis. You will benefit from reading blocks slower, not just rereading your standards as extensions, doing line by line, analyzing the specific round, and impacting out your points.
– Some default assumptions I make if uncontested: (1) jurisdiction is a sufficient reason to vote on topicality; (2) topicality debates can be about which team defends a more “true” interpretation of the resolution and need not center around which interpretation makes for a “better” topic; (3) reasonability is about the reasonability of an interpretation, not the reasonability of the plan/purported abuse; (4) I focus on what interpretations justify over any claims of in-round abuse; (5) I will default to judge-kick losing counterplans; (6) almost all theory violations can be reasons to reject the team.

– I appreciate a risky, unconventional, or tricky strategy. I think such an approach is often your best bet when you’re quite behind on the flow toward the end of the debate.

– Positions and actions that disrupt the very fabric of argumentative and personal decency clearly cannot be accepted. This includes variants of "trigger warnings bad." Expect to lose if you say insensitive things or engage in insensitive conduct that has the potential to make others in the room feel uncomfortable or unsafe.

– I understand Congress, legislative procedure, and Congressional politics better than most. I don't really think this should affect your inclination to run (or not run) a Congress-related position in front of me, but I'll let you make what you will of this.

Substantive Things You Should Do

– Providing judge instruction on how to decide the round is perhaps the easiest way to increase your chances of winning in front of me. Such judge instruction should be cohesive of all operative flows in the final rebuttals. I generally suggest including this in an overview in your final rebuttal.

– Comparatively analyzing warrants is the next-best way to increase your chances of winning. In reasonably close debates, my RFDs almost always eventually come down to which team better analyzed and explained their warrants on a key controversy that a key question hinges on.

– When reading kritikal arguments, you should explain your thesis and theory clearly. You should give me a clear understanding of your position for me to vote for it (otherwise I may think you simply haven't fulfilled the burden of proof), and you should not assume I have extensive knowledge of your theory or literature beyond or even from exposure from debate. I think debaters are expecting judges to fill in too many argumentative gaps, and I decline to do so. You should be sure to impact out important substantive controversies on the flow that you think get you a lot of mileage.

– Explaining the theory of the case is important for non-kritikal arguments too. Though the basic argument of a counterplan, disadvantage, or advantage is often more straightforward, failing to explain fundamentally how something works in plain terms lowers the bar for the other side's rejoinder and makes me hesitant to vote for it. I should understand your position(s), and the necessary depth of explanation varies directly with the complexity (and to some extent, my prior unfamiliarity) of the position(s).

– Focusing on and developing a few key points on each flow by the end of the round will almost always help you. Impacting out your key points is especially important in the final rebuttals, which are the main starting points for my decision.

Stylistic In-Round Things You Should Do

– You should slow down a fair bit when when making analytics, reading or extending theory, and explaining dense kritikal theory. More broadly, if you're not reading the text of a card, I would advise against reading/speaking at top speed. I am unlikely to get as good a flow as you desire if your late constructives or rebuttals are almost exclusively read at top speed. I generally do not call “clear” or “slow” if I feel I am getting an inadequate flow of your speech, so you should watch me to make sure I’m following.

– You should send pre-written analytics, especially if you intend to speed through them. I don't have a perfect flow, so if you omit pre-written analytics from the speech document hoping the other team will miss some on their flow, chances are I will also miss some on my flow.

– On each flow, try to do line by line or organize by part (e.g. framework debate, link debate, impact debate, perm debate), especially if the other team has poorly organized their work on that flow.

– The later we are in the debate and the deeper we are on a key controversy, the more useful it will be for you to label your line-by-line responses with subpoints. A list of subpoints is far more flowable than a paragraph.

– Don't ask for marked copies unless you actually think you're going to use it somehow toward your strategy or invoke it in your speeches. You’re certainly entitled to ask for marked copies regardless though. Marked copies need not omit cards not read.

– When referring to me in a speech, you can just say "you" (e.g. “you should vote negative on presumption”). If you are talking to me outside of a speech, feel free to call me Charlie or Charles. There is never a reason to call me "judge" in the second person.

– Avoid unnecessary abbreviations, especially when it forms a nonsense word (like "squo" or an attempt at pronouncing "xap" in referring to cross-applications).

General Things You Should Do

– Be nice, respectful, and friendly to everyone; avoid being unnecessarily aggressive.

– Have fun; perhaps even be funny or throw in a joke or two.

– Start on time and minimize non-prep, non-speech time.

– Please do not label off-case in the document without a name (e.g. "1-OFF, 2-OFF, ..." or "OFF, OFF, ..." or "1, 2, ..." or "DA, CP, K, T")—doing so will result in lowered speaker points. Instead, you should give and use names for your positions (e.g. "Elections DA, States CP, Neoliberalism K, T-fiscal redistribution"). Expect bonus speaker points for exceptionally well-named off-case positions.

– Tag-team cross-examination is fine unless you physically tag your partner.

– Please time yourselves. I don’t flow anything said after time expires. I will not keep time unless required to by tournament rules.

Rare Things That Impress Me When Done Well

– Giving your final rebuttals off your flow, without reading off your laptop

– Ending a final rebuttal super early when you have enough to win

– Demonstrating strong familiarity with your and your opponents' evidence

– Explaining complex kritikal theory or counterplan mechanisms well such that a lay person could understand

– On theory and topicality: clashing on the warrants, contextualizing arguments to the round, improvising your arguments, and not relying on blocks

– Using common sense to help beat blatantly untrue arguments

– Demonstrating a deep (and correct) understanding of the legislative process in Congress

– Using math to support arguments

Evidence and Extensions

– My decisions tend to focus on what is said in the final rebuttals, which means evidence quality usually doesn’t factor in too much. That said, I value evidence quality. If you want evidence quality to be an issue, make it an issue in your rebuttals, and I’ll evaluate it as applicable.

– Evidence quality, first and foremost, is a matter of whether the evidence supports the claim you’re making. Far too much evidence fails on this front. Evidence often does not come close to supporting what debaters try to use their evidence for in the context of a round, but often the other team fails to use that to their advantage. I think indicting evidence simply based on the fact that it doesn’t say what debaters want it to say is a vastly underutilized tool.

– Reading multiple cards that say the same thing almost always seems to be an inefficient use of your time. Extending evidence and comparing warrants is more beneficial. I only flow tags when you read evidence, which means the warrants don’t get on my flow unless/until you put it on my flow in later speeches.

– I almost never read evidence after the round unless there is closely contested controversy in the final rebuttals over what a piece of evidence means. If you want me to read evidence, instruct me to in your final rebuttal and impact out your understanding of the evidence.

– I think good analytics can overcome subpar evidence and logical unsoundness. Having not actively coached or debated for a few years, I think common sense (e.g. sense of scale, discrete versus continuous, contextualizating and inferencing from evidence) and basic knowledge (e.g. about government, economics, world affairs) is often an underutilized tool to beat absurd positions concocted by low-quality evidence.

– Extensions of evidence generally should include at least include the claim and the warrants. If there's contestation on a point, evidence comparison, especially on the warrant level, can be useful. The less work the other team does to answer something, the less work you need to do extending it; for example, if the other team doesn’t answer a flow, you don’t need to extend every card. Overviews can be useful, but you should probably still extend key parts (especially on kritiks). I do not generally give any weight to tagline and shadow extensions.

– Re-highlightings of evidence should be read in a speech—they can't just be "inserted." You don’t have to read or describe in detail a graph, data table, or image you’re inserting, but I think it’s usually helpful to mention what the takeaway should be.

Watching Me

I generally do not call “clear” or “slow” if I feel I am getting an inadequate flow of your speech, so you or your partner should watch me to make sure I’m following.

Aside from that, it may be beneficial to note my physical expressions, but you probably should not let them dictate your strategy. Here are generally what my physical expressions indicate, but I can’t promise one of these might not signify something else:

– If you see that I am not flowing, that may mean you're being redundant and/or not adding anything new onto my flow.

– If you see my hands out, palms up, giving a confused, shrugging gesture, that may mean I'm struggling to flow your speech.

– If you see me nodding my head, it usually means I understand the point you're making, think you're making a responsive point, think you’re making a true argument, or agree with your commentary (e.g. they dropped a particular card). It doesn’t necessarily mean you should go for that argument or focus the round on it.

– If you see me shaking my head, it usually means I think your point is illogical, irrelevant, or otherwise non-responsive, that I disagree with your commentary, or that I think the argument you're making is weak (but again, I'll focus my evaluation on what's said in the debate, not how truthful I think your arguments are). If this is happening while I’m not flowing, it likely means I’m not following your speech.

– If you see me squinting, perhaps with a tilt or angling of the head, it probably means I'm confused by what you're saying or why you're saying it.

– If you see me laughing (and you didn't make a joke), I'm probably laughing at an absurdity in the other team's argument that you're pointing out.

Post-Round Feedback

After giving my reason for decision, I usually don't orally deliver much, if any, unprompted team-specific feedback. I type all my feedback into the online ballot, so I think it's more useful to give you more time to ask questions that are on your mind, and I am eager to take the time to answer and discuss. I'm also happy to email you your team-specific feedback before the end of the tournament—just let me know if so.

Important Points for In-Person Tournaments

Especially if you are sick with COVID-19 symptoms or have recent known or suspected exposure to SARS-CoV-2, please wear a mask.

Please do not make reference to any of my laptop stickers if I have any.

Lincoln–Douglas

I have some experience debating and judging Lincoln–Douglas, but less than I have in policy. Ultimately, I want you to feel comfortable debating the way you are used to and the way you want to. I will do my best to fairly adjudicate the round that is debated in front of me, so I hope you do not feel a need to over-adapt to my policy background. I think I'll be able to follow along just fine.

My overarching judging philosophy for Lincoln–Douglas is similar to that for policy: evaluate the claims presented to me based on the quality of argumentation and technical execution, seeking to limit how any potential personal predispositions on what the debate should look like or what arguments align with my personal views affect the round. The "key questions on the macro level" will probably relate to theory or framework in most rounds. Unless instructed otherwise (and with compelling reason), I will considering pre-fiat/procedural arguments (theory, topicality) before post-fiat/substantive arguments. As for framework, I don't think you need to dwell on it too much if that of both sides is similar. I think "even if" statements are particularly useful in the context of explaining why you win the round even if you lose the framework. Impact calculus is helpful to avoid an RFD that surprisingly concludes one debater wins under the other debater's framework.

A lot of what I have above for policy applies to Lincoln–Douglas too, especially the importance of explanation and comparative analysis of warrants; dropped arguments are true; I am more willing than most to vote on dropped voting issues; I focus heavily on the final rebuttals (crystallization is good), especially judge instruction (i.e. voters/voting issues); how well you argue your theory interpretation matters more than how much I agree with your theory interpretation; and everything in the "How to Win the Round" section.

That said, I realize Lincoln–Douglas is different from policy. I will try to be sensitive to the norms of Lincoln–Douglas debate, but I am likely more open than most judges to features of "circuit debate" such as kritiks, disadvantages, and counterplans. I do not have the expectation that affirmatives will have plans but am certainly open to plan-based affirmatives. I suspect I may be more amenable to "tricks" since I do not yet have a good sense of what a trick is and may see what you know to be a trick as a clever argument. If an argument gets on my flow, it should get on your flow; if it's on your flow, you should answer it.

After reading the paradigms of many other LD judges, here are some other things I didn't think I needed to include but might be useful for you to know:

– You should provide orders before your speeches and signpost throughout your speeches.

– I focus on the flow and less so on delivery. That said, your speaking needs to be clear and audible. Persuasive delivery can marginally benefit your speaker points.

– Speed is certainly fine, but attempting to rely on a drastic disparity among your and the other debater's speed is frowned upon and unlikely to win you the round. I am just as happy to judge a round with both debaters spreading as one with both debaters speaking at a conversational speed.

– I do not care on which side you sit or whether you sit or stand.

– Just take however much prep time you need and report how much time is remaining after you're done. Unless you don't have a timing device, don't expect me to tell you when you've used a certain amount of time for prep.

– You are welcome to ask questions to the other debater during your prep time. You can take prep time to let the other debater finish responding to a question. You can also take prep time to finish responding to a question asked to you. Cross-examination cannot be substituted for additional prep time.

– I am less familiar with the norms around disclosure in Lincoln–Douglas, so I may be more of a wild card on disclosure theory debates. For either side in a disclosure theory debate, you're going to have to be super explicit about vague concepts like pre-tournament preparation or research burdens and contextualize it to how you practically prepare for tournaments and rounds. Otherwise, my RFD is probably going to sound more arbitrary and contrived than you would like it to be.

– I am thus far unconvinced of the usefulness of underviews, but I will certainly still flow and evaluate underviews like anything else in a speech.

– For theory or topicality, I understand a complete argument to include an interpretation, a violation, standards, and independent voting issue claim (or "reason to reject the argument" point). As generous as I am with theory, I will be far less inclined to vote on what I see as an incomplete theory argument.

– I understand reasonability to be about whether an interpretation is reasonable, not whether the purported violation is reasonable. Feel free to define your reasonability arguments like the latter.

– Here are some terms I found in other judges' paradigms specific to Lincoln–Douglas that I do not know the contextual meaning of well (even after googling them): tricks, LARP, phil, normsetting/norming, permissibility, spike, high theory, frivolous theory (what's the bright line?). If you use terms like these in a speech, please clarify what you understand them to mean. I don't think this means I can't competently judge a round involving any of these, just that I don't know the meaning of the terms themselves.

– Please do not attempt to shake my hand.

– As long as doing so will not delay the tournament, I will disclose my decision, explain my RFD, and answer any questions you may have for me. I will not disclose speaker points before the tournament releases final results.

– If both debaters want to be humored by me, I would be interested in having a round in which we call the sides "Lincoln" and "Douglas" instead of "affirmative" and "negative."

– If you have additional questions on how I approach judging Lincoln–Douglas (and how it may differ from how I approach judging policy), I am more than happy to answer them before your round.

Congress

You may want to be aware that I work in the U.S. Congress and my debate background is almost exclusively in policy. These two things come together to influence how I think about Congress as a debate event, but not necessarily in an obvious way. An oversimplification of what I "want" to see is (1) everyone (especially presiding officers) emulating Congressional procedure and decorum to a practicable extent that doesn't disrupt the substantive nature of the event and (2) non–presiding officers engaging in argumentation that is in-depth and responsive to arguments made previously.

Before I go any further, I also recognize that I have many uncommon, if not straight-up unpopular, opinions. As a member of a panel judging your round, I completely understand that there may be legitimate reasons to not overadapt to the outlier preferences of one judge. That said, I think at least some suggestions I offer below are unlikely to alienate other judges but are very likely to substantially boost my view of your performance.

Proecudure, Practice, and Decorum

I'm not seeking to completely undermine the activity that you all work hard to prepare for and compete in. But I think the chamber should operate more like Congress with respect to procedure, practice, and decorum when doing so is simple, does not disrupt the substantive nature of the event, and does not adversely alter the fundamental educational and competitive nature of the activity.

I specifically suggest that:

– The presiding officer

ahead of votes, clearly state what the question is (e.g. "the question is on the motion" or "the question is on passage of the bill")

announce votes by saying "on this vote, the yeas are x, the nays are y, the bill is (not) passed" or "...the motion is (not) agreed to"

A bill does not fail, and I think that is especially so if the motion to reconsider is not made and laid upon the table.

in announcing the end of a timed period, use the word "expired" instead of "concluded" or "elapsed" (e.g. "the questioning time has expired")

recognize questioners by title and name (e.g. "Senator [name]," not just "[name]")

do not "assume unanimous consent"—I don't know where this comes from and is just wrong

– Non–presiding officers

make the motion for the previous question by saying "I move the previous question" or "I move to order the previous question," NOT "I move to the previous question"

"Move" in this context means making a motion, not a change in position or state, so it should not be followed by "to" as a preposition. It would be more complete to say "I move to order the previous question," but it is common and accepted practice to omit "to order." But omitting only "order" doesn't make sense since it splits the infinitive in a way that misleadingly changes the apparent definition of "move" and completely changes the word that "to" relates to from "order" to "the previous question." Similarly, it would be incorrect for a presiding officer to say "we will now move to the previous question." I suggest the presiding officer respond to the motion as follows: "Is there a second? ... There is. The question is on the motion," then do the vote on the motion.

avoid language that doesn't make sense in a congressional context such as "I urge you to pass/negate"; rather, "I urge my colleagues to votes yes/no" is preferable

refer to legislators in the third person/by name, not "you"

Concision

I think there are a lot of superfluous words spoken out of adherence to custom without any substantive or procedural purpose. I suggest you all refrain from saying needless words, including things like:

– "I thank the Chair"

– "the Chair thanks you"

– announcements of speech time

– "seeing as that was a speech in the affirmative"

– "we are now open to 4 blocks of questioning"

– "we are now in line for a speech in the opposition"

– "legislative session" (there's no executive session, so "legislative" is unnecessary)

– "congratulations to the author" and whatever the corresponding phrase would be if the bill does not pass

Generally, if the round can go on without you saying it, don't say it. At the varsity level, I think presiding officers should be able to assume that everyone in the round knows the format of the round and need not explain what is happening at every stage of the round.

If the presiding officer insists on thanking speakers, the presiding officer should probably be saying "the Chair thanks Senator [name]."

If speakers insist on thanking the chair, that should probably come at the very top of your speech, e.g. "Thank you Mr./Madam President. This bill ..."

Other procedural thoughts

I think if the tournament rules, the NSDA High School Unified Manual, and the NSDA Congressional Debate Guide, are silent on a matter (of which there are many), I think the chamber should turn to seeking to emulate the procedures of the respective chamber in the U.S. Congress (either the Senate or the House of Representatives, depending on which chamber we're sitting as) to a practicable extent.

For example, I think if we're sitting as the Senate, I think senators can and should speed things up (even if slightly so) by asking for unanimous consent. This may likely be the case on motions for the previous question, motions to recess, and the motion to adjourn.

I think the usefullness of less common motions—such as motions to rescind, reconsider, suspend the rules, and others—is more frequent than the customary usage suggests. I would be impressed by someone making such a motion correctly and productively.

Evaluating the presiding officer

In evaluating the presiding officer, I value fairness in recognition, procedural accuracy and clarity, fluidity, concision, and impartiality. Note that this is distinct from "fast, fair, and efficient."

Fairness is the probably the most important thing, but I do not have the multitasking ability to carefully follow precedence/recency and simultaneously fulfill my other judging obligations. If I notice the presiding officer screwing up recognition, the mistake(s) would likely have to be egregious.

Absent glaring fairness issues, procedural accuracy is what I care about the most. This relates to proper execution of parliamentary procedure. For example, I've seen presiding officers make unilateral decisions that I don't think they have the power to do or skip over votes just because everyone appeared to second a motion. These and other common practices are egregious mistakes in my view and may be penalized harshly. Presiding officers should not make up procedure for convenience or alignment with incorrect common practice and should pay close attention to making sure motions are properly made and decided on. Procedural clarity refers to making clear what the presiding officer is doing procedurally, such as making clear what a vote is on,

I value fluidity but not necessarily speed. I think taking a bit of time to let evreryone process what's happening in the chamber is useful. Slowing down recognition during questioning also would be appreciated. Honestly, the more you seem like an (acting) President pro tempore or Speaker (pro tempore)—or at least one whom knows what they're doing—the more highly I will view your performance.

Concision: see above.

I think the presiding officer's role is to facilitate debate, not to push debate forward. Turning to congressional practice, if nobody seeks recognition, I think the presiding officer can and should just sit silently. Nobody wanting to speak is a problem for the legislators for whom making speeches and motions is how they get judged, not for the presiding officer. I think the presiding officer's tone and non-verbal body language should be fairly unchanging.

That said, I think the presiding officer should make appropriate reminders to the chamber as necessary.

I won't penalize presiding officers for ignoring my thoughts here, but I find a lot of presiding officer practices to be too aggressive. I honestly don't really understand why a loud a commanding voice seems to be the norm for presiding officers. The NSDA guide, for example, suggests a "calm, controlled and caring voice." I concur. While in the House, Speakers pro tempore tend to be louder, that's in the context of having 435 members in a large, loud, and rowdy chamber. In the Senate, with only 100 senators and a smaller chamber, the President pro tempore usually speaks rather softly. Though we may not have the luxury of microphones, there are other differences too that I think suggest a calmer tone is appropriate: we have far fewer legislators, we are in a far smaller room, and there is an expectation of silence among those not recognized.

Similarly, I think customary gaveling is often way louder and more frequent than it needs to be, sometimes to the point of it being distracting. But if you are confident that it's important for the speaker, I won't penalize you for loud and frequent gaveling (within reason). I would also be perfectly content if you didn't use the handle to point at people.

If I rank a presiding officer first, they likely would have executed the basic functions of the presiding officer with fluidity, eliminated unnecessary phrases customarily used, and followed at least some of my suggestions in the Procedure, Practice, and Decorum subsection above. Unless all the other contestants were really bad, I am unlikely to rank a presiding officer highly if they do not at least try to adapt a few things for me that other judges are unlikely to care about.

Do not ask me to rank you. Doing so may be grounds for me to assign you the lowest rank possible. I know how to nominally do my job and thingsa ballot on Tabroom.

Substantive things for non–presiding officers

I view the event of Congressional debate as more of a debate event and less of an exercise in emulating politicians, whether in substance or style. That said, nailing down things like procedure and the language of legislating are pluses in my book.

In evaluating non–presiding officers, I value smart argumentation (including on-the-spot analysis and synthesis), strong refutation, argumentative leadership, argumentative originality, well-researched angles, and extemporaenous delivery—roughly in that order.

I value depth over breadth, possibly more than most judges do. Three minutes is very short, especially at the speaking speed of this event. I frequently find myself commenting that I think focusing on two key points, if not one key point, would be beneficial. Similarly, it annoys me when key points are discrete and there's no attempt at relating them together to support the broader conclusion.

In policy, every speech after the first is expected to respond to the other side's arguments. Meanwhile, I think it's a missed opportunity that most congressional floor speeches are pre-written with little reference to or refutation of contrary arguments. These two things influence me to expect refutation earlier than most judges do. Even in the first speech in opposition, I would appreciate at least reference to the opposing side's arguments. By the second speech on each side, I'm hoping for refutation. By the third speech and beyond on each side, I expect substantial refutation.

I strongly believe that amendments are vastly underutilized. I think part of being a strong legislator is not just shooting down imperfect ideas but improving bills to make them more likely to pass and more likely to succeed in their efforts. If you submit and offer a strong amendment, defend it well, and integrate that all into your arguments, I would be very impressed and inclined to rank you first. Yes, the presiding officer can rule an amendment is not germane, but anyone can appeal the ruling of the Chair too.

I'll score and rank based on the arguments you make facially and on whether you made the arguments I thought are strongest, but I do think there's a lack of technical attention in this event. I really appreciate more technical, less policy-based, points, such as sloppy drafting of a bill, an inappropriate agency or inappropriate agency action, conflation of authorization and appropriation, likely unconstitutionality, issues with conflicting laws being declared null and void, issues with effective dates, imprecise language (both in definitions and elsewhere), improper drafting style (within the bounds of the structure of Congressional debate bills), and enacting clauses not adherent to 1 U.S. Code § 101–105.

If you put the last two paragraphs together, yes, I am suggesting that I would appreciate a perfecting amendment with respect to the enacting or resolving clause.

Along similar lines, I have a really hard time understanding why some defensive arguments in opposition are reasons to vote no on the bill. I think the fundamental role of speakers in opposition should lead others to the conclusion that they should voting nayon a bill. Some defensive arguments alone are enough to get there, and some are not, so I think you should not lose sight of that.

So long as your arguments prove why legislators should vote yea or nay, I think an offense–defense paradigm is not particularly suited to this event. I think the fact that I, as a judge, am not making a determination as to whether I should vote yea or nay on a bill based on the points argued before me means that you don't necessarily need to "win" an argument from a rather black-and-white perspective. I would rather you make smart, nuanced arguments than overly simplistic arguments that defeat contrary arguments on paper.

Since I don't get to read your evidence, if you're disputing someone else's evidence-based claims of fact with your own, you need to do some additional comparative work, such as giving me information about both of your evidence when possible and telling me why yours is preferable along a certain dimension (e.g. "their evidence is from an industry-funded website with no peer review, whereas my evidence is preferable because it comes from authors with no conflicts of interest writing in a reputable peer-reviewed academic journal").

Much more often than not, I find that time spent on introductions would be better spent on better developing your key points.

Delivery matters to me more in Congress than it would in policy or Lincoln–Douglas debate, but it's nowhere near the most important thing I look for. I think it mainly affects the ethos of your speeches. Delivery is more or less a tie-breaker for me, though there are often a lot of good speakers who are roughly tied in my mind. The most frequent delivery suggestion I make is to vary your elements of delivery, e.g. tone, volume, and pacing.

I would prefer that your speech sound more natural. I don't love it when speeches remind me of the speech event of extemporaneous speaking, though I won't penalize you for this.

Structurally, I don't need you to give a "roadmap" of what your key points are or say when you're moving from one argument to the next. Also, you can better spend your time by making your argument without telling me you're going to make an argument. That all should be clear in such a speech that's only three minutes long and not delivered at a high speed.

If I had a nickel for each time I got confused by someone saying "everything said on the other side flows our way," I'd have two nickels, which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice. I now suspect that "flow [a certain direction]" means something different in Congress than it does in policy. If the bill is to increase Social Security benefits and the opposition speakers talk about how it would quickly bankrupt Social Security, and a supportive speaker says "everything they said flows aff," I would then expect an explanation of why bankrupting Social Security is a reason to support the bill. I assume that's not how you all intend to use the term. I would suggest rewording that slightly to avoid overpromising and inevitably underdelivering in my eyes.

This isn't as important for me as I suspect it may be for other judges, but it would be preferable that you vary which side you're speaking on and when in the round you're speaking as much as possible.

The most sensible interpretation of what a "resolution" is given the NSDA rules is that they are simple resolutions of the Senate or the House as opposed to joint resolutions or concurrent resolutions. This procedural nugget might be of substantive utility on some resolutions.

Most frequent critical comments I give (roughly in order)

– Your argument that the bill doesn't accomplish its goals would be bolstered by submitting and offering an amendment to improve its effectiveness

– This speech would've been better served by developing one main point instead of two

– This speech would've been better served by developing two main points instead of three

– Delivery was strong but would be better with greater variance, e.g. with respect to tone, volume, and/or pace

– You would benefit from a clearer thesis and/or clearer topic sentences

– I didn't understand your argument

– You need to warrant out your claim, especially because it's critical to your argument and it's not obvious why

– You should weigh impacts more

– Your angle, while good, was too unoriginal for how late we are in the round

– For how late we are in the round, you should be doing more refutation

– For how late we are in the round, you should be doing more analysis that frames the whole round

– You spent too much time on developing an argument (often establishing the problem) that the other side is not contesting and is unlikey to

– You erroneously said "I move to the previous question"

– Stop saying superfluous words, especially thanking the Chair or speakers

Miscellaneous notes

I'm sorry, but I struggle to follow the questioning period: there's not enough time in each period, there's not enough transition time between each period, everyone's interrupting each other, and I'm insufficiently tracking who's asking questions. If I have any advice for you, it would be to talk slower, tone it down, and keep it simple.

All else equal, I really don't care if you hold your computer or your paper.

I don't really care about "cycles" or "breaking cycle" (and frankly I do not know what those terms mean). It's not like (1) you all are trying to convince me to vote a certain way on the bill and (2) I can't make such a decision fairly if I heard a few more speeches on one side than the other.

Finally, I encourage you to take the activity seriously but not to take yourself too seriously. I often see humorous moments of levity in the U.S. Senate and House, and I think you all can have some of that too while also being seriously engaged in this activity. Doing an extracurricular activity should be at least somewhat fun, and it's okay to show that.

I recommend you read the Important Points for In-Person Tournaments section above.

Tracy Johnson Osseo Senior High School

Stacy Kabele Chaska High School None

Isaac Kaufman Edina High School None

Emily Klinker Chanhassen High School

Vishruth Kundavaram Eagan High School

Chris McDonald Eagan High School

Last changed on Thu August 15, 2024 at 1:54 PM CDT

Chris McDonald (He/Him) - cmcmcdonald58@gmail.com

Use the above email for any email chains during the round.

Head Coach Eagan High School in Minnesota

While I mainly have coached and judged Policy Debate for the past 37 years I do judge my fair share of LD, Public Forum and Congressional Debate Rounds.

Items for all formats to consider:

Disclosure theory: While I understand why this started out as something good for the community it has unfortunately morphed into an abusive argument and as such I will not consider it in my decision for the round.
Evidence sharing: Have a system for sharing evidence setup before the round begins. This will make this more efficient and your judges happier. If you are asked for a piece of evidence you just read and it takes you more than 10 seconds to find the card, you can use your prep time locating it or the argument will become unsupported by evidence.
Paraphrasing in Debate: I dislike paraphrasing and even though the rules allow it I find that is has become abused by some debaters. I would ask that teams read actual quotes from evidence and not paraphrase. If you do paraphrase your evidence must comport with current NSDA rules concerning how paraphrasing works in line with MLA standards.

Policy Debate - Please know that while I used to judge a lot of rounds throughout the season in policy debate it has been a few years since I judged more than a handful of policy rounds. I do work with my school's novice and varsity policy teams, so I should be fairly up to date on key arguments on the current on topic.

My philosophy has pretty much remained consistent throughout my career. I consider policy debate to be a test of policy based ideas between two teams. How those teams approach the topic and frame the debate is entirely up to them. Below are a few things to know about me on some specifics but please know my primary objective is for us to have an enjoyable round of debate.

Delivery Speed - Since it has been a few years for me since last judging lots of policy debate my ability to listen to really fast debate has faded. Please keep it to a slightly slower speed of delivery especially when using the online platforms. I will let you know if you are unclear or going too fast by verbally indicating such during your speech. On a scale of 1 to 10 with 1 being oratory speed and 10 being approaching the sound barrier (only joking here) I would place myself as a 7 these days.

Topicality - I enjoy a good topicality debate but have found that over the years teams are taking too many shortcuts with the initial development of the topicality violation. I prefer topicality to have a clear definition, a clearly developed violation, standards for evaluating the violation and reasons why it is a voting issue. For the affirmative side you really need to engage with the topicality violation and provide a counter interpretation that supports your interpretation of the resolution. Topicality is distinct from framework.

Framework - I also enjoy evaluating a debate when framework is clearly articulated and argued by both the affirmative and negative sides. Framework is focused around how you would like me to evaluate the arguments in the round. Do you prefer a consequentialist framework, a deontological framework, etc..

Critiques - I am fine with critical approaches by the negative and the affirmative sides. For the affirmative please keep in mind that you will need to defend your critical affirmative as either a topical representation of the resolution or why it is important for us to debate your affirmative even if it isn't necessarily within the boundaries of the topic.

Flow - Please label all arguments and positions clearly throughout the debate. Signposting has become a lost art. Debaters doing an effective job of signposting and labeling will be rewarded with higher speaker points.

Disadvantages - Please be certain to articulate your links clearly and having clear internal links helps a great deal.

Counter plans - I think counter plans are an essential tool for negative teams. Please note that I am not a big fan of multiple conditional counter plans. Running a couple of well developed counter plans is better than running 4 or 5 underdeveloped counter plans. Counter plans should have a text to compete against the affirmative plan text.

Theory - General theory in debate rounds like conditionality are fine but have rarely been round winners without a lot of time devoted to why theory should be considered over substance.

If you have any questions please let me know and I will happily answer those questions.

Lincoln Douglas

1. I am not a fan of theory as it plays out in LD debate rounds. Most of the theory that is argued is pretty meaningless when it comes to the topics at hand. I will only consider topicality if the affirmative is presenting a plan text in the round or isn't debating the resolution we are supposed to be considering at that given tournament. I ask that the debaters debate the topic as it is written and not as they would like it to be.

2. Beyond my dislike for theory you are free to pretty much debate the round as you see fit. Please keep your speed to a level where you are clear.

3. Evidence should be shared using an email chain. Please include me at cmcmcdonald58@gmail.com

4. If you have specific questions please ask. I will disclose at the end of the round but I will also respect the tournaments schedule and work to keep it on time.

Public Forum

1. Evidence is very important to me. I prefer direct quotation of evidence over paraphrasing. Please make note of the NSDA rule regarding paraphrasing. Source Citations: make sure that you present enough of a source citation that I should have no problem locating the evidence you present in the round. This would include the author or periodical name and date at a minimum. So we are clear Harvard '23 is not a source citation. Harvard is a really great University but has, to my knowledge never written a word without the assistance of some human that attends or works at Harvard.

2. There is to be no game playing with regards to evidence sharing during or after the round. If you are asked for evidence by your opponents you must produce it in a timely manner or I will discount the evidence and only treat the argument as an unsubstantiated assertion on your part. Even if it means handing over one of your laptops you must provide evidence for inspection by the other team so that they may evaluate it and respond to the evidence in subsequent speeches.

3. Prep Time - you are only provided with 3 minutes of prep time, unless otherwise stated by the tournament you are attending. Please use it wisely. I will only give a little latitude with regards to untimed evidence sharing or organizing your flows, but please be efficient and quick about it.

4. Argument choices are completely up to the debaters. I prefer a good substantive debate with clear clash and that the debaters compare and weigh the arguments they feel are important for their side to prevail as the debate comes into focus but the substance of those arguments is completely within the control of the teams debating.

5. Please respect your opponents and treat everyone involved in the debate round with the utmost respect. Speaker points will be effected by any rude behavior on the part of a debater.

6. I will disclose and discuss my decision at the end of the round so long as there is time and the tournament stays on schedule.

7. Finally, please remember to have fun and enjoy the experience.

Joel Mullen Chaska High School None

Matthew Mullen Chanhassen High School None

Devin Nelson Spring Lake Park Senior High None

Doug Pewowaruk Rosemount Sr High School None

Kari Rehrauer Blaine None

Barry Rosenthal Edina High School None

Joe Schmitt Edina High School

Dion Song Eden Prairie High School None

Justin Stramer Spring Lake Park Senior High None

Cort Sylvester Rosemount Sr High School

Last changed on Wed January 3, 2024 at 3:51 AM CDT

Head coach, Rosemount, MN. Do both policy & LD, and I don’t approach them very differently.

I’m a chubby, gray-haired, middle-aged white dude, no ink, usually wearing a golf shirt or some kind of heavy metal shirt (Iron Maiden, or more often these days, Unleash the Archers). If that makes you think I’m kind of old-school and lean toward soft-left policy stuff rather than transgressive reimaginations of debate, you ain’t wrong. Also, I’m a (mostly retired now) lawyer, so I understand the background of legal topics and issues better than most debaters and judges. (And I can tell when you don’t, which is most of the time.)

I was a decent college debater in the last half of the 1980s (never a first-round, but cleared at NDT), and I’ve been coaching for over 30 years. So I’m not a lay judge, and I’m mostly down with a “circuit” style—speed doesn’t offend me, I focus on the flow and not on presentation, theory doesn’t automatically seem like cheating, etc. However, by paradigm, I'm an old-school policymaker. The round is a thought experiment about whether the plan is a good idea (or, in LD, whether the resolution is true).

I try to minimize intervention. I'm more likely to default to "theoretical" preferences (how arguments interact to produce a decision) than "substantive" or "ideological" preferences (the merits or “truth” of a position). I don't usually reject arguments as repugnant, but if you run white supremacist positions or crap like that, I might. I'm a lot less politically "lefty" than most circuit types (my real job was defending corporations in court, after all). I distrust conspiracy theories, nonscientific medicine, etc.

I detest the K. I don't understand most philosophy and don't much care to, so most K literature is unintelligible junk to me. (I think Sokal did the world a great service.) I'll listen and process (nonintervention, you know), but I can't guarantee that my understanding of it at the end of the round is going to match yours. I'm especially vulnerable to “no voter” arguments. I’m also predisposed to think that I should vote for an option that actually DOES something to solve a problem. Links are also critical, and “you’re roleplaying as the state” doesn’t seem like a link to me. (It’s a thought experiment, remember.) I’m profoundly uncomfortable with performance debates. I tend not to see how they force a decision. I'll listen, and perhaps be entertained, but need to know why I must vote for it.

T is cool and is usually a limitations issue. I don't require specific in-round abuse--an excessively broad resolution is inherently abusive to negs. K or performance affs are not excused from the burden of being topical. Moreover, why the case is topical probably needs to be explained in traditional debate language--I have a hard time understanding how a dance move or interpretive reading proves T. Ks of T start out at a disadvantage. Some K arguments might justify particular interpretations of the topic, but I have a harder time seeing why they would make T go away. You aren’t topical simply because you’ve identified some great injustice in the world.

Counterplans are cool. Competition is the most important element of the CP debate, and is virtually always an issue of net benefits. Perms are a good test of competition. I don't have really strong theoretical biases on most CP issues. I do prefer that CPs be nontopical, but am easily persuaded it doesn't matter. Perms probably don't need to be topical, and are usually just a test of competitiveness. I think PICs are seldom competitive and might be abusive (although we've started doing a lot of them in my team's neg strats, so . . .). All of these things are highly debatable.

Some LD-specific stuff:

Framework is usually unimportant to me. If it needs to be important to you, it’s your burden to tell me how it affects my decision. The whole “philosophy is gibberish” thing still applies in LD. Dense, auto-voter frameworks usually lose me. If you argue some interpretation of the topic that says you automatically win, I’m very susceptible to the response that that makes it a stupid interp I should reject.

LD theory usually comes across as bastardized policy theory. It often doesn’t make sense to me in the context of LD. Disclosure theory seems to me like an elitist demand that the rest of the world conform to circuit norms.

I am more likely to be happy with a disad/counterplan type of LD debate than with an intensely philosophical or critical one. I’ll default to util if I can’t really comprehend how I’m supposed to operate in a different framework, and most other frameworks seems to me to ultimately devolve to util anyway.

Feel free to ask about specific issues. I'm happy to provide further explanation of these things or talk about any issues not in this statement.

Ann Thorne Blaine None

Gopinath Vasantharao Eden Prairie High School None

Savannah Wery Spring Lake Park Senior High None

Ginger Williams Moorhead High School

Nathan Wodarz Rosemount Sr High School

Last changed on Tue January 2, 2024 at 1:16 PM CDT

Rosemount High School (MN)

Debate Experience: 4 years HS policy (Rosemount HS), 2 years CEDA (Truman State - formerly Northeast Missouri State)
Coaching/Judging Experience:
Rosemount 2013-present
Farmington (as co-program with Rosemount) 2018-2020
St. Thomas Academy 1993-2001

I would like to be on the email chain. Please use wodarz.debate@gmail.com for this.

Please have reasonable evidence highlighting. The highlighting should be reasonable enough that you would feel comfortable submitting it as part of a research paper. Generally, this means itshould read in grammatically correct sentences when read in isolation.

None of the older profile information at the bottom of the page is out-of-date, feel free to refer to it for additional information.

I'm definitely an older coach but I like a lot of what K debate has brought to the community.

I most enjoy judging rounds where the aff and the neg have an underlying agreement on how the round should look. I prefer to judge either policy v policy debates or K v K debates.

Some details:

* I prefer that the negative engage with the affirmative. The better the specificity of link arguments, the more likely the negative is to win their chosen arguments.

* I roughly think of my judging philosophy as "least intervention". My hope is to try to not do any work for debaters, but this is the ideal and rarely occurs in practice. So I generally look at what I would need to do to vote for either team and choose the outcome that requires the least work on my part. I do my best to not interject personal beliefs into the debate, but realize this isn't always possible.

* I don't like most process or actor CPs, but often vote for them. When neg CP lit says a topic should be left to the states, that lit never means "all 50 states act in concert" but instead usually means "states should be free to not do anything". Affs could do a lot with this, but never do.

* I despise politics DAs, but again find myself voting for them. In 30+ years of debating and judging these, I think I've heard one scenario that had any semblance of truth to it. I think negative over-simplification of the political process and the horse-race mentality engendered by these DAs has been bad for debate and bad for society as a whole. But again, I rarely see Affs making the arguments necessary to win these sort of claims.

* I have a debate-level knowledge of most Kritiks. My knowledge of the literature is about 20 years old at this point and I rarely cut cards for my teams. What this means if you're running a K (either aff or neg): assume that I'm a judge who is willing to listen to (and often vote for) what you say, but don't assume any specific knowledge. This is particularly important at the impact level. If I have a warranted and detailed explanation as to why your model of debate is essential,

* In debates between similarly skilled teams, Framework debates usually come down to "is the aff in the direction of the resolution?". If so, I usually vote aff. Otherwise, neg. If you're a policy team, you're probably better off going for even a Cap K in front of me than for Framework.

* Even in person, you're not as clear as you think you are. This is doubly so in online debates. Slow down a little and you'll likely be happier with my decision.

* It's come to my attention that some teams have shied away from going for theory because of what I've written below. If you believe your violation is true, go ahead and go for it. My preference is to decide debates on the issues, but if I can get good clash on a theory or T flow, that's OK too.

* Disclosure theory is exempt from the preceding bullet. If you can win the debate on disclosure theory, there are better arguments you can make that you can also win on.

* If you're a big school on the circuit where I'm judging you, running a "small schools DA" will likely see speaker points reduced.

* I don't like a 6+ off neg strategy. If you're obviously far more skilled than your opponents and still do this, speaker points will suffer. Regardless, I'm probably more likely to vote on condo bad or perf con than most judges (but see everything else I've written on theory)

* I love good topicality debates. I also love creative (but defensible) affirmative interpretations of the topic. I default to "good is good enough"/reasonability for the aff on topicality, but can be persuaded to vote for the competing interps model. Just saying "reasonability invites judge intervention" isn't enough though. Believe it or not, so does competing interps.

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Older Profile:

I actively coached from 1993 until 2001 before largely leaving the activity for a dozen years. I got back into coaching in 2013 and have been in the activity since then. My time away from the activity proved to profoundly affect the way I view debates.

I view debate as an educational activity and my primary responsibility as a judge as facilitating that education. It is important to note what this means and what it does not mean. What it does not mean is that I like arguments that impact in "voting issue for reasons of education." Leaving aside the irony of the lack of educational value in those sorts of arguments, I am not saying that I will vote for the "more educational" team, whatever that means. What I do mean is that the round can be a very educational environment and my position is to assist that as best as I can. Argumentatively, I am looking for well-reasoned logical arguments, preferentially with strong evidential support. Counterplans which are contingent on successful consultation of any sort are almost always lacking here. Almost all politics DAs that I've ever heard have this problem as well. You're going to have a much easier time if you run a DA, CP, or a K with a solid literature-based link story.

Theory and Analytics: In-round abuse is more persuasive than potential abuse. I have a large presumption against voting on theory, although I have voted on it. To win on theory, you'll probably need to spend substantial time in the last rebuttal and offer a persuasive story. SLOW DOWN when arguing theory. Give me a tag that I can get on my flow and then explain it. Five consecutive four word responses will likely get the first one or two responses flowed, and the rest missed. If it's not on my flow, I can't vote on it. The explanation is the most important part of the argument.

Topicality: Topicality stems from plan action. Placing the resolution in plan text or looking to solvency do not prove topicality. My default view is that if the affirmative interpretation provides an equitable division of ground and plan meets their interpretation, they will win the argument. Generally speaking, if the negative wins topicality, they win the debate. I have been persuaded to vote contrary to my default views in the past. The negative need not win that their interpretation is best for debate, but it helps.

Non-traditional Affirmatives: I don't insist that the affirmative run a plan but any planless aff better be prepared to explain how they engage the resolution. I'm much more willing to accept a non-traditional interpretation of the terms of the resolution than I am to accept an aff that completely ignores the resolution or runs counter to the direction of the resolution.

Evidence sharing/email chains: As of 2017, I have updated my philosophy on these. I would now like to get all speech docs that are shared. Please add me to any email chain using wodarz.debate@gmail.com. Please note that I will not use the speech doc to help flow your speech.

One notable change for the worse over the last decade is the terrible practices that paperless debating has fostered. I approve of paperless debating in the abstract and in a good deal of its implementation, but teams have taken to receiving a speech doc before the speech as a crutch and flowing and line by line debate have suffered as a result. I'm not happy with the blatant prep time theft that pervades the activity, but I recognize that any gesture that I make will be futile. I will take action in particularly egregious cases by deducting from prep time (or speech time, if no prep remains).

Please ask before rounds for clarification.

Lincoln Douglas Philosophy:

I judge far more policy than LD, but I'm not a stranger to judging or coaching LD. I have no predispositions toward any particular style, so largely you should feel free to do what you're most comfortable with. I will not vote for a policy argument just because I'm predominantly a policy judge, although I will listen to them. Be sure to offer full explanations. LD time formats can be challenging, prioritize explanations over evidence. Anything above that isn't specific to policy will apply in LD as well. Your explanations are the most important part of the debate.

Updated 1/9/2019 to add LD

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