USC Trojan Invitational
2024 — Los Angeles, CA/US
CX Paradigm List
All Paradigms: Show HideFor email chain and questions: jorgeaguilar.4652@gmail.com
About me: Elizabeth LC '22, CSU Northridge '26. Pronouns are He/Him. I debated policy all four years of high school and still debating it in college. It's all I've ever known. With that said, I'm super down and excited to learn about other types of debate and see what I can learn from them.
Now I know you're reading this to see what kind of arguments you can read in front of me, but really you can read whatever you like. Just have fun and please MAKE GOOD ARGUMENTS!
Things you should know:
- Do your thing! This activity should center the stylistic decisions of students, not judges. There are things I like and dislike but please do what you do and I'll do my best to keep up. I also want to throw in the fact that I am very familiar with the tense feeling that comes with debate. I know it's easier said than done but if possible ease up and really try to have fun.
- Getting down to business, an argument consists of a) a claim (what I'm saying) b) a warrant (why it's true) and c) an impact (what it means). Anything less than that isn't a full argument. If you are introducing an argument, it's your responsibility to provide each of these, especially if you want it included in the final reasoning for why you should win the debate.
- Debate is a communications activity - how you're saying it matters just as much as what you're saying. It's not enough to just make an argument once in passing and assume the judge will assign proper weight to it, even if the other team does not explicitly respond to it. If something matters a lot to you, be sure to communicate that.
One last thing, I'm new to judging LD so all that theory stuff is kind of whack to me. Don't expect me to vote on it.
I also like it when people talk about the Lakers or basketball in general. Just wanted to throw that in there.
Feel free to ask if you have any questions.
UPDATE: FEBRUARY 2024
Include me on the email chain: Irvinalvarado@outlook.com
It’s been over a decade since I was last active in this activity. To put this into context it means that if you’re currently a high school senior, the last time I judged a debate round you were in second grade (and you weren’t even old enough to enroll in school if you are a freshmen). This has certain implications for you:
First, I am verbally/vocally out of practice – this means i may have trouble with understanding spreading and/or remembering the meaning of certain debatery jargon right off the top of my head,
And Second, technically/tactically—I have not flowed any debates in a very long time and I am old. This means I might not write as fast as you might be able to speak. NOTE: this does *not* mean you need to go slow In front of me or that you can’t spread at all – you can –what it *does* mean is that if you notice my hands are starting to cramp while I am trying to flow your speech, maybe slow it down just a little.
*Background*
I debated for two years in high school and three in college and coached/judged high school (as well as a few rounds of college) debate on and off for three years. I started debating in high school for the Los Angeles Metropolitan Debate League where I learned how to debate and argue “traditionally” or “straight up”. I finished my high school debate career in the Octas of the NAUDL Championship Tournament. Once graduating high school, I began my college debate career debating for CSU, Fullerton where I transitioned into more “critical” modes of debate, mainly focusing on criticisms based on sex/gender, race, as well as performance based arguments. I also debated for Weber State University in Ogden, UT where my research and argumentation interests gravitated towards both high theory post-modern critical analysis as well as stand-point location race and whiteness arguments. I ended my career at Fresno State University where I focused largely on critique largely based on radical queer theory (particularly queer negativity – odds are you’ve probably heard about me if you’ve heard about that one college debater reading the AIDS Good AFF).
NOTE:
While it is no secret the debate community is more polarized now than it has ever been, don’t for one second let my debate careers argumentative evolution trick you into thinking that I am some critical debate hack who you can file away in your “check in” folder – doing so is a disservice to you as a debater and to me as a critic; I don’t think one style of debate is better than the other. You won’t get my ballot just because you read a K in front of me if you debate poorly. Put simply:
· If you’re a project/performance/k debater – I’m with you.
· If you’re a traditional/roleplaying/policy debater – I’m with you.
I’ll enjoy a good politix/xo debate as much as a one-off K debate any day.
What I’m trying to say is that you shouldn’t feel obligated to change or Taylor your strategy because of me. I loathe the way judges and coaches who’s days as debaters have long since been over continue to try and make the activity continue to revolve around them; debate shouldn’t be about me and what I like but about the current debaters themselves; read what you want, argue how you want – I’ll do my best to judge you to the best of my ability.
*SPECIFICS*
AFFIRMATIVES:
Traditional AFF’s: Run em. Love big economy/hege impacts. Have solid link/internal link chains and come decked out with overviews for each speech that extend/explain your case.
Critical AFF’S: Love em. One thing I will say, though, is I usually prefer a critical affirmative which has at least some relation to the resolution, meaning: if you’re going to run a critical AFF (whatever variation of), try not to just get up and read something completely random. Instead, read critical affirmatives that criticize the topic, have specific topic links, as well as solid reasons which merit justifying a critical affirmative.
FRAMEWORK:
Framework: I’m a little iffy about framework debates. On one hand, I like clash of civ showdowns, on the other, I dislike how dry and boring they can be. If you’re going to go for a framework debate, try not to rely on overused framework backfiles.
OFFCASE:
Disadvantages: Run em. Make sure you have a central overview for each speech and can keep up with the line-by-line. I have a special place in my heart for good politics debates or debates where the DA in question accompanies a good CP.
Counterplans: CP’s are pretty great. I’m down with Agent Cps, Timeframe CPs, Advantage CPs, but love a good word PIC or solvency PIC. As a competitor, I made learning how to debate PIC’s and Text/Funct comp theory a part of my overall staple as a debater.
Kritiks: Make sure you have clear links/impacts and an alt for your K. Overviews can’t hurt you, either. Something I’ve noticed about high school debaters running the K is that they often have a hard time in big k debates like cap k debates where the 2AC pummels the k flow with perms and impact turns. My advice is as follows: if they K is going to be the argument you’re going for in the 2NR (if you’re a one off K team), split the block strategically. That is, the 2N reads an overview and handles the link/impact debate while the 1NR handles the alt/perm debate. My coach always said “the 2NC is the beat down and the 1NR is the kill shot” so make it count and make sure that coming out of the block, you’re winning most of the offense on the flow. (Note: Please see Paragraph 2 of Final Thoughts for specific K information).
Theory: It breaks my heart with the first c-x of the 1N isn’t what the status of 1n off cases are. If you’re gonna debate theory, debate it well. Keep up with the line by line, impact out the theory flow. I tend to err neg on conditionality but should the neg drop theory, don’t be afraid to go all in – I’ll def sign the ballot your way.
PAPERLESS DEBATE:
I transitioned to paperless debate while debating at Fullerton after debating strictly on paper up to that point. While it was hard to transition to at first, I found that I quickly fell in love with the financial benefits and the efficiency in evidence production/sharing/transportation both at and on the way to tournaments. However, I have found that as a judge, I get extremely annoyed with bad paperless debate, and as a result I’ve established a few paperless guidelines:
If you need to flash, then you need prep: Prep time does not stop when you’re ready to start flashing evidence, it stops when the other team has the flash drive in their hands.
Don’t be a jerk, format your evidence with Verbatim: Compatibility issues are annoying for all involved. If you’re paperless, you should be using verbatim anyway.
Paperless/Paperless debates: in the event of a paperless team debating a paper team, I defer the responsibility of having a viewing computer to the paper team. If the other team carries around tubs full of tangible paper evidence for you to hold and see, the least you could do is make sure they can see the evidence you use against them.
Failure to adhere to the above paperless debate guidelines will result in the docking of your speaker points beginning from a tenth and increasing after the failure of adhering to the first warning. Nobody wants to sit and waste time they could possibly be judging an amazing and engaging debate round staring at a debater struggle to open a file you didn’t save in the correct format.
SPEAKER POINT SCALE:
I disperse speaker points based on a normative scale and try to shy away from low point wins. The most I can tell you regarding speaker points goes as follows:
Policy teams debating the line by line: The highest speaker points go to the winning team. If you are going too fast or I don’t catch an argument/don’t speak clearly, the burden is not on me to figure it out but rather for you to make sure I am following the debate. I don’t have my laptop open and am online during your speeches for a reason – take advantage of that. I refuse to do work for you. Speaker points will be dispersed anywhere between the scale of 27-28.5. On rare occasions I have been known to give a 29-29.4 but nothing higher than that. Don’t expect higher than that for me.
Critical/Pefromance teams: I’m all about the performance and the critical debate but that does not mean I will inflate your speaker points. Don’t think that just because you rapped a bit or spoke from a personal experience that you deserve the highest speaks – at best I might give you a higher ranking (see “Note” section above).
ETHICS CHALLENGES:
It seems as though ethics challenges are becoming more prevalent now both in the high school and college debate circles. I’m generally not a fan of them and have been taught to debate cheaters and beat them. However, if you feel like the team you are debating has an unfair advantage (such as in round discussions with coaches over an online medium, card clipping, etc) feel free to voice them. The round will stop and I will proceed to go to tab and proceed from whatever directions they give me from there.
Note: Be sure you are making a legitimate ethics claim, there is nothing more annoying than a debater who makes an ethics claim for something silly like “they gave us the cards in the doc out of order” – the purpose of the document is so that you can see the cards. Keeping a proper flow resolves most of the offense of that argument.
FINAL THOUGHTS:
Unlike other judges, i'm comfortable with admitting my limitations and embracing my shortcoming. That being said, i should probably mention that while i don't often run into this problem, i have judged rounds where i had a very hard time flowing arguments being delivered at a very high speed. This by no means is me telling you you can't spread; instead, spread but be conscious that if you are going TOO fast, i might not catch some of what your saying (a clear sign of this is when you jump from one flow to another and it takes me a little while to finish writing the argument on the current flow before jumping onto the new flow).
Another thing i should include is that while i love the K and could probably be considered a "critical debater" based on my time at Fullerton, i'm not as well versed on all of the rez-to-rez debate philosophers (aside from Nietzsche, Foucault, Heidegger, Spanos, Said) but that doesn't mean i won't be able to judge them. If you think i'm struggling with your argument, include an overview with a clear summarization of the argument and do extra detailed link and impact work on the line by line.
All in all, Debate and debate well. Have clear and accessible overviews for your central positions. Respect your opponents and their property, make eye contact with me and not your opponents. Impact out your claims, extend your evidence properly (claim/warrant), and give me reasons why you deserve the ballot. At the end we’re all here to have fun and win, let’s make sure its enjoyable for everyone involved.
Affiliations:
I am currently coaching teams at lamdl and have picked up an ld student or 2.
I do have a hearing problem in my right ear. If I've never heard you b4 or it's the first round of the day. PLEASE go about 80% of your normal spread for about 20 seconds so I can get acclimated to your voice. If you don't, I'm going to miss a good chunk of your first minute or so. I know people pref partly through speaker points. My default starts at 28.5 and goes up from there. If i think you get to an elim round, you'll prob get 29.0+
Evidence sharing: use speechdrop or something of that nature. If you prefer to use the email chain and need my email, please ask me before the round.
What will I vote for? I'm mostly down for whatever you all wanna run. That being said no person is perfect and we all have our inherent biases. What are mine?
I think teams should be centered around the resolution. While I'll vote on completely non T aff's it's a much easier time for a neg to go for a middle of the road T/framework argument to get my ballot. I lean slightly neg on t/fw debates and that's it's mostly due to having to judge LD recently and the annoying 1ar time skew that makes it difficult to beat out a good t/fw shell. The more I judge debates the less I am convinced that procedural fairness is anything but people whining about why the way they play the game is okay even if there are effects on the people involved within said activity. I'm more inclined to vote for affs and negs that tell me things that debate fairness and education (including access) does for people in the long term and why it's important. Yes, debate is a game. But who, why, and how said game is played is also an important thing to consider.
As for K's you do you. the main one I have difficulty conceptualizing in round are pomo k vs pomo k. No one unpacks these rounds for me so all I usually have at the end of the round is word gibberish from both sides and me totally and utterly confused. If I can't give a team an rfd centered around a literature base I can process, I will likely not vote for it. update: I'm noticing a lack of plan action centric links to critiques. I'm going to be honest, if I can't find a link to the plan and the link is to the general idea of the resolution, I'm probably going to err on the side of the perm especially if the aff has specific method arguments why doing the aff would be able to challenge notions of whatever it is they want to spill over into.
I lean neg on condo. Counterplans are fun. Disads are fun. Perms are fun. clear net benefit story is great. The sept/oct topic really made me realize I never dabbled in cp competition theory (on process cps). I've tried to fix that but clear judge instruction is going to be very important for me if this is going to be the vast majority of the 2nr/2ar.
If you're in LD, don't worry about 1ar theory and no rvis in your 1ac. That is a given for me. If it's in your 1ac, that tops your speaks at 29.2 because it means you didn't read my paradigm.
Now are there any arguments I won't vote for? Sure. I think saying ethically questionable statements that make the debate space unsafe is grounds for me to end a round. I don't see many of these but it has happened and I want students and their coaches to know that the safety of the individuals in my rounds will always be paramount to anything else that goes on. I also won't vote for spark, trix, punch theory, wipeout, nebel t, and death good stuff. ^_^ good luck and have fun debating
2025 Update: Hello! The below paradigm, which I have left for reference, was written 6 years ago immediately proceeding the end of my high school career when I did some national circuit judging. I am now a graduate with a full-time job and only judge on a volunteer basis for the Los Angeles Metropolitan Debate League. The below paradigm was written by a far more vindictive and knowledgeable version of myself, however the general themes will likely hold true. My speed tolerance will certainly not be what it once was. I encourage very clear sign posting, focused collapsing, and strong argumentative narratives in overviews, now more than ever.
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I debated for 6 years at Harvard-Westlake, graduating in 2019, and am currently a freshman at USC majoring in Business Administration with expected minors in Risk Management and Photography but do not debate. As a result, my influences in debate include Mike Bietz, Scott Phillips and Jasmine Stidham, as well as the teammates I graduated with whom I feel obligated to shout out, being Vishan Chaudhary, Ari Davidson (Warning: Large stylistic differences), Matthew Gross and Spencer Paul. I was also influenced quite a bit by the outstanding lab leaders I had at Debate.LA, including Jenny Achten, Joel Lemuel and Brian McBride (RIP).
I'm well aware that long paradigms are generally useless for before round purposes. I tried to keep it short but debate is complicated and people may want the opportunity to hear more of my thoughts before a tournament. Refer to bolded words for mega abridged, pre-round version.
In-Round:
Put me on the email chain: willberlin0 @ gmail.com
I tend to decide debates very quickly/as quickly as possible. This is not because I don't care enough to give you the time and energy you clearly deserve. This is because I don't believe the judge should be doing too much work so if there's a side I feel I should vote for after the speeches, I'm probably just going to check my flows to make sure I didn't ignore something of glaring importance and then vote. Much like how often after a speech a debater can get a vibe for if they've won or not, I generally can feel this as a judge too. What does this mean for you? Be sure you give clear judge directions in your later speeches and tell me the really important issues and arguments you are using to win the round. The more obscured your NR/2AR strategy is to me, the more likely I am to not comprehend the entirety of its nuance or truth value that you feel warrants the ballot.
I try to intervene as little as possible in my decision making, as good judges should, about will possibly take out my frustration through speaker points if I feel I'm voting on something really lame. Throughout my career, the sheer quantity of 2-1 decisions I saw really put into perspective how this activity is at its core subjective, despite our wishes for it to not be. That being said, everything said in Argument Specific Stuff is ways in which the way you argue may agree or disagree with me personally, which may subconsciously affect my decision making, as I am a human being.
I will call clear on you if I'm not getting it. If I have to do this repeatedly I will grow frustrated. Slow down on your tags and your author names, especially if you're going to be referencing cards by author name in the rebuttals. I like to be able to tell when you're moving from card to card, and this, along with numbering, is the best way to do it. I will not flow off the doc unless I feel I didn't catch you because of something outside of your control.
Prep ends when the doc is compiled or you are done prepping. Sending the email is not on prep but if I feel you are taking too long or stealing prep I will be angry.
I will never give a 30, there is no cap on perfection. A 29.9 is received when a speech is so good I don't know how to suggest to improve it, but it could theoretically be better so it doesn't get a 30.
I am unwilling to accept the liability of minors disclosing any form of assault or abuse to me. If this occurs I will stop the round immediately and inform real adults who are mandatory reporters. Please just don't make this a part of the round, as it puts everyone in the room in an awkward emotional and legal situation. If you need to talk to someone, although I can theoretically assist you, please just turn to any of the real adults at a debate tournament who I would just direct you towards anyways.
Argument Specific Stuff:
I was relatively flex, reading mostly policy stuff with some Ks.
All the policy args are fine. I think its a freezing cold take that a DA with higher truth value is refreshing, but I as a judge will give any DA full credence and vote on it as such until the Aff tells me why I shouldn't. I think Phillips had this on his paradigm at one time, or maybe he just said it to me or maybe I'm just going crazy, but if an argument from one team is short, blippy and bad, then the other team should not feel obligated to, and will likely lose the round if they, give it the same amount of time as a good argument. If you have just a few strong arguments on a dumb one, and you look up and can tell I'm liking what your saying, don't be afraid to move on.
I like a creative counterplan quite a bit, but don't go too far. The Aff team should not be afraid if theory is the A-strat against weird and abusive counterplans. If a counterplan sounds heinous to you and you don't know how to generate responses, it probably sounds heinous to me too, so articulate that.
On T, I like to see good evidence comparison on the definitions, otherwise it becomes very difficult to resolve. Having been the victim of many *creatively* worded topics throughout my career, I am capable of being persuaded that semantics should not come first. In order to do this you must prove why your model is good not only for the education in the specific round but also good for the topic and distribution of affs as a whole. This isn't to say you should go for reasons why your aff specifically gets to break the rules, rather you should propose reasons about why a strict interpretation of the wording of the topic is bad for the health of the topic as a whole, likely because it is excluding your aff which is a core of the discussion. An example of this is how the community majority believed that arm sales were not topical on the 2019 Jan-Feb topic, but the topic was obviously better with their inclusion.
On theory, I default to drop the argument on everything except conditionality and disclosure* and it will be very difficult to convince me to drop the debater on anything else. *Disclosure is obviously a big term and every case is different, so in some instances where I sense limited foul play I may be able to be persuaded to drop the argument, but this is really dependent on what happened in round. Theory on really mall stuff with near no proven in round abuse will likely be written off by me after the slightest of responses, especially if it's drop the debater.
On framework, I'll obviously listen to both sides of the framework debate but I must warn that I tend to believe that Affs should defend the topic. That being said, my job is to vote for the winning debater, which I fully intend to do, but you may be fighting an uphill battle in convincing me you have won as the Aff team on framework. I do believe procedural fairness is a voter. Aff teams choosing to not defend the topic should make arguments about why their chosen subject matter/style of debate is good/important, while also making arguments about why traditional debate/the topic is bad. Since non-T affs disrupt my standard methods of analyzing rounds, I need the 1AC to provide me with some sort of direction on what counts as offense and how I should evaluate it. I find cheeky I meets from the aff team to be annoying and a waste of their time. If you're obviously not defending the topic then puff out your chest about it. I'm also abig fan of PICs against non-T affs. If the aff team gets to choose to debate whatever they want then they should be able to defend the entire content of the aff from pics. Ks are also obviously a valid strategy against non-T affs.
On Ks, I'm not very well versed in post-modernism and will be unlikely to vote on it unless I get a clear story. My main issue with pomo is I often feel the impact never gets articulated as something without jargon that a normal person can understand, which as a result makes it very difficult for me to care enough about the arguments to vote on them. I would also very much appreciate an articulation of the alt in plain English and a good link story, those two things holding true for all k debate. I consider myself a pretty practical guy and am definitely not enamored by critical leftist theory like many, so arguments on Ks which take a step back and call into question the actions of an alternative from a more realistic standpoint are persuasive to me.
I am veryopen to listening to debates about what kind of impacts should be prioritized but will default to epistemic modesty if there is no debate about it.
Tricks are for kids. This at the bottom because tricks are the lowest form of argumentation.
Online Debate: Don’t be classist, I have hardware that can support online debate, but that doesn’t mean everyone else does. Let’s not make online debate more difficult by giving people a hard time for not having the proper equipment in a pandemic that nobody expected. If your audio cuts out, I’ll stop your time so we can resolve connection issues. I’ll either ask you to start from where you first cut out or summarize what you said, depending on the length of the outage. It takes all of us to make this work.
About me:
He/Him/His
Yes, add me to the email chain: s.cardenas00@yahoo.com
Debated policy 2 1/2 yrs for South Gate HS under LAMDL
Debated for 2 years with California State University, Northridge
Coached 2 years with South Gate High School
Here's the TL;DR. There's no argument I wouldn't listen to - run arguments you're comfortable with. That being said, I do have more experience with critical arguments. Lately, I've found myself really enjoying framework debates with clash on education/skills impacts. If you have any questions, please ask me. Argumentation and debate is a fluid activity with ever-changing circumstances; therefore I believe paradigms should be fluid as well. My paradigm will always change depending on debate norms.
I will NEVER vote for a "racism/homophobia/misogyny/etc... good" impact turn. I will instantly downvote you and give zero speaks.
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Preferences
Burden of Rejoinder vs. Burden of Persuasion: I feel that both are necessary. Personally, I think our activity has placed so much emphasis on the burden of rejoinder that we have lost almost all emphasis on the burden of persuasion. Teams will string together dozens of internal links to create an astronomically improbable scenario and treat it as truth. Truth be told, the probability of the average “big stick” advantage/disad is less than 1% and that’s just real talk. Fast teams read a disad that was never very probable to begin with and because the 2AC is not fast enough to poke holes in every layer of the disad the judge treats those internal links as conceded (and thus 100% probable). Somehow, through no work of their own the neg’s disad went from being a steaming pile of non-sense to a more or less perfectly reasonable description of reality. The takeaway is… that when i judge, I try (imperfectly to be sure) to balance my expectations that students meet both the burden of rejoinder and the burden of persuasion. Does this require judge intervention? Perhaps, to some degree, but isn't that what it means to “allow ones self to be persuaded?” To be clear, I do not think it is my job to be the sole arbiter of whether a claim was true or false, probable or unlikely, significant or insignificant. I do think about these things constantly though and i think it is both impossible and undesirable for me to ignore those thoughts in the moment of decision. It would behoove anyone I judge to take this into account and actively argue in favor of a particular balance between the burdens or rejoinder and persuasion in a particular round.
Case: Obviously, case is important. I've felt that in recent years case has often been shoved aside and forgotten.
T/FW: Probably the most important flow for me. I really value education/skills impacts.
CP's: I find that cp's are best when they're original and have solid solvency literature.
DA's: Similar to the cp's, I think DA's are best when they're original and have solid link/impact chains. Our interpretation of a solid internal link chain may differ, however. See "Burden of Rejoinder vs Burden of Persuasion" for an explanation.
K's: The takeaway is … I would say I am more friendly to critical arguments than some judges, but that also means I require a higher level of explanation and depth for those arguments. For instance, it is not sufficient to argue that the aff’s reps/epistemology/ontology/whatever is bad and these questions come first. You have to tell me in what way the aff’s methodology is flawed and how exactly would this result in flawed thinking/policy/ect. Unlike disads, individual links to kritiks have to have impacts to be meaningful. In general, I think people read too many cards when running kritiks at the expense of doing a lot textual and comparative work.
K Aff's: Similarly, on what I said about neg k’s, I need you to explain your methods and their material consequences.
*** I've really only written the most essential stuff. Im still working on this***
I am fine with DAs, CPs, Ks and theory, but if you want me to vote on them, be sure to explain why you win on that argument. I will however vote you down if you are disrespectful in anyway to myself or your peers or if you are sexist, racist, ablest, or discriminatory in any way.
Case: As aff you should be able to win all parts of your stock issues
CP: NEG If you want me to vote for the counterplan, prove that you can solve for the impacts of the aff or solve better than the aff and have a net benefit that makes your neg counterplan mutually exclusive. This usually means having a counterplan that is both functionally and textually competitive.
AFF: If you are going for a perm on the counterplan please explain how the counterplan is going to work and how it solves better than having just the neg CP by itself.
DA: NEG be sure that you have a strong link on the aff plan, otherwise the aff plan does not lead to you impact or change/harm the status quo or uniqueness.
AFF if you are going for a straight turn, please explain how the straight turn wins you the round.
Judge instruction: If you want me to vote for you tell me why I should vote for you. You should be able to explain why you are winning on case and off case AND explain why you winning on an argument wins you the round or just wins that argument.
Signposting: Please signpost when you're moving on or at least make it clear when you move on. You shouldn’t have to signpost if you provide accurate roadmaps.
Hello and greetings! I hope you're doing well.
I respect the dedication and sacrifices you make to excel in debate. I'm honored to hold the Donus D. Roberts Coaching Excellence Award and the First Diamond Award. My journey in Policy Debate began in middle school, and now I coach and judge various competition styles, including CX, Policy, BQ, PF, moot court, mock trial, and High School Shark Tank. This experience has given me valuable insights into the demands of this activity.
My background spans finance, law, technology, film, and a passion for history. I've been involved in debate since 6th grade and have been coaching since 2012, maintaining a deep love for this pursuit. You’ve chosen a challenging path, and I admire your commitment.
Lastly, I'm not responsible for your feelings. Win graciously, lose graciously. I'm happy to provide feedback to your coach, and my email is included in the RFD for further contact if needed. I insist that the communication be via your coach or with your coach's written permission. I'll use Sharedocs on the NSDA platform, so there's no need to exchange personal emails among participants, and I will not ask you for your email.
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As a judge, I adhere to a traditional policy debate framework, with a strong focus on topicality, evidence, and clash. Here are specific points that guide my decision-making:
1. Topicality and Relevance: I prioritize arguments that directly engage with the resolution. I expect debates to be centered on the proposed policy and its implications.
2. No Race, Systemic Oppression, or Anti- Arguments: I do not vote on arguments that are primarily focused on race, systemic oppression, or any form of "anti-" argument (e.g., anti-capitalism, anti-imperialism). My focus is on the debate as it relates to the resolution and the specific policy issues at hand.
3. Theory Arguments and Multiple Worlds: I do not consider theory arguments or multiple worlds as voting issues. Debaters should focus on substantive, resolution-centered arguments.
4. Clash and Direct Engagement: I value debates where teams directly address each other's arguments, staying within the bounds of the resolution. Rebuttals should focus on engaging with the substance of the opposing team’s case.
5. Evidence and Analysis: Strong evidence and logical reasoning are crucial in my evaluation. I expect debaters to present and explain evidence that directly supports their case and is relevant to the resolution.
6. Moderate Speed and Clarity: While I’m comfortable with fast-paced debates, clarity is essential. I prefer a pace that ensures arguments are clearly articulated and easily understood.
7. Behavior and Conduct: I do not tolerate personal attacks or profanity. I will issue one warning for such behavior. If it continues, I will disqualify the team responsible.
In summary, I approach debates with a focus on traditional policy arguments, staying on topic, and engaging in direct clash. I do not vote on arguments related to race, systemic oppression, theory, multiple worlds, or similar critical arguments. My judging style is best suited for debaters who engage with the resolution in a clear, evidence-based, and topic-centered manner.
With the exception of elimination rounds, I don't disclose the rounds winner.
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Let's dive into my judging philosophy by sharing how I look at the components of a debate:
1. Framework (Affirmative and Negative):
- What it is: A set of rules and principles that define the scope of the debate.
- What it is not: A case-specific argument or evidence.
2. Role of the Ballot (ROB):
- What it is: A statement explaining what the judge should prioritize when making their decision.
- What it is not: An argument against the opponent's case.
3. Plan (Affirmative):
- What it is: The proposed policy or action the affirmative team advocates for.
- What it is not: The entirety of the affirmative case; it's just one element.
4. Counterplan (Negative):
- What it is: An alternative proposal presented by the negative team.
- What it is not: A critique or disadvantage argument.
5. Topicality (Negative):
- What it is: An argument challenging the affirmative's compliance with the debate topic.
- What it is not: A critique of the affirmative's content.
6. Disadvantage (Negative):
- What it is: An argument showing the negative consequences of the affirmative's plan.
- What it is not: A counterplan or a critique.
7. Critique/Kritik (Negative):
- What it is: A critical analysis of the assumptions or ideology underlying the affirmative case.
- What it is not: A traditional argument based on evidence and impacts.
8. Cross-Examination (CX):
- What it is: A period during the debate where one team questions the other to gather information and make arguments.
- What it is not: A time for making speeches or presenting new arguments.
9. Rebuttal (Affirmative and Negative):
- What it is: Speeches aimed at refuting the opponent's arguments and reinforcing your own.
- What it is not: A time for introducing entirely new content.
10. Evidence/Contentions (Affirmative and Negative):
- What it is: Factual information and arguments that support your case.
- What it is not: Personal opinions or unsupported assertions.
11. Flowing (Judge's Role):
- What it is: Taking detailed notes of the debate to track arguments and make an informed decision.
- What it is not: Making decisions based on personal biases or emotions.
12. Time Limits:
- What it is: Strictly enforced limits for speeches and cross-examinations.
- What it is not: Flexible or arbitrary timekeeping.
13. Case Overview (Affirmative and Negative):
- What it is: A brief summary of your main arguments at the beginning of your speech.
- What it is not: A replacement for in-depth analysis.
14. Permutation (Affirmative):
- What it is: An argument that combines the affirmative and negative positions to demonstrate compatibility.
- What it is not: A standalone argument; it relies on other contentions.
15. Voting Issues (Judge's Decision):
- What it is: The key points or arguments the judge should consider when rendering a decision.
- What it is not: An exhaustive review of every argument made in the debate.
16. Cap-K (Capitalism Kritik) in Policy Debate:
- What it is: A critical argument challenging the fundamental assumptions and impacts of capitalism as a social and economic system.
- What it is not: A traditional policy argument focused on specific policy proposals or impacts.
17. Settler Colonialism in Policy Debate:
- What it is: An argument that critiques the historical and ongoing processes of colonization and displacement of Indigenous peoples.
- What it is not: A case-specific argument or a traditional policy debate contention.
As your judge, this represents my approach to evaluating debate rounds and how I assess arguments within them. The following offers further insight into my judging philosophy and perspective.
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1. Communication Rule: No communication is allowed between teammates or judges during the debate round. Violations result in immediate removal from the room; failure to comply leads to team disqualification. This rule ensures fairness and integrity.
2. Focus During Rounds: I take judging seriously and maintain complete focus during rounds—no social media or phone distractions.
3. Debate Strategy: Address your arguments to me, not your opponent. I appreciate well-structured, respectful arguments. I do not tolerate profanity, yelling, or personal attacks. One warning will be given; continued violations will end the round, and I will discuss the matter with your coach. If your strategy is divisive or disrespectful, I'm not the right judge for you.
4. Role of the Aff: Remember, the Aff plan is not you; address your opponents as "Neg," "Aff," or "Opponent" to maintain professionalism.
5. Counterplans and Solvency: I prefer the Neg to run a Counterplan (CP). Attacking solvency without proposing a solution is unconvincing and weakens the Neg's position.
6. Flowing: I meticulously flow the round by hand and encourage teams to maintain their own flow sheets. This helps ensure that no critical arguments are overlooked, and I also flow cross-examinations.
7. Engagement: Engage directly with me as you present your arguments. While spreading is allowed, I prefer clear and effective communication. If you're spreading just to overwhelm your opponent, you’re not making a genuine argument. I don't vote based on dropped arguments alone.
8. Questions in Cross-X:Meaningful questions are more valuable than questions for the sake of it. Avoid open-ended queries and be respectful.
9. Clash:
- Central Role: Clash is the core of policy debate, where teams directly engage in argumentative confrontation.
- Importance: Effective clash shows your ability to challenge opponent arguments, influencing my decision more than exploiting dropped points. Win through strong clash, not just on dropped arguments.
- Strategy: Use clash strategically by presenting solid arguments, addressing your opponent's contentions, and exposing weaknesses. This demonstrates your argumentative skill and critical thinking.
- Outcome: The quality of clash heavily impacts my decision, making it a key factor in winning the debate.
10. Defense versus Offence: In policy debate, "defense" challenges the opponent's case, while "offense" advances the negative's position. Winning the debate requires strong defense to undermine the affirmative and effective offense to persuade me. Debaters balance these elements, adapting to my preferences for a strategic advantage.
11. Debating Off-Topic in Policy Debate:
- Warning: Please stick to the resolution's scope for meaningful debates. If your strategy is to not debate the topic outside of a K-Aff, I'd advise that you stay on the resolution and or the topic.
- Issue: A problem arises when debaters go off-topic, using unrelated strategies and tactics.
- Concerns: This hinders the educational value of debates, straying from the critical analysis of policy proposals within the resolution.
12. Non-Voting Issues Clarification:
My primary focus in evaluating the debate is on the affirmative plan’s ability to address the specific problem outlined in the resolution. I do not consider arguments related to race, bias, or social issues unrelated to the resolution as voting issues. The use of racial slurs will result in the immediate end of the round, with a vote against the offending team.
For instance, in the 2022-2023 Fracking resolution, while discussions about marginalized communities were common, banning fracking does not inherently resolve marginalization. The affirmative must demonstrate how their plan directly alleviates the issues presented; otherwise, such arguments will not influence my decision.
This approach is about maintaining relevance to the resolution, not censorship. Remember to treat the subjects of your arguments as real people, not just as props to win a round. If you need clarification, feel free to ask before the round.
I do not favor theory arguments, as I vote based on facts, not theories.
Ultimately, my decision hinges on which side better solves the problem addressed by the resolution—the Affirmative Plan or the Status Quo.
13. Perm Do Both: "Perm Do Both" must be supported by a clear explanation of how the affirmative plan and negative counterplan can work together without conflict. Simply stating "Perm do both" isn't enough—you need to demonstrate how the actions complement each other and why this integrated approach is the best solution.
14. Evidence and Warrants: In debate, assessing an author’s credibility goes beyond their qualifications; it’s about ensuring their expertise is relevant to the specific argument. Debaters must evaluate qualifications, relevance, and consistency to ensure evidence directly supports the warrant. Demonstrating how the author backs your team's position increases your chances of winning.
15. Falsifying information: Please refrain from fabricating information during a round, especially financial figures, historical facts, or legal details. I will notice.
16. Prep Time: I don't allow prep time for cross-X. If the tournament allows time for tech issues, I will enforce it strictly to the second.
17. Selling Your Position: Persuasion is key. Convince me; speed isn't everything.
18. Speakers' Points: I base these on coherent arguments, strong rebuttals, good clash, and respectful conduct.
20. A Respectful Environment: I expect respect from all participants. No profanity, personal attacks, or disrespect will be tolerated. One warning will be given; continued violations result in automatic disqualification, with the reason noted in my RFD and communicated to the coach.
21. No Direct Messaging During Rounds: If I suspect messaging, I'll ask to see your computer screen. Messaging during rounds is grounds for an immediate disqualification.
22. No Bias: I judge impartially.
23. Reason for Decision (RFD):
I provide constructive feedback to help debaters improve, highlighting both strengths and areas for growth. I've seen debaters apply my feedback in subsequent rounds, and I'm available for questions and discussions during the tournament (after the round). Taking notes during feedback can be very beneficial.
Thank you for the privilege of judging your round. As debaters, you are part of an exceptional community dedicated to meaningful and thought-provoking discourse. Let's make this tournament memorable and engaging for all involved. Best of luck on your journey in speech and debate!
Thank you very kindly,
Mr. Dibinga - Chota
I am a middle-class cisgender heterosexual left-handed white male.
I debated for Cal State Fullerton from 2000 to 2004.
I have been judging high school debate for over a decade. I can count the number of college tournaments I have judged at on one hand and have fingers left over, though I foresee that changing over the next couple of years.
I have a doctorate in mathematics.
I have been described as irrationally rational.
On the 2002-2003 treaties topic, mine and my partner's affirmative was arguing that the exclusion of the CEDAW from the possible affirmative cases was an example of the debate community using presumably neutral standards such as "ground" and "fairness" to exclude discussions of women's issues and perpetuate sexism.
As a judge, I try to be as lazy as possible. What I mean by that is that I will not do work for you. I will not pull cards unless there is disagreement between teams on what the card says and/or what it means. If there is an argument in one part of the debate that can be used to answer a different argument in another part, I will not assume that answer is made unless it is pointed out to me. This is the debate application of my philosophy as a math teacher that you must show your work.
As a corollary to the previous item, I have an unhealthy affection for my flow when evaluating a debate.
When it comes to the schism between policy and kritik debate, I am one of the only people off to the side waving the flag for procedurals. My favorite argument to run in debate was agent specification. No, I'm not joking.
If you claim to "deck" anything, I will judge you. And wonder what the hell you mean.
I feel like people on both sides of the policy/kritik divide could do with a little argumentative flexibility.
Background Info:
- Debated 4 years in high school for Downtown Magnets High School, currently studying in UCI and use my free time to judge debate tournaments. :(
-Currently a Sophomore at UCI. :(
- I'm experienced in judging in more local tournaments, but it is nice to judge different teams from different places and it's great to see a diversity in arguments.
Debate Arguments:
- You can honestly run anything you want. It can be 8 off or 1 off, as long as your comfortable with your arguments.
- I do like certain arguments such as topicality, critiques, and political affirmatives. However, you don't have to run these arguments if you don't want to evidently.
- I don't have much preferences besides having good line by line arguments(organization), contextualizing arguments(especially if it's a K), and clash in the debate round.
Speaker Points:
-I usually don't give low speaker points to anyone really, the only thing I would encourage is to not rely too much in tag team cross-ex and do not come across as rude.
-Also(VERY IMPORTANT), I do give out bonus speaker points to those who take the challenge to either relate the round to a meme(joke) or philosophical arguement. Anything that makes the round "entertaining" is recommended to get those high speaks.
- That's pretty much it, good luck :)
Hello, my name is Spencer, a junior in high school at Lake Balboa College Prep. I have been going to debate tournaments since I was in sixth grade and debated mostly in seventh and eighth. I did take a break from debating in my freshman and sophomore years until this year so I am a bit out of practice and very new to judging.
2025 Update:
TLDR: I'll vote on anything as long as it is explained well enough. I won't flow if I don't understand you, I'll say clear in these cases. I'll stop flowing past saying clear three times.
Email: chrise505@gmail.com
Paradigm
Affs - Policy, Critical, don't care. Just explain why you solve the things you do or why doing the aff is necessary.
T - Ran T a lot. As a 2NR, please do impact analysis, otherwise it feels like a wash. Typically default competing interps, but can be persuaded on reasonability.
K - Please contextualize the link story to the aff, easiest way to win my ballot. Judge instruction pretty important in these types of debates or I'll default to a solvency outlook.
DA - Have good links. I'm fine voting on generic links as long as you contextualize it to the aff.
CP - All counterplans are legitimate as long as you prove it's competitive to the aff. Less likely to vote on a CP with no solvency advocate.
Theory - I'll vote on any theory argument as long as you impact it out and prove the in-round abuse. My general thoughts on certain matters:
- Conditionality - 3 is fine, 4-5 pushing it, 6 or more and I'm skeptical.
- Vague Alt - I'd vote on it if the alt makes no sense and neg doesn't do a good job explaining it.
- Process, Agent, PIKs, - legitimate until proven not (i guess lol).
Speaker points - In an effort to be more consistent, this is how I view speaks.
27.5 <---> 28: Lack of clash, incoherent, disorganized, wasting time
28.1 <---> 28.5: Clash is there, but maybe lacking in necessary areas. Better organized/coherent. Not wasting time.
28.6 <---> 29: Solid clash, organized, coherent. Probably just made wrong strategy in-round.
29.1 <---> 29.5: Super good round, honestly some minor mistakes with strategy.
29.6 <---> 30: Perfection, aside from not being able to assign everyone the same points.
Judge intervention - my job is to not intervene unless absolutely necessary [i.e. card clipping/direct calls to violence to debaters/derogatory remarks within the round.] Please read the rules of the tournament as that is how I will default to these situations. Just be kind to each other (it'll help with speaks too!)
Lastly, TIME MANAGEMENT! Please do not waste our time at tournaments, if you're done prepping you better be ready to send out the document. I understand tech issues, but please come prepared with flash drives or some form of alternative, or I will take out time from your prep if it is taking too long (rule of thumb is 3 minutes post mention of tech issues).
Hey ya'll, I was a 3-year debater at LAMDL and captained my high school team and graduated UCLA 2021 with background in political science and a concentration in IR. I debated up to varsity so I'm very familiar with all the tricks, strategies, lingo when it comes to debate. I also debated in parli at UCLA for around 2 years.
Email chain: myprofessionalemail47@yahoo.com, ejumico@gmail.com
Small things that will earn you some favorable opinions or extra speaks
-Be politically tactful on language use. Although I won't ding you if you curse or any of that sort, I do find it more entertaining and fun if you can piss off your opponent while remaining calm and kind to strategically manipulate them rather than yell and get mad. This also means that you should be very careful about using certain words that might trigger the opponent or allow them to utilize that as an offensive tool.
-Use as much tech lingo as you can. Point out when the opponent drops something or why the disad outweighs and turns the case or when there is a double bind, etc etc.
-Analogical arguments with outside references will earn you huge huge points. References through classical literature, strategic board games, video games, anime, historical examples, current events or even just bare and basic academics. It shows me how well versed and cultured you are and that's a part of showmanship.
-Scientific theories, mathematical references, experiments, philosophical thoughts, high academia examples will get you close to a 30 on your speaks and definitely make your argument stronger.
Big things that will lean the debate towards your favor and win you rounds
-I like a good framework debate. Really impact out why I should be voting for your side.
-If you're running high theory Kritik, you need to be prepared to be able to explain and convince me how the evidence supports your argument. A lot of the time when high theory Kritik is run, people fail to explain how the evidence can be interpreted in a certain way.
-Fairness and debate theory arguments are legitimate arguments and voters, please don't drop them.
-I was a solid K debater so it will be favorable for Neg to run K and T BUT I am first and foremost a strategist debater. Which means I will treat debate as a game and you SHOULD pick and choose arguments that are more favorable to you and what the Aff has debated very very weakly one or if there is a possibility that the Disad can outweigh the case better than your link story on the K, I would much prefer if you went for DA and CP than K and T.
-K Affs must be prepared to debate theory and fw more heavily than their impact.
-I LOVE offensive strategies and arguments whether you're Aff or Neg. If you can make it seem like what the opponent advocates for causes more harms than it claims to solve for or causes the exact harms it claims to solve for + more (not just more harms than your advocacy) then it won't be as hard for me to decide on a winner.
-Would love to hear arguments that are radical, revolutionary, yet still realistic. They should be unique and interesting. Be creative! High speaks + wins if you're creative. Try to make me frame the round more differently than usual and think outside the box.
-Answer theory please.
Disclosed biases, beliefs, educational background
West coast bred, progressive arguments are more palatable but some personal beliefs are more centrist or right swinging (depending on what). Well versed with foreign policy and especially issues dealing with Middle East and China, have some economics background. With that being said, I do not vote based on beliefs but arguments, I also don't vote based on what I know so you need to tell me what I need to vote on verbatim. Will vote against a racial bias impact if not clearly articulated. You should never make the assumption that I will automatically already have the background to something, please answer an argument even if you think I already should have prior knowledge on it.
Round specificities
CX:I do not flow but I pay attention.
T-team:Ok.
Flashing:I do not count it as prep unless it feels like you're taking advantage of it.
Time:Take your own time and opponents time, I do not time. If you don't know what your time is during prep or during the speech, I will be taking off points.
diegojflores02@gmail.com
Bravo '20, CSULB OF '24, LAMDL 4eva
Coach Huntington Park High School
Debate how you want:
I appreciate rebuttals that start big-picture overviews identifying what you have won, where the opponent has messed up, and what should be the core issues that decide the debate. After that, efficient and technical line-by-line.
The flow decides how I vote, not my biases. Usually, the argument that has more structure (framing / claim / warrant / reasoning) is more likely to win against an incomplete argument (missing one of those). When debates get close, it is because both sides have made complete arguments. In that scenario, I look at the evidence and decide based on who has better support. My last resort is to resort to my understanding of what is "true."
There are only 3 biases I do hold about debate:
Critical affirmatives need a solid counter-interpretation over impact turn strategies in the 2AR.
Policy teams need to defend their "reps" instead of just saying "extinction brr i need fiat look at my case"
K v. K debates need to bridge the gap between high-theory jargon and how offense manifest to material violence.
LAMDL Program Director (2015 - Present)
UC Berkeley Undergrad (non-debating) & BAUDL Policy Debate Coach (2011-2015)
LAMDL Policy Debater (2008 - 2011)
Speech Docs: Include me on the email chain: jfloresdebate@gmail.com*
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*I only check the above email during tournaments, if you're trying to get in touch with me for anything outside of speech doc email chains, my main work email is joseph@lamdl.org.
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TL;DR Do what you do best. I evaluate you on how well you execute your arguments, not on your choice of argument. Judge instruction goes a long way for me. Err on the side of over explaining/contextualizing.
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I believe debate is a space that is shaped and defined by the debaters, and as a judge my only role to evaluate what you put in front of me. There is generally no argument I won't consider, with the exception of arguments that are intentionally educationally bankrupt. I generally lean in favor of more inclusive frameworks, but at the same time still believe the debate should be focused on debatable issues, some limits are probably good. Where I draw the line on those limits depends on who does the better job articulating it in the debate.Regardless of the framework you provide, I need offensive reasons to vote for you under that framework.
Most of my work nowadays is in the back end of tournaments, and this implicates how I judge somewhat. I might not be privy to your trickier strategies. Feel free to use them, but know if I do not catch it on my flow, it will not count.
I am familiar with most debate lit, but you should still err on the side of over-explaining/contextualizing to the debate at hand. I try to intervene as little as possible and rely only on what you say. I do not like to go back and read cards at the end of the debate, if I don't need to.
I'm a better judge for rounds with fewer and more in-depth arguments compared to rounds where you throw out a lot of small blippy arguments that you blow up late in the debate. My issue with the latter isn't the speed (speed is fine), rather I'm less likely to vote for underdeveloped arguments. Generally, the team that takes the time to provide better explanations, internal link work, and warrants will win the debate for me as long as you also instruct me on the significance of those arguments to the round overall. This includes dropped arguments. I still need these to be explained, applied, and weighed for you to get anything out of it.
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Feel free to read your non traditional Aff, but be prepared to defend why it is relevant to the topic (either in the direction of it or in response/criticism of it), and why it is a debatable issue. Feel free to read your procedurals, but be prepared to weigh and sequence your standards against the specifics of the case in the round. Either way, I'll evaluate it and whether or not I vote in your direction will come down to execution in the round. I've voted for and against both K Affs and Framework. Articulate the internal links to your impacts for them to be weighed as heavily as you want. Make sure the impacts you extend make sense under your framework/RoB/RoJ.
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Speaker Points: I don't disclose speaker points. I don't give 30s because you tell me to for an argument.
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Engage your opponents. Avoid being rude and/or disrespectful.
If you have specific questions about specific arguments let me know.
Isabel Gomez Hernandez (She/Her/Ella)
-I was a policy debater for STEAM Legacy High School for a little more than 2 years.
-UCSC alumna with a B.A in Latin American Latino Studies/Sociology
-I try to explain who won at the end of each round and why. I also try to give advice to everyone so they can improve for their next round.
INCLUDE IN EMAIL CHAIN! Ggonzalez0730@gmail.com
Experience:
CSUF policy debate 5yrs (2010-2016)
The Los Angeles Metropolitan Debate League 2yrs (2008-2010)
Currently: Coach and Program Manager for The Los Angeles Metropolitan Debate League
I engaged and debated different types of literature: critical theory (anti-blackness and settler colonialism) and policy-oriented arguments during my early years of debate. I am not very particular about any type of argument. I think that in order to have a good debate in front of me you have to engage and understand what the other team is saying.
My experience in college debate and working with UDLs has taught me that any argument has the ability to or Critical arguments. All of them have a pedagogical value. It’s your job as the debater to prove to me why yours is a viable strategy or why your arguments are best. Prove to me why it matters. If you choose to go for framework or the politics DA, then justify that decision. I don’t really care if you go for what you think I like and if you are losing that argument then it would probably annoy me. Just do you.
Framework vs. Plan less or vague affirmatives
As a critical affirmative, please tell me what the affirmative does. What does the affirmative do about its impacts? If you are going for a structural impact, then please tell me how your method will alleviate that either for the world, debate, or something. I don’t want to be left thinking what does that affirmative does at the end of the 2ar because I will more likely than not vote negative.
I don’t mind framework as long as you can prove to me why the method that you offer for the debate, world, policy, etc. is crucial. Please explain how you solve for "x" harm or the squo goes. I promise you this will do wonders for you in front of me. I will not be doing the work for you or any of the internals for you. As long as your argument has a claim, warrant, and evidence that is clear, then what I personally believe is meh. You either win the debate based on the flow or nah.
Seems rudimental but debaters forget to do this during speeches.
Clarity
If I can't understand what you're saying when you are speaking, then I'll yell out "clear" and after the second time I yell out clear then I won't flow what I can't understand. I will also reduce your speaker points. I tend to have facial expressions during rounds. If you catch me squinting, then it is probably because I can’t understand what you are saying. Just slow down if that helps.
DA+ Counter Plans
Cp have to have a net benefit.
I need specific impact scenarios--just saying hegemony, racism, global warming, and nuclear war does not win the ballot please explain how we get to that point. I really like when a 2AR gives a good explanation of how the aff solves or how the affirmative triggers the impact.
Make sure to articulate most parts of the DA. just bc you have a big impact that doesn't mean much for me please explain how it relates to the affirmative especially in the rebuttal. impact comparisons are pretty good too.
Theory debates
Not my strong point, but if you are going for this which I understand the strategic reasoning behind this, then explain the "why its bad that X thing" and how that should outweigh anything else. Also, slow down during these debates especially on the interpretation.
Speaker Quirks to watch out for:
Being too dominant in a partnership. Have faith that your partner is capable of responding and asking questions during CX. If you see them struggling, then I am not opposed to you stepping in but at least give them a chance.
Lincoln Douglas
For the most part, my paradigm applies to much of the args made in this sector of the activity a couple of things that you should mindful of when you have me as a judge:
1) I appreciate disclosure, but any theory args that are made about disclosure I don't appreciate, especially if I wasn't in the room to make sure neg/aff accusation are actually being saiD. If I'm not in the room its just a case of "they said I said." If you have it in writing, then I guess I can appreciate your arg more. I would still vote on it, but its not a decision I am happy about.
2) Time: LD leaves a lot of unresolved problems for me as a judge. Please make sure:
aff with plan text *make sure to not forget about the plan solvency mechanism and how you solve for your harms. this should be throughout the debate but especially in the last speeches. I understand there is an issue of time but at least 30 sec of explaining aff mechanisms.
sympathetic towards time constraints but be strategic and mindful of where to spend the most time in the debate. Ex: if you are too focused on the impact when the impact is already established then this is time badly spent.
Negative:
If you are concerned with the affirmative making new arguments in the 2AR have a blip that asks judges not evaluate. Because of the time (6 vs 3min), I am usually left with lots of unresolved issues so I tend to filter the debate in a way that holistically makes sense to me.
DA (Reify and clarify the LINK debate and not just be impact heavy)
T ( make sure to impact out and warrant education and fairness claims)
I am one of the debate coaches and teacher advisors at Huntington Park High School, since the 2022-2023 school year.
Email: luisgonzalez4ed@gmail.com, pronouns: he/him/his
I have limited experience with debate, other than advising our team over the year and a half. I have background on the topic, given I am a Social Studies teacher who teaches US History and AP Government. I have judged about 10 rookie/novice rounds + 1 Varsity round and would consider myself to be an inexperienced judge, especially at the higher levels of debate.
Given my limited experience with debate and judging, here are my preferences:
- Speak clearly and at a conversational pace (no spreading) and especially emphasize key points and give clear, compelling judge instruction
- I am not into or well-versed in the technical or theoretical parts of debate. I am more appreciative of clash within the debate, especially during CX
- Both partners should participate equally
- Run your own times
- Respect each other and be kind
Marshall Green
MBA and USC
Yes email chain: marshallg448@gmail.com
TLDR:
Tech over everything. If you think you can out-tech your opponents on wipeout, then let it rip. I will do my best to judge solely off the flow and only read cards when instructed to or if there is contestation. I would rather see you go for the arguments your best at than my favorite arguments. However, I will only vote on the arguments if I can clearly explain them to the other team in an RFD.
IP Topic:
I judged a few debates on the topic. It's not good, not good one bit. The state of the topic should be prevalent in theory/competition debates.
CP:
Competition determines theoretical legitimacy in most instances.
I will default judge kick
Your advantage CP planks have to advocate for the implementation of an actual policy. "Increase supply chain resilience" does not meet that threshold absent a card that clearly defines what that entails. I will be more lenient than most with new 1AR answers.
Perm do the CP is underrated
Write counterplan texts correctly. Most texts I've seen compromise either the solvency, net benefit, or both.
Ks:
The "I must understand your argument to vote for you" is especially important here. If you think you've explained too much, you probably haven't. If you are arguing more technically (Aff or Neg), you will win.
Fairness is an impact. General clash impacts are fine, but specific clash impacts based on 1AC scenarios are awesome.
I am a 20-year-old undergrad. I should not be the arbiter of morals, especially on out-of-round callouts.
Huge fan of impact turns vs. K affs.
T/Theory:
These debates are either very good or awful. Articulate external impacts (no limits for the sake of limits) and do impact comparison.
Competing interps > reasonability
Predictability is more important than debatability by default but easily flipped.
The Negative probably gets condo and most other positions. Most theory interpretations are arbitrary and much better argued as a standard for competition.
Misc:
I am a slow flow. Go slower on analytics and be very clear. You’d be surprised how much slowing down a little helps.
Feel free to reach out If you have any questions about USC, the round, or anything else. Also, I study Cybersecurity and AI development in college, so if you have any questions about how to execute those areas in debate or any general questions about the field, don't hesitate to ask.
Open Source Disclosure and aesthetically pleasing Verbatimized Word docs should be an expectation. Please start doing that if you already haven't.
Every card you send in the body is -.1 speaker point.
Don't waste time. Send out emails before start time and limit dead time
Inserting rehighlights is fine.
You'll get good speaks if you do the following stuff: Be nice, respect your opponents, show that you're stoked being here, and not call me judge.
Debates, at their core, are questions of models. I care about what you do and what you justify, but will allow you to tell me how I should perceive, structure and evaluate that. Email Chain: Kdebatedocs@gmail.com
For Arthur Delores Invitational (Worlds):
ask questions, I’m happy to answer things. Above all, I love good spirited debate, strong refutations, collapsing down of arguments, strategic concessions, comparative weighing and framing. Tell me how I should be seeing the round so I don’t have to intervene and frame it myself and your rfd will likely follow suit! I tend to defer to the simplest ballot story to resolve things and tend not to to have the energy to weigh alternative ways in which the round could’ve gone, but I’ll give you recommendations of what might’ve gotten my ballot or where I felt I could’ve been persuaded.
- content — good presentation of information, structure,
- strategy — good debate tech, answering of questions, taking questions, etc
- style — in depth analysis of said content and its implications, your aesthetic representations of this
quals:
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Competed @Southwestern CC and Southern California in Policy (2021-2024)
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Coached LD, PF, Parli, @Flintridge Prep and Westridge School (2018 - 2023)
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Coaching Worlds and LD at Harvard-Westlake (2023-Present)
I'm happy to judge your debates. Below is a list of where I think I am great, good, and bad. Below that is generic thoughts you might need to know to get the highest possible speaks.
Debates I think I am great for
- K v K (love good K debate, love bad K debate)
- Case vs DA (this is 90% of what I see nowadays)
- Fw v Aff K / K vs Plan (I’m pretty good for framework and pretty good for the aff k, these are some of my favorite debates to watch. I’m not repping out for the K, but if it is won, I will vote)
- T vs Case (love a good t debate, fairness and edu are impacts, explain how clash or limits and other internal links connect to it, and I’ll vote on T)
Debates I think I’m good for
- Case v CP/DA (counterplan competition is something I’m trying to get into, but I really need you to walk me through competition and I’ll try to work with you here)
- Condo (not that im super sympathetic about condo, but I will vote on it if warranting and weighing is done well or dropped)
- Disclosure
- Ev ethics
- Non-res theory including and possibly limited to (Process CPs bad, Severance bad, etc)
Debates I know I am bad for
- Phil ( I find that debaters assume I am as familiar with their niche framework and do not explain what is offense for them or defense for them and I am very easily lost in these debates)
- Tricks
- Debates where the negative doesn’t collapse and expects me to make decisions for them
- Debates where the entire speech is read at the same speed without slowing down for areas that are of vital importance
Thoughts about debate:
- I love a good debate where the negative collapses and makes strategic decisions. I don’t like debates where I’m asked to do things like judgekick CPs.
- Theory threshold:
--- not high but I think blippiness is getting really out of hand, LD debaters need impacts to theory and clash is not an impact, it's a standard or an internal link to something -.- in policy, condo is cool. I will vote on condo but I have a high threshold for why you couldn't read the perm and a da to the alt, whereas in LD, time skew can be kind of persuasive
--- Friv theory is also getting out of hand, if you read things like punching theory, debaters must not wear shoes, these better be like K impact framing args and not independent voters tbh.
- I have a research background and would like you to do some work with your evidence. I am a strong proponent of doing more with less. I will read along as it happens. That being said, my contemporaries are considerably better card people, I did a lot of performance. (translation: pls dont put me in a 2nr/2ar debate about competition theory about the counterplan)
- I prefer people tell me how to evaluate their debates, framing included, what matters, what doesn't -- filtering / sequencing etc
- debates are simplest and imo best executed when people reduce the number of args and clarify their argumentation and spend more time discussing the relation to the other teams args / participation in relation to their args, as well as making the link -> impact story more persuasive.
- slow down a bit for me, speak louder for me, pen time for tags will boost your speaks with me
- Lastly, I tend to defer to the simplest ballot story possible. Please collapse and make a choice. I think thats the beauty of debate is winning your argument rather than forcing me to have to do the evaluation of a number of sheets in the 2nr. Basically, if you go into the 2nr with 4 off case and expect me to judgekick things, and make decisions on how to evaluate all of them, I'm going to be really upset.
I'll do my best to explain the world you've laid out for me in the debate and how I came to my decision in my RFD but I will not likely explain the the entire world of the debate in relation to the implication of (x) unless it helps me vote differently.
LHS ‘25
elianalincolndebate@gmail.com
I’ve been on my school’s debate team for around 3 years and am currently in varsity. I have a good amount of knowledge on this year’s topic and am extremely familiar with all the files. Some things to keep note of: don’t forget to give roadmaps and signpost; I'm ok with tag teaming and spreading; I love cx’s with good clash, but don’t be rude to your opponents; use whatever args you feel most comfortable with as long as they are unproblematic and give me judge instruction before the round.
Dorian (they/them)
chain -- debatedorian @ gmail.com
LAMDL from Downtown Magnets '23
now at CSULB Policy '27
debate mentions: Jean Kim (bestieeee), Aless Escobar (my db8 partner), Gabby Torres, Erika Linares, Curtis Ortega, Diego Flores, Deven Cooper, Jaysyn Green
OV
Run whatever you feel comfortable with. I am tech > truth & who did the better debate unless told otherwise. I receptive to arguments about what the ROJ/ROB means. Impact things out. So what if something was dropped, I won't weigh that into my decision unless you tell me why a dropped argument matters for the round. Make offensive arguments too please.
Speaks
I start at 28.5.Speed is fine but annunciate or it won't make it on my flow. Things that weigh into my speaks: CX, offense/defense arguments, line-by-line, "even if" arguments, using real world examples, conceding spare minutes, engagement with what the other side is saying.tag teaming is fine but I dislike only one partner speaking in CX the entire time.
I don't prefer to listen to arguments that interfere with the way I evaluate speaks (e.g., "give me a __", "tank my speaks after the round").
I will disclose speaks if you ask during the RFD
Ks & K Affs
I open to K-affs but do extensive work on how your K-Aff creates subject formation or changes subjectivities and why reading the K-aff in the debate space is good. And I think these arguments are inherently true and winnable but don't just automatically assume I'll believe this if it is not made clear in the round.
For the K, I appreciate a good link story. I have more confidence voting for the ALT if you're winning FW/why looking at the ideological representations of a plan is better than their interpretation. . .also don't assume i automatically know what you're talking about if you're running some higher theory things. If you're winning your interpretation of FW, I'm willing to vote that the ALT is a pre-req to solving the AFF.
On KvK, the theory of power debate is important to me. Make arguments on who has a better explanation of the world. I will be paying close attention to the perm debate here. And both sides should be utilizing ROB/ROJ here.
T & T-FW
here I think about models. So think outside of just your round. Make the net benefits of your model the highlight of every speech if this is what you're going for in addition to any DAs to your opponents's model. Against K-affs, I am persuaded by arguments that tell me debating the resolution is epistemologically valuable.
DA
For me to vote on the DA, have a good link story. You need to convince me that 1) the squo is better than what the aff says the squo is and 2) the aff makes the squo worse.
Theories
I'm willing to vote on things like disclosure and speed theory. I'm open to reject the team arguments. But like all arguments, impact it out for me.
LD specific
don't do tricks. everything else is the same
thx for reading
since u made it to the end something you should know about me is that i love cats. if you can guess what my fav cat breed is I will give you +0.1 on your speaker points (hint its an expensive cat and is kinda instagram-famous) tell me your guess before the round and I will tell you if you were right after the round (no one has guessed it correctly yet lol)
I'm a coach so I'm looking for a debate that's engaging and shows an understanding of the format as well as the information. I don't care for spreading in Rookie and Novice as I think the focus should be on the material; tag-teaming on cx may reveal an unprepared or uncoordinated team, or it may show one debater over-power its partner. Use your prep time wisely.
No clue why it still has my deadname on my judge paradigm, but please refer to me as Andres or just my last name (pronounced Jobe).
Email: jobbravodebate@gmail.com (they/he)
Affiliation: Bravo Medical Magnet '24 / UC Irvine '28
I am happy to answer any questions you have before and after the round.
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TLDR; Run whatever you want as long as you follow the structure of the argument and do not be a menace to people. Please give me judge instruction, tell me why everything you're saying is important. Speak clear and loud and ask me if I'm ready to hear your speech. I only vote based on what I have on my flow paper, which means you MUST let me know what you're saying. Don't cheat and bring in new arguments in later speeches, I will take off speaker points. PLEASE KNOW THAT I AM A JUDGE WHO IS VERY VERY VERY VERY KEEN ON FAIRNESS AND FOLLOWING THE RULES. Your speaker points start at 28.0 and go up or down based on your performance throughout the round. Have fun!!
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Long Paradigm:
Although I enjoy watching specific types of debates, I will still evaluate any arguments that you run; feel free to run CPs, DAs, T, K's, K-Affs, soft left, big stick, etc. However, I will not vote for you if you are racist/ sexist/ homophobic/ transphobic/ ableist, derogatory, or rude. If any of you degrade others or me at any point of the debate(before, during, or after the debate started), I will give you an auto-L, lowest speaker points available, an extremely long lecture, and will contact your coach. I trust you to be good people.
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Speaker Points:
The baseline for speaks is 28.0. It will go up depending on your ability to perfect the Holy Trinity: Format, Performance, and Technicality.
1. Format: follow the format of the arguments I gave you above. Follow the time structure of debate. This should be the easiest points to win and would give you a decent.
2. Performance: have clarity, have a good tempo and speed, BE PASSIONATE WHEN SPEAKING. This also means that when you're speaking you must be confident, and not pause a lot in the middle of your speech because you're not sure what else to say. This also means you MUST use all of your speech time or else it shows unpreparedness. KEEP TRACK OF YOUR TIME.
3. Technicality: The hardest thing in the world for debaters apparently. This means: NOT DROPPING ARGUMENTS, ANSWERING ARGUMENTS EFFECTIVELY, CALLING OUT DROPPED ARUGMENTS, DOING IMPACT CALC, JUDGE INSTRUCTIONS, OVERVIEWS, EFFECTIVE LINE BY LINE, ETC.). I weigh this above the other 2 standards, which means if you do poorly at this you will probably expect your speaker points to NOT be higher than a 28.1 and be around the 27.2-27.8 range.
Things that will drop your speaker points (that don't fall under Holy Trinity):
- Typing when it's NOT prep time (sending docs, bathroom break, etc.)
- Still talking after speech time is over (I will tell you when I permit cross ex after time is over)
- Card clipping (plz highlight your cards)
- Reading new cards in rebuttals (with the exclusion of 1nr)
- New arguments in the neg block and beyond
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Preferences For Rounds (1-10 scale)
Soft-Left Policy vs. K: 3/10 Eh not the best debates I've judged
Soft-Left Policy vs. Policy: 7/10 love it, wish I saw more of these
Big Stick Policy vs. K: 6/10 More interesting clash and the impact debate is most interesting
Big Stick Policy vs. Policy: 7/10 policy v. policy is cool
K-Aff vs. K: 5/10 hit or miss with this ... pls pls pls only run Ks if you know how to run them
K-Aff vs. Policy: 10/10 I love creative debates, they offer refreshment in my judging career
Counterplans:
NEG: I will not vote on or evaluate CPs with no CP text. that being said, feel free to run a CP, BUT you must have a CLAIM and a WARRANT as to why it's better than the aff. You want to prove to me that you have a net benefit the aff can't access and show that you solve better. Often times, debaters either get lost in the permutation debate and ultimately doesn't give the judge a clear story on how the CP works and how it interacts with the aff plan. If the affirmative calls you out on dropping permutations, I will weigh it against you and it will make it very hard for me to vote for you on the CP.
A lot of neg debaters I've come across are confused on the CP structure, so I'll give it here. I will NOT give you good speaker points if you can't abide by basic debate structure.
AFF: I want to see a permutation at the top of my CP flow in the 2ac. Extend it until the end. I enjoy it when an aff team runs multiple permutations and only go for 1 perm in the 1ar. If you drop the permutation and don't have any good defense against the CP and the neg team calls you out for it, I will most likely vote neg (given that they've explained what it means to drop the perm)
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Disads:
For the sake of my sanity PLEASE have IMPACT CALC. This goes for both aff and neg.
NEG: Follow the structure of a DA: uniqueness, link, internal link, impact. If I don't see this structure on my flow, it will be hard to want to vote for you. If you're using the DA as a net benefit to the CP, I want to hear the distinction or I will not put it on my flow. If the affirmative calls you out on not including all the components of the DA/drop your arguments, I will ultimately believe that the affirmative does not trigger the impacts of the DA.
AFF: please respond to all components of the DA and do impact calc. PLEASE HAVE OFFENSE AGAINST THE DA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Theory/Topcality:
I love theory and topicality, IF done right. If you're running T when the other side clearly doesn't violate, I will not appreciate it. Even if you're using T as a time skew make it somewhat relevant and interesting. I don't vote on Disclosure Theory unless I see valid proof / the tournament rules say so.
NEG: If you're going to go for theory please extend all your points and belabor the reason why it's a voter for education and fairness. I need a card provided to support your interpretation for whichever word you're defining.
AFF: Counter-interpretation need a card. RVI get out of here
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Kritiks/K-Affs:
NGL getting kind of boring here, I'm very tired of debaters running Ks without knowing the literature and the structure of the K. I would prefer if the neg team sticks to policy negs if you're certain you can't make a K interesting to me in this debate round.
NEG:
- I don't like Cap K but I'll still vote on it!
- As a native/indigenous debater who ran a bunch of set col performance k's and k-affs... pls try not to read set col unless one of yall identify as indigenous, especially if the alternative is to embrace some sort of indigenous praxis.... I get really uncomfortable hearing people read over experiences of indigenous folk for the sake of having an argument
- I don't like Postmodernism...........
- Every other K is good as long as you have proper framework and have specific links, I don't think the alternative has to be valid for the neg to win on K-- just need to prove aff links and make squo uniquely worse
AFF:K-Affs w/ no plan text or advocacy statement pls no...... must have some form of advocacy or clear goal thank youuu. What I said for the neg applies here!
Harut Kejejyan ( kejejyanharut@gmail.com) - add me to the email chain.
Highschool Debate - Bravo Medical Magnet High School for 2 years: LAMDL Alumni
College Debate - Fullerton College - 2 Years
Currently Debating for CAL State Fullerton
HealthCare Topic - Bernie Sanders Counterfactual
Executive Power - D&G
Space - Techno-Ableism Aff
I am currently majoring in Communication Studies and Sociology.
Speaker Scale
29.5 - 30 - One of the best speakers at the Tournament. Most likely going to be in Elims.
29 - 29.4 - Very good speaker, clear, and easy to flow. Unique arguments.
28- 29 - Good Speaker, Needs Improvement on Tech Debate, I will highlight what I believe you need to do Improve on during RFD
< 28 - I usually refrain from giving anything below a 28 unless you have done/said something problematic (ie. Card Clipping,
Paradigm Last Updated 9/19/2020 - Jack Howe
Prefer Spreading to be clear and understandable, I will tell you to slow down if you become unclear (Clarity First)
If you have any problems during the debate PLEASE! Notify Me so we can resolve the issue. If at any point in the debate you feel uncomfortable once again bring it to my attention, Debate rounds should be a safe space where ideas can be discussed openly without judgment. Respect! Comes first, if you are rude or inconsiderate on more than one occasion I will deduct speaker points, you don't have to be rude to get your point across.
Evidence Matters!!! God please use and extend your evidence, arguments that are just read and never talked about are really confusing, and frankly, you wasted your time if you're reading evidence you're not using.
CX
I love a good CX, even if it gets a little heated but DONT attack your opponent during CX
Overall: I love a good debate! The round should be a place where you give everything you got because if you don't your arguments will suffer. I want to see you express everything you been prepping for. Don't panic just breathe and you'll be fine the worst that can happen is you lose, even you win in some sense. Can't wait to see everyone debate.
P.S: Have some emotion when you're reading the evidence, makes a big difference.
Email: mking9493@polahs.net
Hello I’m Marterria/ Marti I go to Polahs i’m in 12th grade l have been debating for 3 years and am a varsity debater.
Tag teaming is okay I’m not picky about anything just be respectful to everyone in the room.
You can throw out the most bizarre arguments and win but you NEED TO EXPLAIN IT WELL like for example "nuclear war good" you can win on if you explain it well. BUT racist, homophobic, and sexist argument are never and will never be okay and you will lose and get low speaks.cp, da, and t’s are all good but if you don’t know how to run them fake it till you make it perform.
Clash IS GOOOD but don’t get out of hand keep it respectful. I love CLASH like show me your passion about it.
Port of Los Angeles '24. Pomona College '28.
A product of urban debate. If you are from NAUDL or come from NAUDL-adjacent schools, reach out. I would love to help.
TL;DR
4 years of experience on the national circuit. Even split of reading K and policy affs. I went for whatever on the negative. This included the K and jargony process counterplans. I cared about winning.
I've never debated LD, but I'm good enough for LD arguments that (even remotely) resemble policy ones.
My ideal round is one in which downtime is minimal, if not zero. Debaters have their email chains set up before the round, 1AC begins right on start time, move onto cross-ex right after their speech, and send out docs promptly.
Top Level Thoughts
Tech > Truth in most instances. My truth can be incredibly different from yours. The decisions I try to produce are entirely based on what's on my flow—if I miss an argument, it is likely a communicative issue.
Everything is probabilistic. Some things are more probable than others, but don't expect me to evaluate what's more probable in the real world if you've completely lost it on the flow.
The final rebuttals should tell me where to start my decision and open with the words they want me to repeat back to them in the RFD.
LD
Topic knowledge is close to zero.
I don't feel comfortable evaluating tricks, friv theory, and phil (including Kant) and should probably be really low or struck on your pref sheet.
Good for policy and K debate.
From the rounds I've judged, it feels like LD is fairly new to framework offense that frames topicality and its performance of it as a microaggression. I think answers are often poor unless the debaters come from a school with a large policy program attached to it.
Other things that matter
Confusingly good for both the K and framework because these were both my 2NRs and 2ARs. I feel comfortable in these debates. Don't care if the 2NR goes for clash or fairness, and don't care if you impact turn or have a model.
Soft-left affs should realistically win every debate if you know how to debate the K and do impact calculus.
Bad for counterplan competition debates that take 2-3 minutes of your 2NR. Good for DAs that make sense.
You should pref me high if your primary strategy is the K. Lower than judges who coach K teams and actively read the literature, but higher than everyone who claims to be "tabula rasa, middle ground" judges for the K. They're really not middle ground and you know it.
Allowing inserts of re-highlights lowers the barrier for calling out bad evidence, which is objectively good. I also just don't care about evidence quality that much compared to most other judges. I will assume the contents of a card are almost always true, and absent a flagging of the poor evidence, I'll assume truth when writing my RFD. When bad evidence is called out, I'll read it to see who's telling the truth.
I find post-rounding to be useless because it usually is just for an ego boost to compensate for a loss. This is not to say I won't condone it, but rather, you should find something better to do with your time and conserve your energy because me changing my mind after the round will do nothing for you on Tab.
My ballot probably has little power to adjudicate issues that occurred outside of the round. I'll use my ballot to punish unethical performance and evidence in rounds. Decisions on anything external to in-round violations probably happen above my pay grade.
Haven’t had any debates on this topic, so be sure to be easy for lingo/concepts.
Experience: 3 years of policy debate in high school. 2 years in varsity, 2 Tournaments JV/Novice.
VHTPA: 2021-2024
Contact + Email Chain: Ultranick10@gmail.com
I am new to judging but have a good amount of debate experience to know majority of things.
Prefs:
If you spread, please send out a doc, also try not to spread analytics that you don’t send out, I can only write so fast.
Good with all arguments, just make sure to take your time and go everything and explain what you’re doing and why you are winning.
Tag teaming is fine, just make sure it’s not just one person for every cross.
Properly sign post, tell me which argument y’all are on.
Have fun!
I would like to be on the email chain please! Email is amy.lopez1354@gmail.com
Pronouns are she/her!
I'm Amy Lopez! Debated at LAMDL for 3 years (took a break junior year). Now I attend USC, am part of their debate team, and get to judge.
I'm not too familiar with the high school topic so bear with me
I believe the debaters should frame the debate, tell me how to judge! Do what you're most comfortable with. I'm fine with anything, just make sure to be clear, make sure to explain/weigh your arguments, and have fun! :) Also don't be homophobic/transphobic/racist/ableist, will dock speaker points or interrupt you.
other/general:
- pls don't be rude, attitude is fine but there is a very fine line
- be respectful during cx!
Add me to the chain: dlperez9129@polahs.net
POLAHS '24
UC Davis '28
Tech >> Truth
Do what you do best. Don't let my opinions of debate and my preferred style affect your strategy / arguments. If you argue your side well chances are I will vote for you.
However that does not excuse any arguments that pertain to racism, misogyny, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia, etc. Don't be disrespectful or hateful toward any individual or group in the rounds.
Top level thoughts:
My decision will begin where the 2NR and 2AR tell me to start. Extrapolate any warrants from cards you feel I need to evaluate, especially if the debate comes down to card quality and key warrants.
I will not look at evidence during your speech so this will hold you accountable for your clarity and speed. Whatever is on my flow I will evaluate it. I will not connect any dots for you and will not do any form of judge intervention.
Policy AFFS:
No I don't know what your aff does so explain it. Clarify any confusing portions during the 1ac cx. I don't care if your aff has extinction impacts as long as you're able to justify the method and the consequences. However soft left affs are strategic vs a K especially when doing a method of harm reduction.
K AFFS:
I use to run alot of K affs during the 2022-2023 topic. So I'm so what familiar with the T-FW debate. Explain it to me well enough to understand your method. The aff should be about the resolution with some topic links. AFFS should defend a method, and I'm hoping that the neg does not have a gross mischaracterization of the aff by saying things such as "the aff does nothing". The aff def should punish the neg for not going for framework in the 2NR if they fail to kick out of it properly. Cross-applying DA's and pieces of offense onto other flows can be very strategic even if the 1AR doesn't sufficiently cover everything. Especially beneficial for the 2AR and it allows you to get away with a brand new speech.
Framework:
The 2NR should go for one impact, access the aff's offense with a TVA/SSD, and answer any of the affs impact turns. The 2AR doesn't need a C/I and impact turns are just as strategic but 2AR pivots depend on the aff and the literature base. And if the debate comes down to the counter-interp you should define what debates under your model of debate looks like and why xyz teams model of debate is worse for debate in the 2AR/2NR speeches.
Topicality:
Very comfortable with debates that deal with T, most rounds against K teams would go for T. Most of the time teams would go for T against me. I am by no means an expert in any specific literature base so I will not go into debate rounds with pre-dispositions on what a resolution means by xyz. Debaters should be able to do the contextualizing surrounding warrants. I tend to find limits and debatability more exciting and enjoyable than predictability / ground but im not gonna care if you go for those arguments. As said above if the 2NR collapses the flow to be a debate about models, the two final speeches should do comparative work to talk about what debates under their models look like.
Counterplans:
Love cps especially good ones. Although I do kinda dislike when a team reads 3+ cps with just a plan text or a vague card. But if argued well in the block and the 1AR is light on responding will definitely vote for it. Process cps and advantage cps legit insane work, not as good evaluating these types of cps and their impacts but will do my best just explain it very well. I ran a few of these cps but very rarely because they are very
LAMDL related:
If you want extra speaks talk about Desiree Delgadillo, 3rd place speaker at NAUDL! Also jun kwon national champion. Automatic +.5 speaks if you mention them during your speech. They my goats!!!
Hello beautiful people!
I am AJ Lozano and I'm thankful and ecstatic to be your judge today. Thank you so much for engaging and participating!
PLEASE INCLUDE ME IN THE E-MAIL CHAIN
ajloracdebate@gmail.com
A Little Bit About Me:
I am a go-with-the flow kind of person, so my actions will reflect the vibe I am getting from you guys, as the debaters.
However, don't get me wrong. I am very easy to talk to and please do not hesitate to ask me any questions.
I debated Policy for five years, been involved with different types of debate for eight years, and now happy with my work with different debate leagues on the West Coast for Speech and Debate. I am cool with any argument- Ks, Theories, etc.
Rules/Requests
With that being said, I am a rather strict judge and I have rules/requests while I am in this round with you all.
1) Please be kind to one another! I understand in the heat of the moment, everything can be frustrating and sometimes, you just want to yell. However, kindness is my philosophy and goal in life! Friendship does not matter in your joking/fooling around, I do not want it to occur within the supposed 64-80 minutes of the round. Although, pre- and post- round, go ahead and joke around and hug each other.
2) I will always be the official timer! You may keep time for yourself as a reference, but once my timer goes off- TIME IS DONE! ***IF THE TEAM SAYS THEY'RE OPEN/READY FOR CX OR PREP TIME, TIME WILL START. No need to say "starting time in..." It's already going :)
3) SIGNPOSTING- Please do it. I want for your words to be properly understood and interpreted so let me know whether you're on-case and specify your off-case. Ideas will come back to you so let me know if you are moving back to something different.
3)SPREADING- is always allowed. However, I do request slowing down when reading the tag. If I do not understand what you are saying, I am not going to flow it.
4) Cross-Examination: I ask you to please use this time wisely and strategically. Please note that I will flow CX. It will be considered as an argument. I generally do not mind tag-teaming, but ensure your opponents are comfortable too- they have the final say. Also, this phrase is popular but works differently with everyone. Be very careful when you use "This is my CX..." It may or may not look good on your speaker points.
5) REMEMBER: You are talking to me- not the other team. I am in the conversation- NOT listening to one.
6) PROFANITY: You can curse in a GENERAL sense! PLEASE, do not curse at another debater! This will result in an automatic low speaker rating, despite amazingness of speech content. Stay kind, but feel free to use words to emphasize!
DISCLOSURE
I will always give feedback on anything from speaking to arguments that were run. However, the disclosure of speakers points and who won is based on how I saw the round-depending on how the debaters make me feel. It's hard to piss me off, so please don't :) I've almost always disclose. If it takes me a long time, I'm sorry :P
Entering each round, I have no bias or preference. I am evaluating what I see and hear within the round. Convince me, persuade me. All in all, enjoy, have fun, and good luck!
Lincoln High School '25
No preferences regarding arguments. As long as you're very clear on what you're running and make sure to give roadmaps and signpost, I'll flow it. Don't focus too much on speaker points, I won't be harsh :) just have fun, and run whatever args you want!
Make sure you know what you’re arguing and have a kinda solid understanding of the topic! Other than that have fun and be respectful :)
Debated for Downtown Magnets High School 2019-2023
Currently debate for Cal State Fullerton
NAUDL Quarters
LAMDL 2022-23 City Champion
Add to email chain: Davidm57358@gmail.com
Coached by: THE GOAT VONTREZ WHITE, Jared Burke, DSRB, Toya, Anthony Joseph, Travis, Yardley Rosas, Elvis Pineda, Chris Enriquez
Any questions you have regarding my paradigm or way of thinking in debate please refer to vontrez white at wvontrez@gmail.com
Tech > Truth
For the larger part of high school I strictly ran big stick affs and strict policy strategies. I almost always run the K in college now.
Read whatever you feel most comfortable with I will vote on almost any argument. No tricks.
Specifics:
Case:
Love a good case debate extend warrants. Don't card dump if you don't need to good warrant extensions far o/w me having to flow all your cards. Not too versed in the policy side of the world so I may not fully understand your aff until way later in the debate which means either sit on the ov explanation or use key words in the 1ac to answer your opponents arguments. Good rehighlighting will get extra speaks I think debaters often get away with pretty bad evidence and you should def take a moment to call it out.
T:
Policy: I am not your judge for this debate. I usually buy reasonability over competitive interpretations but I can also be swayed the other way. If your strat is T and I'm in the back spend a good amount of time on the explanation of the topic and why they dont meet I'm not versed at all in high school topics so dont expect me to just know what your talking about.
T/FW: I'm good with these debates. While I would not rather hear these debates in my rounds I'm more than willing to vote on them. I'm often persuaded by subjectivity shifts and don't think debate is a competitive activity is persuasive but if you have warrants I'm more than willing to hear it out.
CP:
CP are fun. Don't make me flow a 1nc cp that just has a plan text. Utilize severence and intrisic theories on the permutations although reject the argument is more convincing than reject the team. I will vote on reject the team but if not impacted out well enough I'll throw it away. ADV CP are fine although explaining mechanisms again is a must for me.
DA:
Pretty ok with these types of debates. Be creative with your DA's will definitely give great speaker points for a unique DA.
K:
K debates are amazing. I'm more than likely to evaluate K debates as truer than other debates which is from my personal bias but this does not mean I'll do the work for you. Assume I know nothing and explain the arguments to me. I'm familiar with abolition, set col, cap, and racial cap but if you get more into the pomo debates I am not your judge for them. Don't overcomplicate it and keep it simple.
K Affs:
Same applies to above. Go for the impact turns on T. C/I should provide some stasis point but can be convinced otherwise. Performance teams should really be extending their performance throughout the entire debate not sure why most teams end at the 1ac and you should definitely have your performance as a reason you should win the round.
Speaker Points begin at 28.5 I do not disclose speaker points.
additionally will give extra speaker points if you can add some humor to your speeches!
overall, just have fun. Debate is a space that we all engage in to learn and enjoy. That being said be respectful of the other team and be mindful of the language that you use. Any inappropriate language or behavior will not be tolerated and will be reported instantly to Tabroom and Coaches.
Good with spreading and tag teaming. Love impact calc. Provide road map and or sign post when moving on. If you have any specific questions, feel free to ask. Speaker points will start at 27.5 and go up or down.
She/her
3 years experience as a policy debater
Judging/Coaching & Teaching debate since 2017
Big fan of radical reform arguments and analytic-heavy argumentation.
Totally open to weighing T and Framework as voters in the round, but if they are THE voter give it it's due diligence. As far as K's and DA's go, you need to sell me on your link story so your impacts and alts are logical next steps and not reaches or jumps. At the end of the day, if you can sell the argument to me I'm likely to buy it. Do your thing! I don't subscribe to the idea that a debater should shift their strategy to cater to a judge, a judge should weigh what is presented and not value an argument based on their own debate style.
Beyond clarity, technicality, and presenting ability; the better you are at demonstrating content knowledge, developing arguments beyond simply reading evidence, and weaponizing in round happenings for offense: the higher the speaker points distributed will be. The only individual action that will negatively affect my ballot is if discourse gets too catty/heated between debaters and if after being warned said verbal aggression/rudeness/etc. continues: then speaks will be docked.
Email chain: I.claud33@gmail.com
They/ Them - She/Her
Policy debate for three years in high school at regional circuit.
No oppressive language. No card cutting/ clipping. No hateful language. No more than 5 off.
Violation of this will result in low speaks or a losing ballot, probably both.
PLS no new args in the rebuttals. Im not going to eval them. Im really not.
CX: speaks start at 28.5 and go up based on performance, clarity, tech execution of args, strat, persuasion, and manners:) - give me my rfd and that will def help lol.
I don think ive ever given a 30 but tbh im not sure what an ideal speech would be. I need to think on that.
Tag team Cx is fine
Keep ur own time, keep each other accountable. I forget all the time to stop prep (literally the most important thing)
If it’s not in the flow, it didn’t happen
If I can’t hear/ understand you- I will let u know “clear”
I flow on paper so if u make a qwk analytic I’m so sorry to tell u, but I probably didn’t get it
General:
Pretend I am a big illiterate baby.
I have never seen a news outlet. I don't scroll social media. I don't look out windows. I have never ever existed before this debate round, explain everything to me.
Contextualize every piece of ev and EXTENSIVE analysis on what the voters are.
Specifics:
K
Love the k.
I’m familiar with: Set Col, Cap and Chicano
But I'm always willing to become familiar with more :)
Links can be re-highlighted ev, generated during cx, or can be based off their plan text. However, that does not mean read three pieces of Link ev, after two cards your time would be better spent contextualizan the link and preempting perm args
Aff
Good with any impact. Just pay attention to the framing.
K aff
I like K affs. Best k affs are those that dont sideline the res and rather make a stasis point for decent ground so you can access ur education impx.
IF ur rapping/singing/ performing in a 'non-traditional' way, then I need you to tell me how to flow it- analyze what your performance specifically did in the context of this round, in your own words. Ex: if ur singing chappell roan, i want some analysis on how chappell roan is either key to solvency or whatever.
I can vote for a TVA or a kvk, i pref kvk.
DA/CP
Internal link. Internal link. Internal link. If you don't make the storyline straight, I will not buy your impact. Ideally should be a net benefit to a cp.
Cp: Net benefit. Net benefit. Net benefit. I will one hunddo vote on tva or perm on presumption.
but perms must be fully fleshed out, I should not be left wondering after the 2ac the how and when of the perm. Solvency defcts should be clarified with the perm.
Debate is first and foremost a research game.
0. General:
chain for policy/general questions
chain for ld (pls add both)
Coaching: Isidore Newman, Coppell, IVA High
Conflicts:a few LAMDL teams.
Debate Shoutouts: Deven Cooper, Dayvon Love, Diego "Jay-Z" Flores, Erika Linares, Geo Liriano, Jaysyn Green, Daniel Medina, Destiny Popoca, Lauren Willard, Cameron Ward, Isai Ortega, Andres Marquez, Elvis Pineda, J-Beatz, Dorian Gurrola, Aless Escobar, Jean Kim, Gavie Torres, Clare Bradley, and all of #LAMDLGANG.
"IR topics are cool bc we learn abt the world and stuff" - E.C. Powers, Wyoming Debate 5/22/23.
1. Pref Guide:
General: Currently entering my junior year and currently debate for CSULB (2 years of NDT-CEDA debate, 3 1/2 of LAMDL Debate) and have about 2 years of circuit judging experience. I care a lot about debate. Whether or not I should can be changed by persuasive argumentation.
Judging Style: I judge based what's on the flow, and the flow only. Judge intervention is silly and I try not to do it unless I absolutely need to fill in the gaps. Offense/Defense paradigm is how I evaluate debates, and will vote for the team that did the better debating unless told otherwise. Dropped args are true args, but need to be impacted out. No judge kick, make your own decisions and for the love of god start the round on time. Speaks will reflect all of these instances.
There are little predispositions that I have about debate that cannot be changed by good debating. Any endorsement of violence/racism/homophobia/transphobia is an auto-L + nuked speaker points. Ev-ethics includes shifty citational practices/ev misconstruction or clipping. All ethics challenges stop the debate with no room for continuation. In most scenarios I'm not looking at the doc, which means you should probably have a recording of the speech as proof.
I care about evidence quality far less than most judges. In most instances, substantive debating overrides bad debating with assertion of (X) piece of evidence or (X) author, however I prefer both a good combination of both. I care more about line by line, 3rd/4th level testing, and in-depth clash as opposed to just "how good evidence is". If I wanted to read evidence, I would read a book. I judge debates to see debaters debate out arguments, and reading evidence as a starting point for an RFD when not contested seems paradoxical to the activity.
I do not yell clear during C.I.A. level ear-torturing tactics. Clarity is important, and if you are unclear, the decision and speaks will reflect such. If you ask me about an argument that you "made" that didn't have the effect on a decision you thought it did, it's because you either a. did not explain it well enough to make it that way or b. it was absolutely incoherent and I did not hear or understand it.
LD Specific: Do what you want, everything else applies from above applies.
2. Random/Misc:
Good Speaks Guide: Please do not delay the round/lallygag around, be excessively rude to your opponents, or endorses/argue for any isms. If you start the round on time, set up the email chain before I get into the room, and be generally funny/charismatic, you will get good speaks.
Song Challenge: I usually start speaks at 28.5 and move up/down depending on performance. On a softer note, I usually will listen to music while I write my RFD. Most times, I already have decided a winner after the 2AR has ended, but I always go over my flow/notes one last time before I write or submit my ballot. I love listening to new music, and I listen to every genre imaginable. That being said, I love to hear the tunes y'all have been jamming to recently. To encourage such behavior, debaters have an opportunity to garner extra speaks based on their music suggestions. Each team is allowed to give me one song to listen to while I write my RFD. It cannot be a song I've heard before. If I like the song, you will receive a +.1 to your speaker points. If I don't like it, you won't receive any extra, but I also won't redact any from your original score.
Advice/Help: If you are from LAMDL, debate for a UDL or public school without coaching, I'm willing to help with advice or questions y'all may have.
Background Info:
ELC '21-debated for 4 years (cx)
USC '25
Add me to the email chain: Isaiortega28@gmail.com
General stuff
Be clear when spreading
Tech>truth even tho truth frames how I should evaluate args
I'm open to any type of argument, as long as it isnt problematic, so go crazy lol. None of the preferences I'll list below will override what team did the better debating so do what you do best, I'm comfortable judging all types and styles of debate. BUT, if you do adjust your strat a bit based on my specific preferences, you'll likely have a better chance in winning my ballot and get better speaks.
As for a general preference (or what you might look for when ranking judges): I’m mostly a K debater but I’m also cool with judging any type of debate style.
Line by line is great.
Tag teaming is cool.
No new args in the rebuttal part of the debate will be evaluated.
Don't clip
Usually flow straight down so lmk if I need to switch something up when giving me the order of the speech.
If you display any form of racism, sexism, etc., I'll automatically vote you down so be respectful and if at some point you feel uncomfortable in the debate, lmk
lastly, have fun! Debate is a pretty cool activity (even tho its pretty stressful at times) so try to enjoy yourselves.
Specifics
Aff:
In high school, I was often reading soft left affs so I sorta prefer these debates. But don't let this stop you from running any big imp affs! As long as you debate it properly and handle the framing/imp framing, you should be good.
-If you're reading a K-Aff, give me a reasonable and good explanation of your solvency. Tell me what the ballot means and why it's important (and if you imp turn, tell me why your analysis comes first). I recommend imp turning fw even tho a counter interp can help limit or minimize neg offense. And if you're debating fw, I prefer imp turns bc its pretty clear that you're not debating according to the rez (depends on the k-aff)so you might as well tell me why your form of debate is better and list your standards and impacts well throughout the debate and why your analysis comes first.
Neg: Throughout high school, I usually read kritiks more than any other thing. I usually read a lot of Set col but I'm open to other Kritiks as well (Biopolitics is kinda cool ngl--read this a few times but didnt really add it to my strat) and I think I have a good understanding for most kritiks except maybe some high theory stuff (Deleuze, somewhat Baudrillard, etc.). However, you should assume I know nothing about your kritik and explain it in a good manner that doesnt lead me to assuming a ton of jargon and literature. I'm cool with voting for DA and CP's as long as you have a good Link/imp scenario and a good net benefit. But plz have a good Internal link...i get frustrated when the link is pretty dope but has no correlation to the imp so give me a good scenario
DA: Plz do impact calc. it does a lot for you and the debate and is a good way to evaluate args and impacts. Make sure to have a good Internal Link and do good on the link work. Also, make sure your evidence is pretty relevant to the DA so dont give me a politics disad with evidence from an year ago.
CP: Make sure the DA and the CP exist in the same world and explain the process of the cp. I won't judge kick cp, do it yourself. Make sure the cp has a net benefit and is actually competitive. And when answering perms, dont group em all together as one perm.
K: I think I've mentioned some stuff about the K already but when debating a kritik, explain it to me like I'm unfamiliar with the kritik and know nothing about it. Don't assume I'm familiar with the lit and impact your args out. Though I may know a lot of the jargon you're referencing, it's important that your ov and blocks arent heavy in terms of lit bc then its just rambling. Though ov's are great and whatnot, often times ppl are to block reliant so that eliminates any actual line by line debating so try to minimize being block reliant.
I love a good fw debate but I will say that I tend to allow the aff getting to weigh the aff.
As for the links, try to have as many case specific links as possible and make sure you carry the links throughout the debate. I also need you to impact out your links and explain to me why the aff's actions make the sq uniquely worse. With this link story, I also need a good alt debate and an analysis of why the alt solves for the issues of the K
T: T debates are pretty cool. I tend to like education impacts more so contextualizing and being specific are important for me. I also think that in order to win, your interp needs to show me a definition more predictable and that the literature (evidence of the interp) needs to be in context of the rez, not some simple webster def stuff.
Theory (procedural): I'm just eh about it tbh. It's not my strongest area but I understand some stuff. Make a good arg and do a lot of imp comparison and show how the other team essentially skews the round by going forward with their strat. Do this and you should be fine.
Stuff that might boost your speaks:
- if you bring me a snack or a drink (xxtra hot cheetos is the move, gatorade, idk something cool)
my info:
erin.panguito@gmail.com
she/they
I did policy at Downtown Magnets High School in LAMDL for a little over 3 years.
Not super familiar with this resolution, tech over truth, I was mostly a K debater if that means anything. Have fun!
Background: I debated for a highly-competitive high school that traveled to national events before debating at USC. I have coached at several schools over the years, and I currently work as a full time teacher at LBCPM, a proud member of LAMDL, where I am the head debate coach. I was a 2A for most of my career, and I usually ran traditional policy arguments.
My "Why" Statement: Learning about government, politics, and political philosophy prepared me to work in the real world, both in congress and later in the classroom where I now teach Economics, U.S. Government, and U.S. History. I think that learning about America - both the good and bad - and the various policies it could enact right now has immense value. I also work with non-profit groups to promote civics education and financial literacy in the classroom.
What you can run:Generally speaking, any argument can be presented unless it violates an actual law or rule of the tournament and/or league. I am a teacher, and I like think I am am empathetic person, so I promise I will do my best to ensure the environment is productive and professional. I think anything that qualifies as targeted harassment, threats, or makes the debate space so hostile to others that they should not reasonably be required to debate requires me to contact tournament staff or intervene in the round. I find that this community is fantastic overall, especially in recent years, and I do not expect to be in this position often, if at all.
My Preferences: I think education about real-world policy is very important, and I most enjoy arguments that engage with the topic clearly. I also vote on framework, theory, and topicality when it is well-argued. I don't strictly prefer one argument type over another, but if I can't understand what is happening I will probably not vote for you. That said, I do like the freedom of policy debate and I will for non-traditional strategies if they are well-explained. I will always strive to be as fair as I possibly can. In some cases, I really need you to teach me about your argument before I can evaluate it properly, especially newer theory, as my work does not allow me enough time to read the source material for everything I might encounter.
Checklist:
Spreading - OK
Tag Team CX - OK
Email Chain - YES, ADD ME (see email at bottom)
Pronouns - He/Him
Arguments Allowed - All
Favorite Strat - DA + CP
Marked Cards - Send revised version ASAP
Default Paradigm - Policymaker
Truth v.s. Tech - Tech
Prompting - If you are just saying "move on" or "answer this" once or twice it's fine, but if you are giving your partner's speech it's going to cost you both points. I do not like yelling out entire sentences to repeat word-per-word.
Independent Voters - OK, but prefer less voters with more explanation
Speech Doc - I would prefer the full doc, but if you send cards only I will do my best.
Speaker Points Scale:
30. Perfection. I couldn't see you improving in this round in any reasonable way. Rarely given.
29.5-29.9: One of the best speakers in the tournament. Strategic decisions were ideal, spoke clearly, and was charismatic.
29 - 29.4: Very good speaker. Above average strategic decisions, very clearly spoken, and overall fairly persuasive. Or exceptional at some but not all things.
28.5 - 28.9: Good speaker. Average performance in this round in terms of strategy, clarity, and persuasiveness.
28 - 28.4: Solid speaker who kept up with the debate to some degree but made significant mistakes.
27 - 27.9: Beginner-level speaker for their division who needs significant work on the fundamentals but was able to compete to a some degree.
< 27: You have made multiple major mistakes in this round, didn't use your time, and/or were extremely unclear.
< 26: You have done something problematic.
25 The zero point of debate.
------------------------------
Remember to have fun, and don't let the competitive nature of the activity get in the way of making friends and contributing to the community as a whole.
Evidence share email: parco.debate@gmail.com
I was a high school policy debater about 30 years ago. My partner and I qualified for the TOCs three times and we made it to the semi-finals my senior year.
After a long absence from debate, I started judging LD about a year ago when my daughter started debate. I was surprised to see that LD is much more like policy now. As a former policy debater, that is fine with me. I will do my best to take a tabula rosa approach.
I judged a good number of novice rounds last year and have judged at one varsity tournament. Speed is fine but of course be clear.
I tend to vote for the debater who tells the best story at the end of the round. If it is a close debate, the quality of evidence you read may be decisive.
It is very possible that I will miss a blippy argument spoken at high speed. If there's an argument you think is a winner, make sure it's registering with me.
The kritik was just emerging when I was in high school. I'm somewhat familiar with critical arguments but am still learning the details. I am open to them so long as they are presented clearly and persuasively. You might be safer though going for more traditional policy arguments as I'm more familiar with them (they don't seem to have changed that much over the decades).
e-mail: james.park@law.ucla.edu
Email: Bryanperez516@gmail.com
Experience: I did 3 1/2 years of policy debate in LAMDL, and currently doing 5th year in CSUF
Feel free to run whatever you want in the round as long as you can properly flush out your arguments. All I really ask is that you be respectful in the round and don't do sexist, racist, homophobic, hateful, or anything that might offend your opponents or me.
Disclaimer: I am a policy debater (the activity not the debate style) with no other experience
ELC 2023, Fullerton ‘27 LAMDL ‘23
bruh if you read more than 4 Off then we have a problem, I don't want to flow three lines on 5 flows just to throw it away, on the same thought, clarity is key. BE CLEAR
arguments based off in round actions are most persuasive to me
A few things to set straight, yes I want to be on the email chain, dapr4db8@GMAIL.COM, i would prefer you send as much as possible since i have problems focusing on words or keeping up, its to your benefit since the more i understand and have on the flow for you the easier you make it for me to vote you.
If you like K lit or K arguments then i'm your guy, like i'm that guy for you, if you want to do policy then sure im cool to judge that too, i will say super technical rounds i don't necessarily know if i’m the best fit and going to high theory stuff i don't know what to tell you. I have trouble with certain literature bases but the ones I'm most comfortable with are Set-Col, CAP, Biopolitics, Security/IR, Derrida, psychoanalysis, and some wilderson. Boggs i know well and yeah i know some more niche lit bases too.
Clarity > speeeeddd, i practice what i preach which means i love it when i can actually understand what you're saying at Mach 3, if you're unsure err on the side of caution. If it becomes problematic i will not hesitate to yell clear during your speech and dock points if it's necessary
Truth > tech but not what you think, i hate the misunderstanding the truth >tech means the technical side of debate can be forgotten, i believe that the tech side holds merit but where the argument is true or not affects whether i believe it to be true or not. If you answer the perm with a simple line like their evidence points towards linking on the K lit then I'll take that and don't need further work done, the main difference is that if your argument is true you will be required to do less work on it for me to buy it. This doesn't necessitate that I'll do the work on whether you link or not for you but it means you don't need to do more.
I'm the type of debater who thinks the offcase sweet spot lies between 2-4 offcase, i've learned to deal with many off but overall i don't agree with the notion of 7+ off just to go for the dropped flow on the neg, if this is your strat i have found myself voting on it but you have to win condo/dispo because im assuming the aff will read it. The aff on this can literally give one argument answers on each flow and i'll buy it in order to clean up the flow.
I don't know why i have to say this but i generally think judge intervention is not cool, if you make an argument in the 1nr and its not in the 2nr i won't intervene and say the argument lives on my flow when it doesn't, don't like it and you can try to get me to do it but generally i feel like you should be doing the work yourself to extend it if it really matters.
I don't know if it's just me or if this is a thing with judges in general but I will default to all dropped arguments being true arguments but only if I am told to evaluate it as important. Like if you drop an argument on the T flow but you're topical i'll consider it true if your opponents call it out, if they dont i dont care, simple.
I should not have to say this because it's so common sense but if i do not get an impact on your argument then i don't care about it, i'm not sorry and i don't care, i hate having to figure out what is more important or what the significance of an argument is. You need to tell me why that argument matters.
I joke about this but actually i believe anything is debatable for the most part, dont quote me on that when you say some messed up stuffand dont get a ballot.
Please coming from a UDL i consider debater a safe and expressive space where you can learn and educate. This means i dont want to make anyone feel unsafe or attacked, any -isms or -phobias will result in below 25 speaks and serious consequences. Also if i am sensing aggression or unnecessary comments i will also call it out mid round. Dont be sorry, Be better.
AFF
V policy
I think these debates are kinda washed, no problem in front of me but not really interested in it, do a good job extending your case and why my vote matters. I think CP that does nothing for the case is a little abusive and I feel like if the CP is outlandish enough then i'll buy the perm.
Started my career with this but dont hate it, if the aff wins their Framing/fw over the neg then it's pretty easy, i think these debates come down to 1. what is more likely to happen 2. what is the biggest impact in the round and 3. What can I do something about? Solf left policy is something I will take seriously and will evaluate as such, if you're reading hard policy then i may take it a bit more jokingly.
V K’s
I think the aff has a pretty hard time not linking to the literature not matter how hard you try even if its generic so don't spend so much time on the link but rather give me link turns and reasons why your aff comes first/matters more than the K. i usually buy perm do the aff and then the alt as a viable perm, the neg can def make a theory arg about intrinsic and how timeframe is not intrinsic to either but overall i think aff then alt is pretty convincing. You need to make sure you win the FW on the aff to win, this makes it not only easier for me to make a decision but also makes it pretty easy to win your claims and overall the debate
V T
I think this is the trolliest thing to do when you read T against a policy team especially if they are prolly topical but make it fun, make it easy and give me reasons to vote your way. I think I buy these args if they are made correctly but as the aff just give me some solid reasons why you meet, if you are obviously topical then just say that and then we meet and move on. I don't need you to spend all day on this argument. If it's more than 1 T flow just ask for a combined interpretation that includes all their T flows so i don't have to have 3 T flows, this will make it easy for you to respond and also means i only worry about 1 T flow.
K AFF
I was an affirma-neg debater in highschool which means i read my k as a kaff and the reverse, i love a good k aff especially if you show me you know the material. Since I read a kaff I'm looking for a few key arguments every k aff should have 1. You need to have a reason why the debate space is key, I feel like this is common sense but if you have no reason why the aff needs to be done in debate specifically then I don't see how an aff ballot resolves anything especially when we get to theory affs 2. I need a reason why the aff needs to be on the aff, this i am not super strict on but if the neg team calls it out you better have a solid answer to it. I'll take things like how it forces the conversation to be about the literature. 3. I need you to defend an advocacy, just because its a k doesn't mean you can just critic the topic and not offer an alternative, too often i see an aff which has no advocacy or action and instead only criticize the topic, if you do this and the neg calls you out then your going to have a terrible time. 4. I need a reason for the ballot, this should be obvious but i need to know why you need my ballot or what it resolves/does. I can be persuaded otherwise on how I just need faith but that requires work like anything else.
K v K
I think these debates are always so interesting and way more fun than any other type of debate, but how do you address this as the aff, just because you read your advocacy first doesn't mean you win, tell me why your aff is uniquely better then the alt. I think if you are reading an identity affirmative or poetry, personal story whatever you should call out the neg if they decide to read about their own identity. I hardly see these debates which is a shame and means i can't give specifics but just defend your aff like you believe it because you should and you'll do more than fine.
TLDR: I love real args, don't drop arguments, too many off is a problem. Clarity performance and being cool. You should explain stuff like duhh.
NEG
Topicality
As i mentioned above this is the funniest thing you can do if the aff is topical because the aff will fall apart if you have any type of block prepared for it. I think i can buy an easy aff out on this if they seem to meet your interp but they have to make that argument i wont do it for them. If you want to win this argument either give me a definition that they dont met and yeah. I believe T is a competition of interpretations, whoever wins that their interpretation is better is the one ill take. Make risk of a link arguements, potential abuse, make sure you answer the reasonability, and please include intent to define those are all winning arguments for me on the T flow.
Kritic
Love love love, i will place a heavy hand on you if you do not do a good job. To win this infornt of me i need you to answer the perm and why the perm is bad, if not i will default to the perm because it makes most sense. Please have an advocacy that you can defend or at least explain to me as to what actions we are taking whether physical, espitological, ontological or whatever else the solvency method is, asically i need to know what you are doing if not then kick the alt and turn yourself into an alternative.if you read this line mention randomly say red leather yellow leather before the round starts and ill know you read this =). I think the kritic needs to win a link you prolly have a few, the aff is most likely gonna link so ill give it to you but please have an impact associated to the link in order for me to actually merit the argument. I need the theory of power to be explained and understood by me by the end of the round. I need you to tell me how the aff specifically triggers your impacts or criticism for me to grant you anything on the flow and more so i think the FW debate is going to be EXTREMELY important if you want to win this because who ever wins the framing of the round wins how i evaluate the arguments especially with a k. That 2nc needs to be popping and i mean it, like i want to be catching 5 links each with warrants, several DAs around the speech, framing at the top, overviews, impact explanisiton and just i need to feel sorry for the 1AR after that incredible 2nc and the 2nr bettergo for what you are winning, DO NOT DROP THINGS IN THE 2NR i cant express how many times this has happened and how much it frustrates me beyond belief. Also, don’t read arguments that contradict your k so be very careful. If you read a CAP k with a trade off DA or sum like that i wont believe you actually know what you are doing. CLARITY is key for this especially when this flow will always be the most confusing and most heavy with knowledge. I have high expectation and as such i need you to do your best to meet them. Also, break your opponentns ankles with cross ex and the 2nc, ooohhh am i gonna love that <3.
CP
I think you need a DA or some type of net benefit for you to win any type of offense but more so i just think this is an okay debate, if you are going to read a cp and a DA why not just read a k which is far more fun. But yeah, if the cp is way out of the scope of the aff i wont believe it, i also think that the cp needs to win an actual benefit. Just make it nice and neat for me and give me reasons why it matters, you can probably refer to the K neg or v. policy on how you can do better. Almost never see these debates except for when i ran a policy aff at invitationals but even then i saw no reason why the cp is better, all these systems are screwed anyways.
DA
Okay unlike the cp flow i think this is pretty cool when you got the aff in some type of bind where either they trigger the da and cause a whole bunch of bad Stuff to happen or the DA is not real but neither are their impacts so why not avoid causing something bad to potentially happen. I think if you are winning this flow you can definitely go for it in the 2nr and make it easy for me to give you the ballot
T FW
so far i have a hard time believing any of the FW args from teams. your prolly better reading a K or some other argument against the team it just doesnt seem to hold that much sway for me. i think the neg has a burden of rejoinder and that means the neg has to create clash against the aff in some capacity. K Affs are not new you are expected to run into one which means your supposed to be ready to read some kind of argument against them. FW kinda seems like lazy debating, especially if it seems like your just reading blocks that were prewritten.
(ノ◕ヮ◕)ノ*:Hello, my name is Nahomy, my pronouns are she/her. I have debated in all 3 divisions in lamdl and I have debated in varsity 2020-2022. So debate how you want, but keep it within the topic and in connection with the topic. Most importantly... Have fun. Keep the nice vibes.Im a pretty chill Jude im cool with mostly everything. PLEASE KEEP your time I don't really like playing time keeper. PLEASE DO NOT ask me anything pertaining to debate while in the round ex: what you should run or what can be ran. Ask me these type of things before.
My Email: nahomy.rivas09@gmail.com please keep me in the email chain
If you say anything racist, homophobic, misogynistic, ableist, transphobic or xenophobic, I will vote for the other team and give you low speaker points. Please be nice to everyone in the room; this is a safe space for everyone.
I will also dock speaker points if you are disrespectful to the other team.
Time: I will keep time. Please also keep your time its really good to keep track of your time.
CX: open cross x
Here I go into detail on off cases, case, and how I vote but don't stress your self out don't overcomplicate debate just give me a nice constructive and speech on why I should vote for your side and not the other side use your evidence to back your points up. Be respectful keep it friendly with me and your opponents and were good.
Framework:
Big on framework if you run framework I expect to see a framework from both sides example if frame is ran on the aff side I expect a counter-frame from the neg ect. Also, I like to flow framework separately so make your frame explicitly clear!
Case:
Inherency: Tell me whats going on currently in the status quo and any issues going on
Advantages: explain the positive consequences that happen via your aff plan
Plan: Break down your plan in depth to give me all the good details about it
Solvency tell me how the AFF solves the issue via your plan this is very important
K:So if you choose to run K explain your ALT clearly please explain your link too. Explain why voting AFF is bad but also what voting for this K will look like and why its ultimately better than the AFF.
T: Voting issues ground and fairness I considered all of these when voting for the T.
CP: Why should I vote for the cp and how is it better than the aff plan you should tell me why I should vote for the cp than the plan
DA:How is the aff bad tell me all the harms and the how its linked to the affs plan explain your links and internal links impacts all the good stuff.Paint me a nice picture of all the bad things that happen when voting aff.Do an impact cal.
For the aff please answer the negs off cases do not leave something unanswered because then I have dropped arguments and that can led me to vote neg.This is For both sides dont drop your own arguments or your answers to your opponents arguments.
Ask me anything you want me to clear up before or after the round.
My basis are left at the door I will evaluate all the arguments how they were answered and handled during the round. Dont expect me to vote on something emotional if it dosent have anything to do with the topic at hand. and if you kick out of something I will stop considering it and say anything I should prioritize while making my decision.
Hello, I'm Daniel Romo (He/Him/His).
Relevant Debate and Life Experience:
-I was a policy debater for 4 years at STEAM Legacy High School. I debated Varsity for 3 years and was captain for two.
-I am a service member with the California Army National Guard
-College Student at the University of California - Davis working towards my bachelors in Materials Science and Engineering
-Judging for 4 years
Judging:
It's been a minute since I've debated so please be clearer when spreading. As long as I can follow your words you can go as fast as you can read. Slow down on your tags, analytics, and whenever you switch off cases. I will stop flowing if I can't understand you, but I will ask you to be clearer.
I'm a stock issues judge. If the aff goes uncontested on their stock issues or proves that they are a good idea by their stock issues, the aff will probably win the round.
That being said, I will weigh the aff against the off cases, you just have to make the arguments.
I don't really tie myself down to a specific viewpoint, so you can run any off case, theory, T. As with any debate, just make sure you tell me the story and explain why it matters and why I should vote on it.
I mostly debated Ts, DAs, and Case in high school, I might need a bit more sell/explanation on the K but I won't just flat out ignore it.
As for biases or life experience you might think is relevant, I'm a heterosexual first-gen chicano male, youngest of 3, I joined the military out of high school, I'm the only one of those three to go to college, and you could call me a political moderate. Make of that what you will. You can say whatever you want in my rounds, so can your opponents (this includes arguments that some things shouldn't be said).
Please add me to the chain, my email is rosasyardley.a at gmail
Policy from 2014-2021 for Downtown Magnets High School/LAMDL and Cal State Fullerton.
I think I am best for k v k and k v fw/policy rounds. I lean towards truthy styles of debate but I view tech and truth as equally important. Go for less in the rebuttals. Write my ballot. Isolate key points of clash in the debate and compare warrants. You should be able to break down the debate for me to minimize the amount of thinking and work that I have to do pls.
4 years of debate experience in high school, 3 years in varsity (1st year UCD student currently)
IMPORTANT NOTES:
NOT CURRENTLY DEBATING! Please keep this in mind when you are presenting arguments.
I have little to know knowledge of the subject you're debating so you really have to explain it to me.
I haven't heard spreading in about 7 months so start slow to get me used to your normal spreading speed.
The rest of this paradigm was written like two years ago when i was only judging novices so take that for what you will.
Contact: angiesantos006@gmail.com (include me in the email chain)
I do not want to keep your time! Please keep your own time!
If you have any questions please feel free to ask me before or after the round! I will most likely talk about the decision after the round but if you still need clarification please feel free to ask.
In general, I am open to hearing all types of arguments although I do enjoy well presented Ks. Well presented is the key there.
Spreading is fine with me but if you aren't clear then I simply will not flow your argument. You have to be clear and present a good argument for me to vote on you.
Tag-teaming during cross x is fine, but speaking over each other will get you speaker points marked down. Cross x is the most important part of the debate so be assertive. Make your points and connect/extend your arguments. Being overly aggressive in cross x does not make me more likely to vote for you, it just makes you look rude.
Overall tell me why I should vote for you? Why is your side the best side. Impact calc should be done at some point in the debate so that I know why your side outweighs the opponents. Make points directly answering your opponents, don't have your argument sail past theirs, give me clash.
Negative:
I love Ks but that being said, if you want me to vote on your presented off case, present it well. I don't want to do the dot connecting for you. I prefer kritiks with an alt as it's easier to compare that to the presented aff. If you have no alt you have to do a lot of explaining as to why the aff is so bad voting for the kritik is better than doing the aff plan.
If you run CPs explain to me why you solve better. Answer the perm well. DAs should be well explained as to why they cause this and why it is unique. If your DA is essentially non unique I will very likely not vote for it. I also need a good link chain and a good link to begin with, if the other team points out your link is shaky from the beginning and you do no work to explain, I'm unlikely to vote for you on the DA. A thorough explanation and good defense on the neg will get me to vote.
I'm not great with theory so if you want to run a theory argument please make sure you explain it to me like I'm 5.
Affirmative: Be sure that you defend your your case in its entirety. If you start to waver on your responses through the debate I am less likely to vote for you. Be sure to answer all off cases thoroughly and don't be afraid to call them out if they drop an argument. Tell me why you still win and tell me why it is important that I vote for you. I'm not biased against kritik affs as i think they are fairly interesting but if your aff has no advocacy and no real proposed change then you will need to do a lot of explaining.
If you need to know anything else again please just ask, good luck.
My paradigm is not a series of uncompromisable rules. At the end of the day, debaters control the debate space.
On Kritiks
I love critical literature, 4 notes:
1. I do not believe in the idea that the author is irrelevant after publishing.
2. K-debater ought to produce a convincing link, and alternative. The K is likely a voter if those two arguments are articulated well.
3. Debate does not occur in a vacuum; I am open to structural fairness arguments.
4. For K-Aff's it's an uphill battle if you run a "reject the resolution" argument, I prefer reinterpretations of the resolution; this demonstrates, to me, a creative reimagination of the resolution that allows for diversified literature bases, but failure to do so would make me weigh framework arguments more favorably.
On Topicality
Topicality is standard strategy, definitely open to Topicality debate with one exception. If certain plans are core affirmatives to the topic, and the affirmative runs a truth over tech argument, then I will consider T a non-voter in those cases. Core, to me, means that the affirmative plan is standardized (many schools run that affirmative).
On CPs
I do not have strong opinions on CP Theory. I can be persuaded to multiple CPs, PICs, et cetera. Completely up to the debaters.
On Disadvantages
Disadvantages should not have a generic link, they should have a persuasive story for how it ties to the affirmative case, a specific link, or both.
On Case
I love case debate. If negative can compete on the case level - even if they lose - high speaker points are guaranteed. Shows good research, and a genuine attempt to understand the other team's arguments. Two aspects that I see as core to debate.
Personal history if you care about stuff like that:
- Debated for 4 years at a small school called HTPA as a part of the Los Angeles Metropolitian Debate League.
- Qualified to the TOC my senior year
- qualified to the NDT for Northwestern my freshman year
-Top-level
I think Judge adaptation creates worse debates. Everybody has biases and preferences no matter what they say but I think over-adapting to judges often causes students to do things they are less comfortable with and execute arguments they wouldn't normally. That being said DO YOU. You came here with an idea of the kinds of arguments you want to execute so don't change them for me. I will always evaluate debates with the maximum level of objectivity and will intervene as little as possible. This means the 2nr/2ar should do a lot of judge instruction and write my ballot for me.
All that being said we all have our preferences so here are mine
Disads
I always think impact calc is what makes or breaks these debates. Yes there is 0% risk
Kritiks
I am most familiar with Set col, Antiblackness, Cap, and Security type arguments. Pomo teams will need to over-explain concepts to me. I have no issue telling you I voted for the other team because I didn't understand what you were talking about, It is your job to explain your arguments to me. I don't think links have to be exactly specific to the aff so long as the block does a good job contextualizing the evidence to the aff, but more specific ev is always better. I don't think you need to win the alt if you win the framing for the debate but I won't kick the alt for you, you have to tell me to do that.
For the affirmative, I think the most convincing argument is the permutation. Of course case outweighs can win you the debate but I think any good 2n will be able to beat you to the punch there. The perm seems like the best arg to get the case back and be able to implicate the impacts of the aff without having to full-fledge win the framework debate. That being said do what your best at cuz tech/truth always
FW
A lot of my high school debates (and most of my college ones) were framework debates so I am pretty familiar here. I don't have a preference for whether affs go for counter interps or just impact turning T. I think that the most convincing argument for negatives to go for are education-based ones. I am sympathetic to arguments about predictability and engagement with the aff. Fairness is an impact and an internal link.
KvK
These are my favorite type of debates. I think they usually come down to the links and the perms. More specific evidence usually is better for the negative in terms of selling a convincing link story. I will vote on presumption if the aff is explained well enough.
Explicitly Racist/sexist/homophobic/ableist rhetoric will lose you the debate and I will nuke your speaks. Be respectful to the other team and try to have as much fun as you can!
For my graduate degree in Public Policy and Administration, I'm partial to a good Stakeholder Analysis of a plan. I'm a second-year coach with a background in Science Education. While I have a lot of experience in public policy analysis, I do not have a lot of experience with policy debate and I'm not well versed in Kritik.
Experience: 4 years of policy debate in high school. 3 years in varsity, 1 in JV/Novice.
VHTPA 2021-Present
Contact: erictobias1729@outlook.com
Feel free to ask me any questions you have about my paradigm if there’s something you need more information on. Also, I should only be judging Novice/JV rounds, so this paradigm is largely targeted at them.
UPDATE: I see too many Novice/JV debaters give a long, winding overview that goes on for multiple minutes and leaps from one flow to the other without any signposting. To deter this, I will not be flowing your overviews. The purpose of these arguments is to briefly explain the broad story of your arguments, not to make specific points on every off case. After a short overview, you should explicitly state that you are moving on from the overview and tell me what flow you’re moving to next.
General Preferences
Judging Style: I try to be tech over truth to the best of my ability. If you drop something and your opponent extends it, I'll consider it true, and I value judge instruction a lot. Generally, you should spend a decent amount of time on impact calculus and contextualizing your links to the other team if you want to make it easy for me to vote for you.
Speaking & Organization: Overall, I'm fine with spreading as long as you're relatively clear, but please slow down while reading the tag and author of your cards. On the same subject, please signpost; if you're not aware, that means clearly stating when you're moving between off-cases or cards. Tag teaming is alright as long as you don't talk over your partner, I'll have to dock your speaks if you do. For CX more generally, being assertive is ideal, but don't be excessively rude or cut your opponent off in the middle of a sentence. I also like seeing specific points from CX get brought up in your speeches, and outside of general ethos, that's its main application as far as I'm concerned. PLEASE KEEP YOUR OWN TIME. I'll be keeping track as well, but it can be tiring doing so, and you should be able to take care of it on your own. Finally, though this should be obvious, saying anything racist, sexist, homophobic, etc. is the quickest route to getting a 0 and an L.
Argument-Specific Preferences
Case: I think case debate can be interesting, and I love when it gets cross-applied to other arguments, but I think it often gets a little overused. I've seen teams just read down a list of case cards for 4 minutes, and I'd much rather see fewer, more strategic case arguments that use the best-warranted cards to target weaker points of the Aff. For the Aff, responding to case should be one of your top priorities, but make sure not to get overwhelmed by it and not put enough time toward the off-cases. Additionally, you should always be trying to get the most offensive use out of your case wherever you can, usually to outweigh a DA or K or point out a solvency deficit in a CP.
DAs: DAs are probably the simplest off-case, but that doesn't mean they can't be effective. I think they work best as the net benefit to a CP, and when extending the DA, you should focus on telling a cohesive story of how the Aff causes your impacts and why those impacts outweigh the case; historical examples can definitely help you here.
CPs: Make sure to explain how your CP solves the Aff's case, and, crucially, explain why it can't coexist with the Aff. The single strongest argument against a CP is almost always the perm, so both teams need to spend a decent amount of time on that. For the Aff in particular, you need to explain specifically what your perm looks like.
Ks: Even more so than DAs, the K needs to be very thoroughly explained (the alt in particular can be quite vague), and there's such an abundance of historical instances of what you critique that you'd be remiss not to point to one as an example of your impacts. Framework is also very helpful in arguing that your impacts outweigh, so be sure to make good use of it. For the Aff, it is possible to win the link debate against the K, especially if the other team doesn't do the best job explaining it. Overall, though, I think the best arguments attack the alt, either by arguing that it can't solve or that it can be done alongside the Aff. The same advice about perms on CPs applies here as well: explain clearly what any perm you run would actually entail.
Ts: Topicality was my favorite off-case in JV and Novice, and I love to see debates on it. The most important thing in a T debate is the two competing interpretations of the topic, and why each is the best option. This means that when you're extending T on either side, you should focus on why your definition is the best for debate. This isn't limited just to being correct, but also the question of which interpretation leads to the best rounds. I tend to err Aff on T because of the closed evidence set, but if the Neg can make their violation specific to something the Aff said or did in this particular round and/or provide a sensible TVA, they have a very good shot at winning. Also, I see T get dropped by the Aff a lot, and because it's a voting issue, doing so basically loses the round. If you drop T and the Neg extends it in the next speech, I pretty much start writing my ballot then and there.
Email: khristyantrejo@gmail.com
I debated in the Los Angeles Metropolitan Debate League (LAMDL) in high school, made the Urban Debate National Championship twice, competed in Parliamentary (NPDA) for Tulane University and made it to Quarters at the NDPA National Championships. I've coached for Isidore Newman School (LA) and Stern MASS, currently coaching Elizabeth Learning Center. I've been active in debate for about 12 years.
You can't argue racism / homophobia / sexism / transphobia / ableism good arguments in front of me. Ever.
As a competitor I started with plan texts, Econ advantages, and running 7 offcase. I finished with a poetry aff, PICs, and committed to Foucault. I know what’s going on and want to offer a safe space for you to read your arguments.
Debate is a game, but the game can be changed.
Kritiks need to have links and some type of explanation of the alternative. Please don’t assume I know which privileged and old philosopher your K is based on—explanations are key!
Disadvantages need to have specific internal links and impact scenarios.
As long as you are contextualizing your scenarios, and the functionality of your scenarios compared to the other team, we should be good to go. You are entitled to read 1 off, or 2, or 3, or even 7, but I hope you’re ready to defend your model of debate and why the education you are advocating for is a good one.
I love a good T debate; and have voted aff on Condo before. Theory/T arguments should be well contextualized. As long as your providing specific reasons why procedural issues take precedent in the debate, we should be good to go.
At the end of the day, I need you to explain what my role in the debate is, why I should vote for you, and why the arguments your opponents made are insufficient for the ballot. Please make sure you are explaining/extending the actual warrants of the evidence you’re reading.
If you have any specific questions, feel free to email me or ask in person before the round.
PS, you matter.
Note: this is my first year involved in policy debate and have minimal knowledge on everything. If it helps, I majored in Feminist Studies and Politics. Please explain everything like you would to an incoming debater.
Top Level Things:
-include me on the email chain: steve.valenzuela1@lausd.net
-go at a significantly slower speed than usual
-i have more implicit bias towards K Affs in terms of the orientation towards the state. Although that's the case, that doesn't mean I admire arguments that say the state can be a progressive actor. I, however, do prioritize fairness and competition as an internal link to education, so Kaffs should have a good counter-interpretation that resolves procedural standards. Please still link all your offense back to arms sales and not just your ontology of the world writ-large when going up against neg arguments.
Argument Specifics:
-I go into the round highly skeptical of each side, i vote for the most logical arguments. Truth>Tech
Case
-nuclear war affs are hyperbolic, you'll probably lose to a security K
-soft left affs with credibility advantages are just not true and built on false premises, you'll probably lose to a K
-I prefer human rights affs
-these debate usually come down to logical arguments---claim, warrants, reasonings.
DA
-case turns are infinitely better than nuclear war impacts against soft left affs
-affs should have sufficient defense against each scenario for nuclear war
-please have an internal link explanation, I can't do the work for you
CP
-have net benefits
-perms are viable, don't know about the DA being resolved through them though, you should have defense
K
-nuclear war affs are scare tactics
-soft left affs with credibility advantages are not true
-please explain how the alternative resolves the links and how it gets implemented materially
-assume I don't know your material, explain everything like you would to someone that doesn't know debate at all
T
-t debates are boring
-unless your aff is ridiculously small, please don't run topicality
Theory
-please don't, I won't evaluate it
My email is tjdebate08@gmail.com
please label the email chain tournament name + round #
General Judging
I'm cool with tag teaming, though I think both speakers should do their best to answer individually
Spreading- I'm okayish with it tho I would appreciate it if there was an emphasis on taglines/main arguments (like slowing down during certain stuff, raising voice etc). Keep in mind I flow on paper,,
I will reference evidence documents for throughout the speech, but i will not be looking in depth at it unless im told to by debaters
Run what you like, I am familiar with the types of arguments you make however, I am not familiar with this topic specifics so if it's a niche argument don't assume I know it.
I will not do any work for you, make my life easy, simplify and tell me what im voting on.
I do consider cross ex as a type of speech in the way i am viewing and framing your arguments
(I will give higher speaks if you can provide clear judge instruction.)
Specific Policy Arguments
Policy sometimes overwhelms me so please try to simplify/slow down especially in rebuttal speeches.
On Condo bad: I'm more willing to vote, for it if the negative runs more than 5 or more off. I just prefer having in depth debates.
T: Not the best judge for policy t vs policy t however I do think that limits is a key component in debate because it does result in the type of education we recieve in round and certain arguments can affect a teams ground.
Tech over truth but keep in mind I'm more lenient toward the truth than most.
Counterplan- I like these most when the net benefits are weighed in the round, so not so much a one sentence counterplan with no evidence. A personal pet peeve is when that one sentence counter plan ends up dropped by the block
DA- impact calc pls make my decision easy also the LINKKK explain it
K/K Affs
Generally Im good with most k literature i've run racial cap k, set col, epistemic abolition/ anarchism . Though while I am familiar with most literature, high theory ks can still be really tricky to follow through so just try to explain please
For Negative Ks : Try to be familiar with your literature, and try to articulate how the aff links, not just generically. If you can label your links and impact them throughout the speech your chances of winning are higher. Also answer why the aff doesnt get a perm? Why is the aff a bad idea? Impact it out
For K affs specifically: I'm cool with you but please be ready to defend framework well because I want to understand why you think this approach is more beneficial to the debate space and why your education matters.
For both k/ k affs: Explain your alternative. Do not dodge around the question its okay not to be material and focus on education but explain the WHY and defend. Or if you are a material alt explain.
Fw= I value education and portable skills.
LD
No tricks, please.
Take a breath before you debate and do your best! you got this!
LD:
The most important thing to me is framework in LD rounds. Unless I have a foundation that allows me to vote for you, I simply cannot justify it. The most frustrating rounds to me are the ones that have two very different, very interesting V/VCs and someone just drops theirs. That doesn't mean that 1) you can't win without winning your framework, you just have to make the other person's framework fit your case or 2) that if you two have the same framework to keep arguing because you agree. There's no reason for it.
After I determine who wins framework, I weigh the KVIs off of that framework. Again, it would take a lot for me to vote for you if you don't have any KVIs in your last speech. Those are the main points you're trying to share, and they're an easy way to narrow down the debate in your favor. If I haven't determined a winner from just framework and the KVI points, then I'll go through and look at every argument throughout the debate and determine who wins each one. From there, I usually have a winner.
I was an LD debater in high school for four years, so I'm fine with a lot of the terminology. As for the philosophies you might be running, I'm aware of a lot of possibilities, but I'm only really well versed in a few, so please take time to explain exactly what you mean (especially if it's a lesser used philosopher or a lesser known theory). I did four years of policy at USC, and am now a policy coach, so don't feel like you need to slow down for me, but I do not think LD is a place for spreading. I understand being a naturally faster speaker (I lost my own fair share of rounds because I didn't realize I was speaking too fast), but you shouldn't try to win solely on outspeaking your opponent.
Otherwise, just ask me any questions before the round that you may have.
Policy:
Hey, so I'm much different than I was in the past for Policy. I competed at the college level in Policy for USC for four years, and I am now coaching my own team, and it's been a learning experience. Here are my thoughts on things generally:
Framework/Topicality - I'm a sucker for a good T debate. It has to be good, and it has to be true, because if I'm not buying that the Aff isn't topical then you aren't going to win. But I think that FW and T args have a solid and underappreciated place in policy debate, so if you can do it well then go for it.
KAffs - I will never come into a round with a pre-conceived notion of what you should do with your debate round; however, considering how I feel about Topicality, if you're hitting a good T/FW team, then it's probably going to be somewhat of an uphill battle. I will obviously be as neutral as I can be, but we're all human and we all have biases.
K - I'm much more lenient in my feelings on the K on Neg than on Aff just because of how I believe ground works in debate. One of my partners only went for the K, so I got pretty used to how those worked. If you're running some high-theory K, then you're going to have to really explain it to me. I didn't do policy in high school, so all of those highly-circulated backfiles never got to me. Otherwise, if done well, I can be convinced of most arguments.
CPs - I almost never run these, I don't think they're the most effective argument, but I won't never vote on them. To be honest, I think they make the Neg's job significantly harder, but also, like I said before, this is your debate round. If you do a lot more work, and you end up being really good at it, then obviously you get the win.
DAs - This is usually the first half to my policy strat, so I do have somewhat of a preference for it. Make sure the link story is there and make sure you explain your impacts. I want to know that you know what you're saying.
Case Negs - This is usually the second half to my policy strat, so I also do have somewhat of a preference for this. Same as above, make sure you explain exactly why something won't solve, isn't inherent, isn't significant, etc. I think Case Negs are also under-utilized and underappreciated by debaters.
I believe that's it. Honestly, if you run anything else, that means I have no idea what you're talking about, so like explain it to me.
I'm really big into impact calc too. Extra points to whoever to fully explain to me the impact scenarios of the round and who is winning and why. It makes my job easier if I can just write down your impacts and vote from there, and that usually means it's your ballot.
Yes, I do want to be on the email chain. This email is different than before: taliamariewalters@gmail.com
Otherwise, if you have any questions, feel free to ask me in person. I'm really not that intimidating, and I LOVE talking about myself, so questions are welcome!
2 quick caveats about how I time debates before I get to my paradigm.
1. I try to keep a running clock. The moment your speech ends cross ex begins. The moment cross ex ends, either your prep begins or the roadmap for the following speech begins.
2. If you are paperless, your prep times ends as soon as you send or share your speech doc.
With that said...
I believe that debate is an activity where the boundaries are defined its participants. This means that I am open to hear whatever kind of debate you want. If you wish to innovate new radical approaches to debate, I am open to hear them. If you wish to have a more traditional debate I am open to hear that as well. It is important for me that you situate my space in the debate. This means that if you want me to decide the debate by comparing the size of your impacts you should say it, and if you wish for me to take a different approach you should make that explicit. Despite my attempt to allow the debaters to control the direction of the debate no one is a truly blank slate, I do have some debate dogmas. I will try hard to make them obvious here, and if there is any confusion feel free to ask me.
You only get credit for arguments that I have on my flow. If you are difficult to understand because you are too fast or unclear, and as a result I miss something, that is YOUR fault. I will try to let you know (with both verbal and non-verbal cues) if I'm missing what you're saying, but its on you to adapt.
I prefer debates where there are a smaller number of well developed arguments as opposed to debates with 10 off. This does not mean that you have to read slowly, it just means develop your arguments, and in general the team with the better explained, better developed arguments will win the debate.
While I encourage debaters to find new, innovative ways to affirm the topic, this is not carte blanche to say anything you want. The topic is important, and as intellectuals, competitors, and activists we have an obligation to find something related to it to affirm. This does not mean that I am excited about hearing T debates. In general I lean aff on T and will let the Aff do their thing as long as it is germane to the topic, and debatable. In sum, feel free to read your non traditional Aff, but be prepared to explain why it is relevant to the topic, and why it is a debatable issue.
Also related to this discussion- I believe that voting Aff is an affirmation of the resolution. You can affirm the resolution in any way that you choose (as long as you can defend it, and it is debateable), but in the end of the day, voting Aff means that I am saying yes to some version/interpretation of the resolution. While I am open to all sorts of Affs, the one kind of Aff that will make me lean Neg on Framework/T questions is an Aff that says that the resolution is bad, or totally eschews any semblance of a connection to the resolution. This doesn’t mean that you have to fiat anything, or pretend to be the federal government, but if you don’t want to defend those things you should explain what you think the resolution means, and defend it. Be prepared to debate the framework. I generally don’t like debates that are entirely about this, but in debates with countervailing approaches to form and content, framework is an unquestionably important element of a debate. It’s alright to kritik someone’s approach to the debate, but be prepared to describe what your alternative approach is and why it is better.
Slow down on theory. If I miss something because you are blazing through a block with reckless abandon, you won't get credit for it. I tend to lean negative on CP theory, and if a theory issue can be resolved by rejecting the argument instead of deciding the entire debate on it, I will generally try to do so.
Don’t just assume that I have read the critical theory that you are debating. YOU HAVE AN OBLIGATION TO EXPLAIN YOUR ARGUMENTS! This applies to kritiks as well as other policy based arguments. I won’t vote on an argument that you win but I don’t understand, and I won't be embarrassed or feel any regret about telling you that I don't understand your argument, as this is evidence of your failure to clearly explain your argument, and not evidence of my inability to comprehend sensible arguments.
I love a healthy dose of competition as much as the next person, but don’t be a jerk. Humor is good and will be rewarded, emotion and power are great as well, just don’t let the debate turn into a pissing contest over something not at all important to the debate.
With that said, Have fun, respect each other, and good luck!
Logistics:
Please add me to the email chain: edmondywen@gmail.com
If you'd like to reach out to me for any other reason: edmond.yixiu.wen@gmail.com
Experience:
San Marino TW, Policy Debate 2017-2019 | San Marino EW, LD Debate 2019-2020
Coached by Joseph Barquin.
I have not been involved in debate for the past 3 years. Read mostly critical and performance arguments in high school.
Paradigm:
Misc
Be nice and do your best.
Please aim to have your speech docs sent out before ending your prep time.
Less is more. Slowing down to enunciate your tags/analytics/author names makes it much easier to follow your speech and piece together your argument. Spreading is fine, but my favorite speeches to listen to are the ones where debaters know when to slow down to emphasize key arguments in the debate.
Argument Preferences
Speed is fine, but accommodate for those who cannot understand spreading.
Nontraditional affs are fine, but be prepared to either defend their relevance to the topic or justify them in some other way.
I am not good for theory or tricks debates, but I will do my best to evaluate them.
I consider it a privilege to judge debate. I will return the favor and do my best to render a fair decision and provide educational feedback ^_^
December 2020:
I debated in high school for Bellarmine (2004-08) and USC (2009-12) and coached at Loyola (2011-13), but it's been a long time since I've been an active member of the debate community. Since 2014 I've been working in health care.
I've started to judge a little bit again in the past year or so, but not a ton. At one point I knew what all the debate words meant and how they related to each other, but it may take me some time now and don't assume that I will be able to easily connect those pieces. In the few debates that I've judged recently, I've found that I just tend to ignore those portions of the debate if I can't clearly connect the dots and figure out the impacts of why they matter.
Realistically you are reading this because you want to know what arguments you can read in front of me. I don't have any preferences in terms of what arguments you read (policy vs. k, performance, cp/da, theory, etc.). I've judged, coached, and have experience with them all. When I debated - ages ago - we used to go mostly for center-left Ks and policy strats on the aff & neg, but I do think that negs on the whole tend to do an awful job strategically answering most big left K affs and let these affs get away with a lot of "cheating," and I tend to vote aff a lot in in K aff v Framework debates.
Now that I've been working in the "real world" for a while, a couple of things from my recent work and judging experiences stand out to me as important in debates:
1. An argument consists of a) a claim (what I'm saying) b) a warrant (why it's true) and c) an impact (what it means). Anything less than that isn't a full argument. If you are introducing an argument, it's your responsibility to provide each of these, particularly if you want it included in the final reasoning for why you should win the debate.
As an example: 2NC answers the perm by saying "perm is severance out of the 1AC that's a voting issue because it makes them unpredictable and skews our ground." This is not a full argument - it's missing a few key pieces: 1) the warrant - what part of the 1AC is it severing? 2) the impact - why does being unpredictable/skewing neg ground matter?
This means that "tech over truth" doesn't make much sense to me. An argument is not "true" and given 100% weight by default just because the other team didn't respond to it. It must be a fully fleshed out argument with a clear impact in order to be considered. I think debate teaches a lot of this backwards - I know it's something I used to believe when I was a younger judge - but I think it's a poor way of teaching argumentation and communication.
2. Debate is a communications activity - how you're saying it matters just as much as what you're saying. It's not enough to just make an argument once in passing and assume the judge will assign proper weight to it, even if the other team does not explicitly respond to it. If something matters a lot to you, be sure to communicate that.
3. I think I am probably more accepting now of logical, common sense arguments/call outs of silly arguments. You do not need to rely on cards to make arguments. Many parts of disads (e.g. internal link chains and big nuclear war impacts) can be defeated by pointing out the holes in their causal logic. Many debate arguments (across the whole spectrum of arguments, policy/k, etc.) are silly.
Feel free to ask if you have any questions.