I consider participating in the Urban Debate League an honor and see it as important and meaningful work.

I was born, raised, and educated in Soviet Russia. Despite common belief, critical thinking was part of the fabric of society at the time. I am a starting judge with The Bay Area Urban Debate League (BAUDL), and last Saturday (February 3rd, 2024) was my first time participating in a tournament where I judged four rounds for Middle School debates. I am not new to debating and wrestling with tough societal issues, though. In addition to my upbringing and love for education, I have dedicated the last 18 years to public service and leadership within political, policy, and nonprofit spheres, most recently as the Chief of Staff to an Oakland City Council member and the Chair of the SF Bay Chapter of the Sierra Club. I led and helped pass many pieces of legislation and provided opinion pieces with pros and cons arguments for various ballot measures and board rulings.

My main objectives during the debates are to support students and provide detailed constructive feedback to empower and inspire positive transformation.

Here are the things I pay attention to:

• Present yourself clearly and confidently, and treat your partner and your opponents with respect and camaraderie. If your facial expressions, gestures, words, or other behaviors show contempt or disapproval in public, it is a negative in my scoring system. You can always debrief in private after the debate and discuss what you want to say and do differently going forward. As they say - reprimand in private, praise in public!
• Prepare for your debates! Organize your notes to be able to quickly access them. One of the teams I judged used color to highlight different aspects (thesis, references, answers to potential questions, etc.) of their notes, and I thought it was very clever, allowing them to quickly access information during Crossfire sections.
• Lay out your arguments in a clear and concise manner - using the "contention #1; contention #2; contention #3, etc..." format is helpful to remember and refer back to your arguments.
• Use reputable, current, credible references. If you are expressing your opinion, have a clear and logical explanation, and better yet, use examples to demonstrate and support your viewpoint.
• Please concentrate on talking your position up and less on putting your opponent's position down. Positive campaigning will definitely win me over more!
• How you deliver your arguments is almost as important as what you deliver. Use inflections (a fancy way of saying - the modulation of intonation or pitch in the voice), pauses, rhetorical questions, exclamations, gestures, and other speaking tools to show you care and are not just reading the script.
• While I think emotions are critically important and you should use them as great tools of human communication, please also ground your arguments in facts.
• Most importantly, have fun! You are here because, hopefully, you chose to be. Use every event as an opportunity to learn something about yourself and the people around you. There are no failures; there are learning experiences that you could apply in the future.

Tabla Rasa

Schools/Affiliations: Mathematics Teacher/Debate Coach - Edison Preparatory

I did not compete in policy debate in junior high/high, but I have been coaching policy debate for 4 years.

General Paradigm
I'm open-minded and take the stance from a policymaking point of view. I'm looking for an argument that is well-formed and well-explained. I don't care for just running a bunch of random stuff to try to spread someone out, this misses the point of policy debate.

Speed
Clarity. If I can’t understand you, then I can’t flow you and I likely won’t be inclined to vote for you or the position(s) I don’t understand. I slightly have a hard time hearing, virtual rounds sometimes get glitchy - as long as your argument is well-formed, you shouldn't have to speed. Look for cues (not flowing, a blank look on my face).

Line by Line
I prefer line by line debate. I believe you need to flow and I don’t think a team is obligated to share analytical arguments in a flash/speech doc. If the debate becomes disorganized because of your inability to stay on the flow, that’ll likely cost you in some way. Debate, at its essence, is about a clash of ideas...therefore clash is an essential ingredient to a good debate round. A round between two teams who neither extend their own arguments, nor address the specific attacks made on these arguments, is not a debate round, and such a round begs for intervention on my part.

Decision Calculus
I loathe to intervene in a round, but will do so if neither team presents a clear comparative analysis of the issues in the round. You need to tell me why I should vote for you and make that clear in the final rebuttals.

Framework
I’ll start with my paradigm, you tell me where to move to, and convince me of why I should do so, if you’d like to change the framework. Any framework should make it possible for both sides to win and shouldn’t be rooted in a rejection of debate as an activity (though it’s possible I could be convinced otherwise).

Topicality (or any other procedural/theory argument)

If the affirmative is not able to prove that they are topical, that's the first place I will vote. I believe that it is important for affirmative cases to meet the resolution if we are going to have fair and educational debate. That being said, it doesn't take a lot of work for the aff to convince me they are topical. A solid we meet, counter-interp, and reasons to prefer extended throughout the debate are good enough for me. I want it to be answered, but I don't really want to listen to a whole round of debate on T - get through it and move on.

Kritiks

Please don't run a K unless you actually plan to go for it in the round. Running Ks as a time suck and then kicking out of them halfway through the round is a move that I cannot get behind. If a K doesn't have real-world alternatives, it will take more work on your part to convince me that it's a good idea. If something is heavily theory-based, it needs to be explained well.


Performance
Do what you will, I’ll listen. Prefer they be relevant to topic.

Counterplans
I am good with counterplans, conditional is fine, but don’t get too feisty in this regard. Deep counterplan and pic theory give me headaches, so slow down and talk me through it.

Multiple Worlds

No thanks...multiple conditional positions are fine, but not contradictory advocacy. Can’t be convinced otherwise on the matter so save your time.

3NRs and My Decision
I will give an oral critique if time allows and reveal decision if permitted by tourney expectations, but I will not enter into an argument with either team about my decision. I can handle a question or two, but make sure it’s a question. Look, I am always going to do my best, but I’m sure I’ve gotten the decision wrong a time or two, and I hate it when I do. That being said, my usual answer when teams argue why they lost is: I’d feel the same way if I were you, but next time debate better. Then I mark their speaker points down for being rude. Live to fight another day, and be aware that you might see your judge again down the road.

Prep Time

I will be lenient as we learn the online format, but that being said, I’m losing patience with the time taken up by flashing files even during in-person debates. Be efficient.

Hello, debaters! I am an 11/12 English teacher at Richmond High School within the Internationals' Academy. I love well-explained evidence and extensive vocabulary!

Pronouns: (she/her)

I did not debate in high school, but I was involved with supporting the debate program at Cal during college!

I am currently the policy debate coach for Richmond High School.

Add me to your email chain please - I want to see your evidence: shelliewharton@berkeley.edu

Don’t be afraid to ask me questions before or after the round! I’m not one of those “read my paradigm and then don’t speak to me” judges, and I am happy to answer any questions you might have. I do my best to minimize judge intervention and base my decisions heavily on the flow. Do your best to stay organized. Your disorganization means I have to fight to stay organized, rather than focusing entirely on your argumentation. I’m very open to nontraditional arguments and K affs!

I'm a pretty flexible judge - just make sure that you stay organized, explain your arguments well, and help me understand why I should vote for you. I flow the whole round, and I want to focus to give you good feedback. I will give you most of the feedback in round, but I’ll still write notes on the rfd if I miss something.

However, everyone has biases so here are mine:

General:

1. Tag-teaming in cross-x is fine. Prompting during a speech is fine. Neither should be excessive. That being said, if two people are talking over each other, I can't flow/hear anything.
2. Be nice to other people in the round. Being condescending, rude, mean, etc. will impact your speaker points.
3. Speed is not as important as clarity: I need to be able to understand you read your arguments in order to vote on them.
4. Finally, have fun!

Experience: I have 4 years of experience in high school policy debate at CK McClatchy (2009-2013), and a semester of policy at Arizona State University (2013). I have coached policy debate at Chandler Preparatory Academy (Spring 2014-Fall 2018) and was the head coach at BASIS Chandler (Spring 2017-Fall 2019), policy coach at McClintock High School (Spring 2022), and policy coach at Skyline High School (Fall 2023-April 2024).

I will to listen to any argument provided that I am given a reason why it should affect my decision. Make sure to tell me how I should evaluate and weigh arguments. The more freedom I am given to think for myself, the more likely I am to make decisions that hurt your position in the round. I am comfortable with speed and focus on resolving substantive issues on the flow in order to make my decision, though I'm fully open to theory arguments.

Please ask me if there is anything specific that you would like to know not included in this paradigm. I try to keep it short because I believe that the point of the debate round is to establish both the facts and the framework for the decision, and writing down my every opinion on debate theory doesn't seem productive for allowing you to debate the way you want.

Email: longdsyee@gmail.com