I debated for 3 years in PF at Johnston High School. My preferences are as follows:

• I can handle some speed but prefer slower speaking. I will flow during the round and it’s best that I can hear & understand your arguments. Signposting helps with this! Take me as a lay judge, if I don’t understand your argument it is not being weighed at the end of the round.
• I do not vote on theory or K.
• Extend anything you want me to vote on.
• Give me clear voting issues in your summary and final focus. I want to hear why you should win and it shouldn’t be more than 3 voting issues. Impact calculus is important; it shows me that you are able to strategize and understand the round.
• Be civil during cross. It’s important to use the time to take the debate to a deeper level, and you can do that without being rude.

Have fun and good luck!

Please put me on the email chain: ingridkalg@gmail.com

PF, I have debated 3+ years on the national circuit, TOC, nats, etc.

tech>truth, I will try to not be a bad first year out

I promise I'm flowing, might just be doing it on my computer

Disclosure good, friv theory bad, will try to evaluate Ks

• Collapse

• Use signposting

• Weigh, seriously

• I can flow decent speed, but please send speech docs

• Don't respond to an argument by invalidating real experiences

• Rude, loud, passive-aggressive cross = bad speaks

• If you give the person next to me a bag of chips, you get a thumbs up

be "good people who happen to be good speakers"!

If I'm juding you in LD: i am not experienced so treat me as a flay judge

For PF:

4th year of PF at Roosevelt High School. Competed on the national circuit a lot of times so I hopefully know what I’m talking about lol

add me to the email chain - sree.baruri@gmail.com

tech > truth - unless the argument is racist, homophobic, sexist, etc. then I’ll give you 20s and drop the debaters (and will report it to tab)

HOW TO WIN MY BALLOT:just make sure to communicate your ideas well - both about your arguments and your opponents and narrate why you should win the round.

1) Collapse - it makes the debate much easier to follow (and I won’t secretly hate you)

2) Warranting/Frontlining- interacting and directly responding to your opponent’s arguments go a looooooooong way

3) Signposting- highkey if you don’t tell me where to flow it then i’m not gonna know and it’s not gonna be on the flow

4) WEIGH!! - pls weigh WITH WARRANTING and respond to your opponents weighing too

Other Things:

-Speed: send a doc if you're spreading

-Turns: if you want to win off them implicate and weigh them

-Theory: <3

-K's: dont really know, i will evaluate it if its clean

-if you have a "sand" contention - speaks will go up by 0.1

-defense isn't sticky

Speeeaaaakkssss:
29-30: phenomenal
28-29: great job!!
27-28: pretty good!
below 27: you offended me/opponents

Tech>Truth

I'm a sophomore at Roosevelt, this is my second year debating

Make sure to:

- extend your arguments

- weigh your arguments

- Provide clear signposting as well as judge instruction

- Frontline

Most importantly, have fun and be nice!!

tech>>truth !

Hey, I'm a sophomore in my second year of public forum debate at Theodore Roosevelt High School, I've competed in a few bid tournaments and am pretty good at following debates.

How to win my ballot:
- Please, please, please extend all of your arguments if you want me to evaluate them

- Weighing is very important, make sure you're telling me why you're impact is more important than your opponents

- Clear links to every argument made is a necessity

-Frontline, please, like pretty, pretty please

General Speaking stuff:

- Be respectful to your opponents, me, and your partner! I will not tolerate any disrespect I see!

- Speed is mostly fine, I know as novices you're not planning on spreading super fast but know if you need you can go faster than normal

LD: I've never actually debated LD but I've watched a lot of it, my judging is definitely not going to be the best but I will try to evaluate you as fairly as possible!

Remember debate is supposed to be fun, it can be intimidating but keep going and learning, be yourself and just debate!

I've been coaching and judging debate since 2010.

I can handle speed in speech as long as it's not blazingly fast. I will say "clear" one time as a warning if I can't understand you.

I will be keeping a detailed flow on my computer. I will flow your authors and a summary of what they are saying.

I value argumentation over style. I put emphasis on part of the round being improvised. Your speeches should be responsive to what has happened during the round. I do not like pre-written rebuttals, summaries, or final focus speeches.

When assessing a debate I consider clash over each contention and determine which contentions each time has carried through the round or pulled to their side. Then I will consider weighing arguments to make a final decision.

I am most persuaded by arguments that present clear and tangible impacts. I do not heavily weigh philosophical or semantical arguments and would generally prefer you provided more evidence rather than arguing about authors or publishers.

Please be courteous to your opponents. Speak to me and not your opponents. Do not talk to your teammate, use your cell phone, or make silly faces during your opponents speeches.

Please do not shake my hand at the end of debate I appreciate your appreciation but a simple "thanks" will do.

I believe Public Forum Debate should be accessible to the public.

Debaters should remain on topic and make arguments that are based on logical, rational positions.

I support the rules of Public Forum Debate as established by the NSDA and I am not interested in seeing it become another version of Policy Debate.

I expect debaters to be honest and civil. Violations of these standards can result in loss of speaker points. Intentional deception will result in a loss.

General Info

I debated public forum all through high school and have done LD and Parli for almost four years years now in college. I am familiar with technical debate from simple T-shells all the way up to Debate Ks. I can also evaluate on the surface level of standard cost/benefit analysis.

Winning my Ballot

Weighing mechanism and impacts are important for me. Tell me what I should vote on and why that means I should vote for you, this includes T and theory. I will not vote on those, if you don't tell me why they matter in the round. You can win on abstract weighing, such as mode of thought arguments, but you need to explain why they're bad. I am a heavy flow debater, so I appreciate sign posting and structure. Ink on the flow is important, dropping arguments can make it very hard to win.

Alongside that, for PF especially you should have a weighing mechanism in case. 1, it helps me understand the theme. 2, it puts all your cards on the table at the start.

Also if you argue nuke war, hope your opponent doesn't question it, because I am highly skeptical of claims that any kind of provocation is going to lead to a nuclear apocalypse. If you can demonstrate an imbalance of nuclear capabilities that is truly significant, you have a chance. Probability will still be low, but I will actually weigh it. Generally though, I don't like low probability-high impact arguments. Along with that, if you say something that is manifestly untrue, it's going to be very easy for your opponent to beat the claim ex. saying that State governments are the same as the federal government. And I don't like deontology as a criterion. It's super common and it doesn't work very often. Please use something else, virtue ethics would be my recommendation.

In any debate format, please avoid just reading cards at me. I appreciate clear, simple statements of impacts and links. I care a lot less about what some author says, than I do about your ability to synthesize information and arguments. (P.S. changing speeds will help with this. You can go faster on cards, then in analytics or tags).

Technical Arguments

Overview - I love LD, but Public forum is a different style. Speeding, Theory and K should be kept in LD and policy, so PF remains accessible. That means that everything I'm about to say doesn't apply to PF. For PF, be much more conversational and avoid shells of any variety, unless you really need to. I will add that for speed you should match the speed of your opponent if possible as a competitive courtesy.

CP - Not sure if this belongs in tech, but oh well. CPs need don't necessarily need to be mutually exclusive, but it needs to be substantially different. Otherwise, the debate turns into a really mushy thing were it's really hard to distinguish between aff and neg voters.

Ks - I love Ks and am very familiar with the literature, particularly for Cap Ks. The flipside of that is if you do not actually understand your Ks, I will be able to tell. Identity Ks should only be run if 1. there is genuine discriminatory language and 2. you've asked your opponent not to use the language and they refused. If your opponent misgenders you once, you don't correct them, and then you run a K, I'm going to vote you down for leveraging your identity to win the round. Please give your opponents the opportunity to correct themselves, it is very important. K Affs are a risky strat, I think they tend to frustrate neg and serve to derail the event. You can run them, but a) there should still be some kind of plan text or advocacy and b) it should still be topical.

Theory - As above, I will vote on theory above anything else, you just have to explain why I should. I also will not vote for a T or Theory if you can't prove abuse. Not necessarily in-round abuse, but I need you to show me something, modeling is a good argument here. Disclosure theory in particular is unpersuasive to me, I've been very successful in LD debate with very little use of the Wiki, so I'm skeptical that it's abusive.

T - I will primarily evaluate T-shells based on interpretations, so make sure you have a good reason why I should prefer yours. Also don't forget impacts. If you prove your opponent breaks a rule, but not that it caused any problems, why is it a rule I should follow? Please don't run multiple Ts in the same speech. It's annoying, and it distracts from actual topic education, and I will be very open to an argument that you should be automatically voted down for just trying to skew Aff out of the round.

PF - Pleeeaassee don't speed in PF. I will understand you, but I will not be happy.

Closing Thoughts

The primary purpose of debate is education and competition. If you're being rude to your opponent in anyway- either doing any "isms" or just general rudeness -your speaker points will suffer. Be respectful. Be intelligent. And most of all be cool!

Hi! My name is Parker and I've debated Public Forum for about a year.

Tech > Truth

I will flow but please keep speed to a flay pace.

Extend + Weigh + Frontline all arguments if you want me to vote on them. (Defense isn't sticky)

I will ask for evidence if it's indicted in the round. Add me to the email chain if there is one (parkermagill@gmail.com)

If you're reading Ks or Theory, there's I can't guarantee I will evaluate them successfully.

Be respectful.

For Tournavelt:

Argue whatever you want, just be nice and have fun!

Feel free to ask any questions you want after the round is over. I'll do my best to help in any way I can.

2nd year of debating at Roosevelt High, I'll look to strategy and arguments made in round, try to weigh and do your best!

I learned everything I know from Parker Klyn

vaughnmciver09@gmail.com

Hey! I am Nirmal and i am a sophomore at Theodore Roosevelt. I debate on the national circuit and this is my 2nd year doing pf.

TLDR: I am a flow judge that will vote on any argument

Substance-

Tech>Truth, which means I will vote on any argument.

Please frontline (respond to your opponent's rebuttal) in 2nd Rebuttal.

Extensions must include all parts of an argument, including the uniqueness, link, internal link, and impact. You must extend (explain) your argument in Summary and Final Focus.

Please weigh/compare your arguments to your opponents, otherwise, it forces me to intervene and decide which arguments I should prioritize.

I won't flow/evaluate crossfire unless it was brought up in the next speech.

Novices:

It's so cool that you're trying out this activity even though it's probably kind of scary. Just know that you're probably doing great and that you got this :)

Feel free to ask me any questions before/after the round (especially if you don't understand anything in my paradigm).

Background: I competed in Extemp, Congress, and PF from 2013-17, and have coached largely in PF since. I work as a college instructor in engineering technology.

=== DEBATES === TL;DR ===

1. Truth is more important than tech. Making GOOD arguments is more valuable than a quantity of arguments - and an argument is only made once it is A. on my flow, and B. explained such that I understand it.
2. If you do not talk about the topic, then you have critically misjudged reality and will lose. Everything in your speech should answer the resolution.

=== PF ===

I fundamentally believe that public forum is about you adapting to me. I do not like spreading, I do not like kritiks, I do not like theory. Anything that deals in the minutiae of debate should be kept to a minimum if you want to win. While there are times and places where these arguments can be called for, if you are leaning on them principally to win the round, then you will lose the round. Make arguments on the topic.

I believe evidence that is directly quoting your source more than your paraphrasing most of the time.

I will flow, which I am only decent at, so make sure your roadmaps are clear and telling me where to be looking at any given moment. Number your responses in rebuttal and summary if you want high speaks. Additionally, if all you do is read a document for rebuttal and summary without engaging in the debate yourself, you might win, but speaks will suffer.

Disclosure theory has no place in PF.

Don't add me to any email chain, I'm not reading it, I am less than thrilled it even exists. If I want to see a card, I will call for it. This will only really happen when the understanding of the card is clashed on.

If you don't tell me a framework, its a CBA. If you do tell me a framework, you have to tell me why its better than a CBA.

Ultimately, keep the resolution in focus at all times.

=== LD ===

I never participated in LD but I have judged it a little. I still am coming at the event from a more public forum perspective - You should have a value and a criterion and you need to tell me why your arguments buy into it. Then, you either need to tell me why your value/criterion are better than your opponents or you need to tell me why your arguments still answer theirs. In most of the rounds I have judged, the debater who wins the framing, wins the round.

=== Speech === TL;DR ===

From the moment you enter the speech, I am evaluating everything you do. That means piece selection, content, volume, etc - if it is a choice you make, then it will impact my decision

===Public Address Events ===

Extemp, Info, OO - Your speech makes an argument. If at the end of the speech you haven't made an argument, then you don't win. Follow the norms on how the event operates and is structured - that will help you formulate an argument. Extemp, in particular, needs to answer the question with each point you make. Evidence is used to support those ideas.

===Interps ===

I never competed in the interp events - so ultimately, I can only evaluate my entertainment level. In HI, was it funny? In DI, did I feel like I was in the presence of your character? In POI, did I understand and follow your link between ideas? In DUO, do you see your impact throughout the speech?

I did PF debate throughout high school. I prefer a less formal round, where the focus should essentially be to convince me. Use the evidence as a tool for your argument and stay focused on the topic. If you can convince me that affirming or negating the resolution will lead to a better world in whatever scope you choose, you will get my vote.

parulsvsrivastava@gmail.com