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.

she/they, lay-uh, not lee-uh

leah.clarkvilla@gmail.com

[Judge Info]

A) I've competed and coached high school and college policy debate since 2008.

B) I've taught new novice students and instructed K-12 teachers about Parli, PuFo, LD, and Policy

C) I am an educator and curriculum developer, so that is how I view my role as a judge and approach feedback in debate. I type my RFDs, please ask your coaches (if you have an experienced coach) to explain strategic concepts I referenced. Otherwise you can email me.

D) I am very aware of the differences in strategy and structure when comparing Policy Debate and Lincoln-Douglas debate.

d)) which means I can tell when evidence from one format of debate [ex: policy -> ld] is merely read in a different format of debate for strategic choices rather than educational engagement.

heads up: i can tell when you are (sp)reading policy cards at me, vs communicating persuasive and functionally strategic arguments. please read and write your speeches, don't just read blocks of evidence without doing the persuasive work of storytelling impacts.

How I Evaluate & Structure Arguments:

Parts of an Argument:

Claim - your argument

Warrant - analytical reasoning or evidence

Impact - why the judge should care, why it's important

Impact Calculus:

Probability - how likely is it the impact will happen

Magnitude - how large is the harm/who will be negatively affected

Timeframe - when this impact will occur

Reversibility - can the harms be undone

[Online Debates]

prewritten analytics should be included in the doc. we are online. transparency, clarity, and communication is integral in debate. if you are unclear and i miss an argument, then i missed your argument because you were unclear

pre-pandemic paradigm particularities

for policy and/or ld:

1) AFFs should present solutions, pass a Plan, or try to solve something

2) K AFFs that do not present a plan text must: 1. Be resolutional - 1ac should generally mention or talk about the topic even if you're not defending it, 2. Prove the 1AC/AFF is a prereq to policy, why does the AFF come before policy, why does policy fail without the aff? 3. Provide sufficient defense to TVAs - if NEG proves the AFF (or solvency for AFF's harms) can happen with a plan text, I am very persuaded by TVAs. K teams must have a strong defense to this.

3) Link to the squo/"Truth Claims" as an impact is not enough. These are generic and I am less persuaded by generic truth claims arguments without sufficient impacts

4) Critique of the resolution > Critique of the squo

5) NEG K alts do not have to solve the entirety of the AFF, but must prove a disadvantage or explain why a rejection of the AFF is better than the alt, or the squo solves.

6) Debate is a [policy or LD] game, if it is a survival strategy I need more warrants and impacts other than "the aff/alt is a survival strategy" with no explanation of how you are winning in-round impacts

7) Framing is FUNctional, the team that gives me the best guide on how/why I should vote for X typically wins the round. What's the ROB, ROJ, the purpose of this round, impact calc, how should I evaluate the debate?

8) Edu is important. Persuasive communication is part of edu. when the debate is messy or close I tend to evaluate the round in terms of 1. who did the better debating, 2. who best explained arguments and impacts and made me more clearly understand the debate, 3. who understood their evidence/case the most.

9) Dropped arguments are not always necessarily true - I will vote on dropped arguments if it was impacted out and explained why it's a voter, but not if the only warrant is "they conceded _____it so it's a voter"

10) I flow arguments, not authors. It will be helpful to clarify which authors are important by summarizing/impacting their arguments instead of name dropping them without context or explanation.