Background

- 3 years national circuit PF at American Heritage-Plantation in Florida (2013-2016)

- 2 years policy debate at FSU (2016-2018)

- 2 years coaching PF for Capitol Debate (2017-current)

Paradigm

- Do anything you want to do in terms of argumentation. It is not my job as a judge in a debate community to exclude certain forms of argumentation. There are certain arguments I will heavily discourage: Ks read just to confuse your opponent and get an easy win, theory read to confuse your opponent, anything that is racist, classist, transphobic, xenophobic, sexist, ableist, etc. I will not immediately drop you for trying to confuse your opponent, I might for the latter half. The threshold for trying to confuse your opponents will be if you refuse to answer crossfire questions or give answers that everyone knows aren't legit.

- The most frequently asked questions I get are "can you handle speed?" and "how do you feel about defense in first summary/does the second speaking team need to cover responses in rebuttal?" To the first, if you are spreading to make this event in accessible to your opponents, I will give you no higher than a 20 in speaks. I am fine with spreading, but if either your opponents or I clear you, I expect you to slow down. If your opponents need to clear you 3 or more times, I expect you send them a speech doc (if you had not already done that). To the second, I do not care. It is probably strategic to have defense in first summary/ respond to first rebuttal in second rebuttal, but if you do not do that, I'm not going to say it has magically become a dropped argument.

- K's are cool, theory is cool. You need to know what you are talking about if you read these. You should be able to explain it to your opponents. If you are doing performance stuff give me a reason why. You should be prepared for the "we are doing PF, if you want to do performance why not go back to policy" debate.

- I default to whatever debaters tell me to default to. If you are in a util v structural violence framing debate, you better have reasons to defend your side. I do not default "util is trutil" unless it is won as an argument.

- Sound logic is better than crappy cards.

- The TKO is in play. If you know, you know.

- Speaker points will be reflection of your skill and my scale will remain consistent to reflect that. The average is between a 28.2-28.5. If you are an average debater, or your performance is average in round, that is what you should expect. Do not expect a 30 from me unless the tournament does not do halves.

Any questions:

email- ryleyhartwig@gmail.com

Or you can ask me before the round.

Public Forum:

How I make my decision:

- I will evaluate rounds based completely on the flow.

- If I am to evaluate any arguments in the round they must be in both Summary and Final Focus. That means I need both the links and impacts of the arguments you are going for, that means I need the full story of how I get from Point A (Voting Pro/Con) to Point B (your impacts).

- I will only evaluate concessions/important points made in crossfire if you point them out in speeches.

- If you do not weigh then I will be forced to weigh the arguments myself, so give me weighing on your arguments.

- I do not require the first speaking team to extend defense (attacks on the opponents case) in summary but I strongly recommend the extension of turns in summary if you want me to vote on them.

- You don't have to point out that your opponent dropped certain arguments/responses because I will know that based on the flow, but I would appreciate if you acknowledge it in a speech anyways.

- I will not evaluate any new arguments made in Final Focus unless they are in direct response to something new brought up your opponent at a very late point in the round like second summary.

Evidence:

- If you call for a card I expect you to say something about it in the next speech or cross.

- If both teams go back and forth too much about what a card does or doesn't say I may call for it myself at the end of the round if it is important for my decision.

- I really don't care for accusations of a source's bias or credibility without a proper reason for why specifically what the source is saying is wrong. I need a refutation of the underlying logic of a card to in order for me to discount it.

Progressive Arguments:

- I'm not a big fan of progressive arguments such as theory, K's and the like. Unless you put one of these arguments in a form that is intuitive and very understandable, I will likely not vote for you because I believe that such arguments distract from the educational value of debate.

Notes:

- If you don't signpost correctly (telling me where you are on the flow when making an argument) and the flow gets messed up then that's on you.

Club Debate:

How I make my decision:

- Although I will certainly take presentation style into account, I will vote primarily off of the flow and weighing mechanisms brought up in the round.

- If something significant occurs in CrossX then I expect you to mention that in a speech.

- I will not flow anything you say in a speech that does not fall with in the scope of that speech's purpose. What this means is that in the attack speech or the rebuttal, I will only flow responses to your opponents case, and likewise in the Defense speech, I will only flow frontlines (defending your case against your opponents responses in rebuttal).

- If you do not weigh then I will be forced to weigh the arguments myself, so give me weighing on your arguments.

- I strongly recommend that you extend your links and impacts of your arguments in defense as well as summary if you want me to vote off of them. If you don't, I may feel your warranting is insufficient for me to consider your arguments even if they are well explained in constructive.

Some Notes:

- Although you cannot verify evidence in Club Debate, if I have a major suspicion that a team is just making up evidence out of thin air that does not exist I may call for it. Don't make up evidence; I will drop you if you do because it ruins debate as an educational activity just so you can lie your way to winning.

- For my opinion on Progressive Arguments refer to my PF paradigm.