I try not to intervene on the flow. I won't fact check unless requested. Cool with off time roadmaps and tag teaming. Call as many PoOs as you want but don't be mean.

If you're rude, mean or disorganized you will lose speaker points. If you're oppressive (ableist, racist, homophobic, etc) you will lose the round.

Background & Experience: 

4 years of hs parli (circuit and lay, 2x toc champ), some HS policy (circuit), some college NPDA 

General Philosophy:

I am okay with listening to any argument any you should choose to run, provided that you lay out the argument clearly and tells me why it wins you the ballot.

I view high school debate as both a competitive activity for the sake of competition and an arena for students to enrich their education by becoming better thinkers and learning more about the world. As such, I will remove myself from the round as much as humanly possible, and base my decision on my best objective evaluation of the arguments made. I flow very carefully. I will not get in your way, so do what you want argumentatively and you can expect me to evaluate it. 

My debate style is pretty diverse — I have a good footing in running and hitting normative topical positions, kritiks, theory, and anything in between. My default layering of the round is that theory comes before the kritik and the kritik comes before case, but, in round, tell me what arguments you want to come first (regardless of if it is the same as my default) as I will not do that work for you. 

Weighing is very important to me, so do a good amount of work analyzing the impacts throughout the round, and especially at the end, in the rebuttals. Tell me what impacts matter the most, why they matter the most, and why they win you the round, regardless of the position you’re banking your strategy on.  

Spreading:

I'm chill with spreading. I will get down your arguments on my flow and will reward higher speaker points to spreading that is exceptionally clear, easy to follow, and/or engaging to listen to. Pointers: 

(1) Slow down for taglines, texts, when you switch to a different sheet of paper or argument, and other important parts of your position as you deem fit. 

(2) Try not to slur or be repetitive. Spreading is only strategic if you can do it efficiently and clearly.

(3) Be considerate to your opponents. If they are not familiar with spreading, then try to be inclusive of them. Give them texts, answer their POIs, and try to be accommodating of their requests if they have any. It really sucks to get spread out of a round -- doesn't mean you should not spread, just means you should try to be a good sport about it. 

Kritiks:

Go for it. I dig it. I ran kritiks quite a bit, and enjoy watching a good kritikal round. I am familiar with most of the authors that debaters commonly cite, like Marx, Nietzsche, Agamben, Foucault, Baudrillard, Wilderson, and the rest of the gang. I’m also chill with performances. If you can surprise me with a kritik that isn’t so common, I’ll be happy and give you props, but explain it well. Regardless of whether or not I know the literature, I will not do work for you filling in arguments, explanations or warrants. Pointers: 

(1) Links. Please, run links that interact very specifically with the affirmative position. A few safe generic links are okay, but don’t bank entirely on them. If you can’t come up with any specific links, that means one of two things: one, you aren’t familiar enough with your kritik, or, two, the kritik doesn’t apply well. Both are not good positions to be in. 

(2) Alt & Alt-Solvency. Explain what your alternative does and how it solves for the impacts you outlined in the rest of your K. 

(3) I think framing on the K is pretty important, so don’t skate over that part and assume I’ll just give you reasons why the K comes first. Tell me through what lens I should evaluate the round and why. Again, I will not do work for you on the K. 

KRITIKAL AFFIRMATIVES: 

I ran K-Affs a few times and have hit them plenty of times. I’m okay with them. Just make sure justify them well, as you should with any kritikal position. 

Theory:

I also dig theory. I ran theory quite a bit, from your standard shells to some more out-there shells. Although I view theory as a way to check against real abuse, I’ll listen to and vote for any shell if you win the flow. Pointers: 

(1) I default to competing interpretations. 

(2) Be very clear and specific with your interpretations. I will take interpretations literally, meaning, if the other team manages to find a lawyer-esque way to meet your interpretation and its logically valid, I will not give much credence to a backtrack along the lines of “well, you know what we meant.” 

(3) Ground is the most important standard to me, as it is kind of an umbrella for all fairness-related standards. However, you should still weigh your standards if you want to win the theory debate. 

(4) I will not do work for you on the evaluation of the theory. If you want theory to come first, tell me that and tell me why. 

(5) I have a lower threshold to voting on RVI's than most judges, but still have a pretty high threshold. You'd have to do a lot of pretty compelling work on the RVI to use it to get the ballot.

Straight Up Case Debate:

I very much enjoy a well-informed and thought out, normative, topical debate. Well constructed, intrinsic advantages and disadvantages, impact framing from the get-go, and smart strategies increase your chances of getting my ballot. Brink scenarios are almost always more compelling than linear advantages/disadvantages, and try to get your arguments to go in the right direction from uniqueness to links to impacts. 

I’m okay with CPs that change implementation methods, conditionality, dispositionality, and PICs. 

Presentation: 

Even flow debate, at its core, is a persuasive activity. Treat it as such. Don’t completely brush off presentation — a confident portrayal of an argument makes it much more appealing to a judge.  

I am okay with tag-teaming, just don’t go overboard about it. 

Other Key Points: 

(1) I like gutsy strategic moves. However, don’t just make a gutsy move for the sake of making a gutsy move, because while I will be amused and pleased, I will not vote for you if it doesn’t win you the round. 

(2) Add some personality, and be yourself. You’re real people speaking to real people — rounds that feel like that are more engaging to watch and partake in, in my opinion.

(3) If you kick something, kick it properly by extending defense. I won’t shadow kick for you if the other team calls you out on the shadow kick.

(4) Be good people. It'd be nice to see the debate community try to spread some love. 

I was once a policy debater so there is a reasonable chance that I will keep up on my flow. If I don't, that means there is a good chance you are talking like a policy debater yourself (or like an auctioneer, and I won't feel so bad if I miss something).

I will go where you take me. I will rely on your arguments rather than my own domain knowledge.

I do appreciate when debaters spell it out for me, not just why you should win the argument but how that argument should contribute to the decision. I look for clear links and impacts for the pivotal arguments. I understand that jargon is useful shorthand, but I will understand you better if the jargon does not become excessive.

I will tolerate kritiks but set a high bar for arguments that do not attempt to relate to the resolution, or that could be used regardless of the topic at hand (i.e. meta-arguments like that debate is pointless because we live in a flawed society). I appreciate clash delivered with a level of sportsmanship and manners.

I am relatively new to judging parliamentary debate. Please speak at a reasonable rate, define your terms, and make clear links from policy to impacts. Avoid complicated debate jargon and Kritiks. Use theory only if you believe that there has been an abusive definition, or that your opposition has gone off topic. Don’t abuse POIs or POOs. Neg. Counterplans are acceptable. The team that educates me on the topic and makes their case clearly and respectfully will get my ballot.

I'm Thomas, a high school debater who has debated for the past two years. My general preferences are as follows:

Speed - I prefer a medium talking speed. Be considerate of your opponents as well. Spreading does not impress me, nor will it improve your speaks. If I can't keep up, that only hurts my evaluation of your performance (and by extension, the ballot and speaks).

Argumentation - Quality over quantity. Having fewer, substantive arguments is far more useful than a flurry of shallow arguments. Presenting them cleanly in an organized fashion is just as important, preferably through a Uniqueness-Link-Internal Link-Impact structure. Somewhat relevant: don't go overboard on P.O.I's or P.O.O's unless they are absolutely necessary to maintaining your ground or the overall fairness of the debate. I do appreciate strong P.O.I's which throw off opponents = higher speaks on your behalf.

Theory - I prefer case debate over theory such as topicality, and ideally the ballot does not boil down to myself deciding on theory. I realize that topicality does come up in debate, but that should not warrant teams to be abusive and their opponents having to rely on A-priori arguments to settle a round. After all, those twenty minutes of prep for a relevant debate topic and potential for learning more about it seem lost through not being able to fairly debate. Other theory like PICs, perms, etc. I'll entertain but cannot guarantee that I'll give substantial feedback for.

Speaks - I will consider both the quality of your arguments and your speaking into your scores. I would usually assign 27 as an average score. Things like signposting and weighing are especially important and will improve your score. Preferably no tag teaming. I'll entertain it if you do, but it may affect your overall speaks.

Disclosing Ballot - I will provide a short RFD in round to talk more specifically about the arguments within the round, and will give more general improvements for speaking and such in the written RFD. When deciding the ballot, I am tabula rasa and will not intervene/connect the dots on behalf of either team. Because I am tabula rasa, it's your job as debaters to explicitly make your case as to why I should vote on your behalf.

Respect - Debate should be a fun experience for people to enhance their speaking skills and general knowledge. At the minimum, opponents should show respect and not intentionally offend others. If you are extremely disrespectful within or beyond the context of the debate, I will give an initial warning and then stop the round if you continue to act disrespectfully. I will factor any behavioral disputes into the ballot and speaks of the round. Other than that, I hope that the debate will minimally involve myself intervening with exception to the RFD, and that it will be a meaningful and enjoyable experience for everyone.

Paradigm for Parliamentary Debate

I did Lincoln Douglas debate in high school for three years (a long time ago!) and parliamentary debate in college at Princeton. Debate was an amazing activity that I loved doing. It trained me very well to be a lawyer -- I am now a litigator and I debate with my adversaries in court instead of high school classrooms. I started judging high school parliamentary debate in the Fall of 2018. High school parli is different from college parliamentary debate and very different from Lincoln Douglas so be aware that I am very familiar with debate, but I am not as familiar with all high school parliamentary lingo.

Things I like:

-- clash (I promise I won't hold it against you if you take a position that I don't agree with, but I really enjoy judging debates where the two sides create a lot of clash and disagreement on the resolution)

-- when you hit all their points. don't drop arguments.

-- organization (please sign post, help me flow)

-- really good quality public speaking (you can talk as fast as you want as long as I can understand you; I think debate should be both persuasive and strategic -- this means I will evaluate both what you say and how well you say it)

Things I do not like:

-- theory

-- running a "K"

-- jargon and acronyms that I don't understand (if you use jargons and acronyms, please just explain them to me)

-- being disrespectful of your opponents (you can crush them, but please do it respectfully)

I don't really judge anymore. If you are a debater and want to see my paradigm for some reason, email me firstname dot lastname at gmail.

I do not flow spreading.

This is my first high school tournament, so I am new to everything. Please don't speak fast, I will be unable to write down all you say, and what I do not write down will probably not help you. Speak with clarity and do not use any jargon; if you do, explain what those words mean. Please explain EVERYTHING, so I understand what you are saying. Please provide well-developed arguments. I would be more impressed with two or three well-developed deep arguments over several superficial arguments. Make sure to be respectful. Thanks and have fun!

no longer active in debate! if you're interested in reading my paradigm for some reason, email me at eugxu@sas.upenn.edu and we can talk.