Alta Silver and Black Invitational
2019 — Sandy, Utah, UT/US
Public Forum Paradigm List
All Paradigms: Show HideI am a communications judge. This is my first season judging, so I am unfamiliar with a lot of the language used in debate rounds. Individuals should speak slowly and clearly and also provide clear roadmaps and sign post. Please tell me why I should be voting for you in the final rebuttals, write my ballot for me.
I never participated in Debate. Please make sure you speak at a reasonable pace. I do research in public health, minority issues, and statistics. I have judged debate previous in various categories; congress, public forum, Lincoln-Douglas, so I do understand most structures of debate.
When I make decisions, this is the order in which I prioritize;
1) Who provided the highest quality of evidence. Do you use independent/neutral sources (i.e. peer review research, national organizations, think-tanks, etc) throughout the entire debate? I weigh these types of sources higher than Huffington Post or Fox News.
2) Who had the most logical arguments. For example, if you have a claim that seems really illogical but has evidence I will weigh that less highly than a very logical claim that has good reasoning behind it.
3) In terms of making counterarguments, while I would like you to address as many of your opponent's points, I care more about responding to the most important arguments well. For example, instead of answering 10 of your opponent's arguments poorly, I would prefer that you pick the 5 most important points and answer them well.
My kids wrote this for me: I'm an experienced parent judge who has been judging for 5 years. I like turns (sometimes I'm even ok with impact turns), weighing and impacts. I hate bad evidence, and will call for cards if I think evidence is suspicious.
I'm familiar with some jargon, but not all of it. I don't really know how to evaluate theory or K's. Please be civil during cross. I do understand the flow, I just don't use jargon to describe it. I will know if you dropped something. FF matters a lot to me.
******EXTEND FULL ARGUMENTS******DO COMPARATIVE WEIGHING******HAVE FUN******
^the holy trinity
Hey! My name is Seb and I love debate.
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My pf debate judging preferences
- I flow, but above all else I want to be persuaded
- I like when speeches are filled with jokes, analogies, and metaphors
- I dislike roadmaps, you can just tell me where you are starting and signpost the rest
- I like when rounds move quickly and debaters speak slowly
- I think the simplest strategy is usually the best strategy
- I dislike card dumping strategies, and more broadly prefer depth to breadth
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My pf debate philosophies
I think that:
- Paraphrasing is good
- Disclosure is a bad norm
- Theory should only be used when necessary
- Non topical k’s are unfair
- I should only flow what I hear
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My pf debate advice
1. Collapse on your most important argument. If you are winning your entire case, you have no reason to go for all of your offense in Final Focus- extend the best offense you have, because it'll outweigh the rest of your case anyways. If you're getting up in FF and telling me that there are four voters in the round, you are doing it wrong.
2. Have a consistent narrative throughout the round. Everything that you go for in your Final Focus needs to have been in your Summary, and you cannot introduce new arguments after Rebuttal. I should be able to flow your arguments from Constructive all the way to FF.
3. Treat your opponents with respect. Debate has a tendency to get heated, which is perfectly fine. However, being in the zone is not an excuse to be rude in CX or any other part of the round. Please be courteous and chill when speaking to one another, even if it means that you wont have time to get to that one GaMe ChAnGiNg crossfire question you have.
4. Debate in the style that you are the most comfortable with. I am familiar with everything from very traditional to very technical pf. While my judging philosophy is on the technical side, every round can be won with smart debating, no matter what style that is. Don't feel the need to go fast or use more debate jargon just to win my ballot.
5. Signpost Signpost Signpost. I should be told exactly where the arguments you are making need to be flowed. If there was an argument that you thought won you the round but I don't have it on my flow, you probably didn't signpost it well and I had no idea where to put it. Bad signposting is the #1 cause of debate judge migraines.
6. Do comparative and meta-weighing. Claiming that you "win on magnitude because your impact is 3 million lives" or that you "win on probability because it's gonna happen" is bad weighing. Comparative weighing is making a weighing analysis directly between your impact and your opponents' impact. Meta weighing is comparing two different weighing mechanisms against each other (like saying why probability is more important than scope, etc.). Using these methods to weigh your impacts properly will go a long way.
7. Be Personable! At its core, debate is a game of persuasion. To me, the best debaters are always smiling, engaged, friendly, and working to simplify the round the best they can. Charisma and critical thinking are the most portable skills that you develop in this activity, and they are the fundamental to both your performance in round and interactions outside of debate.
I am a former high school/college debate participant in policy and extemporaneous speaking. I also coached debate at the high school level back when evidence and speeches were on paper and I am currently an assistant high school coach.
Policy
Arguments should be balanced with evidence and logic. Speak clearly and road map for me. I prefer impacts or benefits to be quantifiable but I’m flexible if strong enough arguments are made.
Individual Events
Speech competitors will see a higher ranking if they are articulate and tell me why their topic is important. A strong conclusion is a must for a top ranking. Higher rankings for memorized speeches.
LD
I will judge the round based on persuasiveness of arguments. Strong connection of value to criterion is a must.
PF
Persuasiveness and ability to demonstrate an understanding of arguments is key. Please clash. Clarify voters.
Congratulations on making it to my paradigm, this is the first step to a great round!
TL,DR for those who ain't got time for that: I'm experienced in debate as a coach and competitor. I'm not the best with speed and if you wanna go quick give me the speech docs please. Give me some decent framing/weighing beyond surface level. Depth over breadth in general. I am cool with K's and all that jazz. Be ethical.
Do not feel afraid to ask me what something is or what I mean by something. Read the intro, how I vote, and your specific section of debate is my recommendation.
Intro:
I coached mostly PF and LD for 4 years total and I have competed for even longer, placing in college nationals and plenty of tournaments. I have a bachelor's in political science and a minor in philosophy and I listen/read sci-fi and philosophy in my free time (amongst other things). So I am an experienced judge and debater with high academic literacy.
I tend to want to keep a face of impartiality while judging, I try not to go beyond a flat expression when possible. Let me know if you don't prefer this, I can certainly try to be more expressive in what arguments I like versus don't to help y'all out.
How I vote:
Depth over breadth in general.
I try to be as tab ras as possible, when conflicting arguments are similar in strength, especially, since I weigh links heavily. Especially the depth and explanation of the link. Links usually come down to which one is more true in the round, and who gave me the most depth.
I can keep up for the most part on flows but I have trouble at high speed, as I only have one ear so it makes it more difficult to hear at times. I still listen to podcasts and youtube videos between 1.15 and 1.5 speed pretty much always, so I can certainly keep up to a certain point, but clear tags and authors and dates will be necessary and you need to have good pronunciation. So in general, air on the side of flay or fast but not spew speed.
Dropping something in a speech and bringing it up later is pretty much a no-no. If they discuss something in CX I think it's fair game to talk about in your next speech but I don't flow cx so it needs to be on the flow from a speech in order to really count in the round.
Paraphrased and cut evidence needs to be legitimate and not exaggerated. The more you power-tag your evidence the less likely I vote for you. The more you paraphrase the more I rely on your links to be legitimate.
Use of logic, common knowledge, philosophical implications, etc... are all ways to provide evidence to an argument that doesn't necessitate the use of cards. Feel free to use them, I weigh these types of arguments and believe they matter depending on the topic. In general, evidence is preferred in matters of things likely to happen. And the philosophy should have implications to some ethical framing and told why it matters. An example I see students fail at too often that I know could be better is privacy. You need to tell me why privacy matters in this round, not just that it invades privacy but that it causes actual harm to people like distress, corruption, etc....
Road map and organize the flow well in the speech, please. If you plan on following a CP/K/etc... format please let me know how many sheets I need.
Be clear about what your arguments mean for the round, i.e. go back to the framing of the round, whether that be framework of a case or argument. Tell me why it matters for who I sign the ballot for.
Please be ethical. Do not steal prep, get evidence to your opponents in a timely manner, and treat debate as a friendly game. Plastic trophies don't matter after a few years, trust me I have thrown away countless awards from random invitationals at this point. What matters is the work you put in and the memories you get out of debate. Look to 'steelman' your opponents argument, i.e. try to be even better than your opponent at explaining their argument. If they are having trouble framing their argument, help them. This gives you lots of credibility and allows for cleaner wins if you are good enough.
Understand what you are winning and losing on, it's probably not worth going for things you are way behind on unless it's critical to winning the round.
I don't time evidence transfers until they start being laborious. Be respectful of my time and your opponent's time.
Roadmaps can be off time as well and I recommend you use one if you are doing more than telling me aff or neg flow first and the other 2nd (i.e. policy style flowing). Just tell me where you are starting if it's just an aff and neg flow of traditional debate.
I'm open to hearing essentially any argument, including things like speed Ks. The impacts matter a lot to me. Why are the in round impacts worth talking over the education of a traditional round. Why is this an a priori issue or a prerequisite to in round impacts?
Weighing- I've heard a lot of basic impact calculus this year and it's been okay. But you need to do the comparison to why things like your probably impacts matter more than their magnitude impacts. People miss the clash on impact weighing far too often. Usually, you fight over whether the probability vs. magnitude matters more, but if you both run nuclear war you need to argue why your timeframe and/or probability are stronger, or that your severity is stronger. What I mean is, why is nuclear war worse in one area over another (usually because it will cause some other bad impacts like climate change, effect air quality, destroy more crops, etc...).
Tag teaming- In general, I am cool with tag teaming to answer questions or to help your partner by clarifying the language of the question they want to ask. I don't want partners to be ignored and talked over. Each of you need to know what you are talking about, tag teaming only helps the collaborative nature of the debate.
Speaker Points- I tend to give the strongest debaters speaker points but rudeness and influency do make a difference. If the tournament allows, I'm more than willing to give low-point wins because one mistake can cost you a round even if you were the better debater. This is rare but does happen.
--PF--
I will drop you if you just say cost/benefit analysis as your framework without any other context. You need to tell me how to weigh certain costs and benefits over others. Seriously, tell me why things matter.
I'm cool with teams running alts but the other team can perm them. Pro does not need a specific plan but not having some sort of model or idea to what you are doing will hurt you in most rounds unless you show me why your ground is more broad than a basic model. This can have multiple parts to achieve something.
Dropping arguments as the 2nd speaking debater is still dropping arguments, don't give new refutation in the summary as I will not listen by that point and will sign my ballot. Figure out what to go for and what not to, figure out how to win without directly refuting an argument, or just get good in general.
--LD--
If you are using Val/Cri's, only debate over them if it matters for the round, disagreeing over the minutia of which utilitarian framework to use is not fun to sit through or debate it. Clash with the key differences if you need to and don't be afraid to clash if you feel it gives you ground you wouldn't otherwise have.
Cool with CPs and Plans, the same rules apply from policy if you choose to do this especially. Consider reading that section if you are wanting to run a CP or plan.
I will drop you if you just say cost/benefit analysis as your framework without any other context. You need to tell me how to weigh certain costs and benefits over others. Seriously, tell me why things matter.
Please don't put too much fluff and defense in your case, that's what refutation is for. Only define the terms that need defined. And everyone reserves the right to clarify a definition in the next speech after a definition becomes an issue.
--Policy--
Depth over breadth, please.
I'm cool with K's, CPs, etc... and I will flow the different main arguments on separate pieces of paper, just let me know on stuff like theory, framing, etc... where to flow and I will really appreciate it. I tend to take debate as a serious mental game, and respect what it can be even if most of the time it doesn't reach that. So give me reasons to vote for weird arguments that matter because things like K's and Theory matter when it makes a difference in the debate space.
Like I said above, I'm fairly comfortable with speed to a certain point but just be cognizant about your pronunciation and your taglines with the author and date. I keep a good flow and can handle most people's speed but I can't keep up with spewing usually.
Learn how to actually impact calc, look above for some instruction as I discuss it in how I vote.
I tend to not be conditional, if you feel other arguments are better than others, collapse to what you think will win you the round.
This is my third year judging, mix of PF and policy. Would prefer you keep it simple. Please no kritikal Affs or super out-there postmodern kritiks. Please keep topicality reasonable.
Please don't spread. If I can't understand what you're saying, I can't judge you.
Please include on email chain (cecarr@gmail.com)
If I’m judging Debate, I prefer it to be traditional. Your job is to convince me that the resolution should either be affirmed or negated, bottom line. Please try to stick to NSDA standard rules for your respective event. There’s no need to bring Policy into PF or LD. If you are speaking so quickly that I cannot follow you, you aren’t helping your argument.
Online Congress: You’ll help us both out if you turn your camera on while you ask questions; I keep track of your overall participation and a face-to-the-name is appreciated. (unless you’re having WiFi issues, I understand) Also, please don’t talk over the speaker during questions - politeness will take you a long way with me. I love a good “hook” and analogies. Stand out.
Thanks and good luck!
*Reagan Great Communicator Debate Series: "Use logic, evidence, and personality, just as Reagan did throughout his life". I want to see personality!
Please be civil and courteous during the entire round, including cross-fire and rebuttals. I am fine with each of you keeping time, ok if you use your phone for the timer. Please have your cards ready to present within an appropriate amount of time so the rounds aren’t slowed down.
I discourage spreading… I would much rather see a concise and analytical presentation rather than simply speeding through your material. You can run theory and kritiks but do not expect me to understand and evaluate them. Clear signposting and quantifiable impacts are important to me.
27: Average Speaker
28: Good Job!
29: Very good speaker
30: You wowed me
I'm a first year head coach at Skyline High School. I have three experience as an assistant coach. I've mostly worked with speech events, but also congress and Public Forum with limited experience in Policy and LD.
Policy:
Overall: I don't believe I'm experienced enough to understand theory or be able to strongly evaluate Kritiks.
Speed: I'm OK with speed as long as you email me your speeches (tfhenry@granitesd.org) , but please slow down for your taglines.
RFD: I typically base my decision on the the stock issues of the plan on the Affs ability to defend it and prove that it is better than the status quo. The NEG wins if they can prove the plan is worst then the status quo or the status quo is better than the plan.
I did debate for three years in high school, pf all three.
I'm okay with speed, just be sure you're clear so that I can understand you.
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE signpost. if you don't I won't know where you are, so I won't know where to flow, and if I don't know where to flow I won't be able to flow, and then it might look like you dropped arguments when you really didn't. Moral of the story; it'll make everyone's lives a whole lot easier if you just signpost so we all are in the clear.
I don't flow cross ex, but I do (mostly) pay attention. That being said, don't rely on me to write down anything important that comes up. If you think it's important and you want me to have it on my flow, bring it up in your speeches.
I like clash. Note that there is a fine line between clash and being a dick; don't cross it.
Please time yourselves because I don't want to. It's a good idea to time your opponents as well, but that's up to you.
GIVE ME CLEAR VOTERS/IMPACTS. By the time it gets to the final speech, there should be a couple clear reasons on why I should vote for you, lay them out for me clearly. It makes it a lot easier to decide who to vote for when the main impacts are clearly given to me at the end.
If you are time-pressed, reading the bold will give you a general idea of my judging philosophy, and reading the unbolded text around what is bolded should give you the full picture. **For Alta** Please scroll below to the Policy section and find the post-Meadows update.
Conflicts: Juan Diego CHS, El Cerrito, The Davidson Academy of Nevada, Cal Berkeley, Southwestern College
I debated for four years in high school for Juan Diego in Utah (2008-2012) - two years in LD and two in Policy, and for a year and a half in college Policy for Cal Berkeley (2012, 2014). In my time in HS I qualified for the TOC, advanced to late outrounds at various majors, attended the greenhill round robin, and earned top speaker at the Cal tournament. As a college debater I took second at the Cal college tournament and was a quarterfinalist at the UK freshman breakout.
I'm currently a high school Policy Debate coach for The Davidson Academy of Reno, Nevada, and a college Policy Debate coach for Southwestern College. I also do work online teaching speech and debate to students in China with Global Academic Commons.
I have a background studying a fair amount of different strands of academic literature that debaters would probably label as "K arguments" so interdisciplinary epistemological criticisms make me smile. Don't take this to mean your speeches can be intensely jargon heavy and inaccessible - debate is a communicative activity not an academic conference where participants present research papers. ** Extra speaker points if you are so well versed in whatever theory you are arguing that it comes across in your speeches and cross-x answers, and you seek to inform rather than obfuscate with your responses (this means for you security/threat construction/cap/[insert other structural logic] folks, start coming up with examples of failed foreign policies whose justifications rely on whatever logic you are critiquing - know some history). **
Some thoughts POST-BERKELEY 2019: I am tired of seeing students no-show to tournaments just because they can't clear. If you are already out of the tournament (0-3 or worse) when I am judging you, I will be increasingly generous with speaker points the further down the bracket you all are (barring hateful speech or lack of effort of course). I think you deserve recognition for showing up in spite of not being able to clear, which is an act of respect for both the tournaments you attend, as well as your opponents.
Long story short:
Debate is debate - my position as a judge isn't to tell debaters what arguments they can and can't make, but to decide, given the arguments presented to me by the debaters in-round, who has done the better debating. This means I look to write reasons for decision that have the least amount of intervention on my part to interpret arguments as possible so be sure to warrant and impact your extensions.
If there is some blatantly obvious gut-check, round over concession (i.e. negative block never answers conditionality bad and they actually read an advocacy that is conditional, someone concedes a T shell - like imagine you're debating a novice or someone fresh out of JV and they drop something absolutely crucial) please err toward using less of your speech time. I watched an elim-level varsity team at Stanford crush a pretty new JV team and there was actually no reason for the aff team to use anything beyond a minute of prep throughout the debate - nearly every flow was conceded. Yet the 2AR took the remaining 9:45 of prep the aff team had left..... I will reward your speaker points if you choose not to use all of your prep or speech time in instances like this.
A note on in-round language Ks like ableism, "you guys", etc.: I think apologizing can be a legitimate answer to a lot of these arguments but it needs to not be coupled with an immediate defense of the language used. If you choose to make a meaningful apology it should probably be done conversationally, not at full speed, because it should pose a material consequence on your speech if you don't think it should cost you the ballot. Otherwise, debate it. Sometimes engaging with problematic discourse is good - look at movements to reclaim the word queer by LGBTQ communities, or the history of the N word's modification and use by black Americans. All I'm asking is that you pick a lane and stick with it.
Short story long:
While I may have some proclivities about how arguments should be read, which I will try to be as earnest about as possible below, I as much as possible judge based solely off of what arguments have been made by the debaters themselves. I think it is possible to have a debate in-round about whether that's all I should base my decision on - if you want to make an epistemology argument justify it and be responsive.
I will flow the debate line-by-line unless arguments are made for me to do otherwise, or a request made before a more performative speech. This means if I'm listening to a performance aff and haven't been told not to flow line-by-line, I will write down what I think are the implied arguments of different parts of your speech.
Good debaters make arguments, great debaters explain why those arguments matter. This means a massive spread of arguments isn't always the best way to go. Consolidate your arguments as the debate moves on and try your best to "write my ballot for me" with your overviews of arguments in the debate. The less explanation there is on a given issue in a round, the more it feels like I'm forced to intervene in order to make my decision.
Don't ask me to disclose speaker points.
An aside on post-rounding: Don't. Barring a hard-line tournament policy preventing me from doing so, I will withhold submitting the ballot until after I've announced my decision and given a brief RFD. Beyond the bad optics of unsporting conduct, I am diagnosed with general anxiety disorder as well as PTSD and will, in this instance, use speaker points as a deterrent to debaters or coaches aggravating my mental health condition. Feel free to ask questions, just act like you're speaking to another human being and not berating a computer with a software glitch. The next debater that doesn't heed this warning will get a 25. The next coach who doesn't heed this warning will cause their students in the debate round to receive a maximum of 25 speaker points, possibly less depending on how much of the round the coach actually watched. I won't tell you this is happening either, you can figure it out on your cume sheet. I will simply pack up my things and then leave, offering to provide the other team feedback in a safer area. Take your attitude to Peewee Football where it belongs.
If you've gotten this far into reading my philosophy I want to reward your attempts to understand and adapt to your critics. Tell me that my cat Moe is the most adorable cat this side of the galaxy and I'll give you .4 extra speaker points the first time I judge you.
Policy
Folks, when I debated I read big-stick policy affs with heg and econ impacts, soft-left critical affs, personal narratives, bizarre postmodern kritiks, process cps w/ politics, word PICs, functional PICs, and probably some other nonsense too. I have a tremendous amount of respect for debaters who can be flexible, particularly as the activity has seemed to become more polarized. Read whatever arguments you want to read. Just be clear and impact them back to the debate.
Ok, there is one thing - terrorism impacts. Not only are most of these authors anti-Arab and/or Islamophobic racists, or just xenophobes period, but I just personally have always found these arguments comically bad. You can read these still if you really want and truly have nothing else, or you think you have a persuasive scenario, but if I have to actually vote for it as an impact scenario it's probably going to be a low point win. In seven years of judging I've not once voted on a terrorism impact in any debate event, but I have had to dock speaker points for the hateful garbage that comes out of some people's mouths while defending them.
Yeah, and framework. If you are aff answering a K, I'm probably going to be unpersuaded by the argument that Ks are cheating. I do think it is reasonable for the aff to argue that they get to weigh their 1AC (expect negative push back with sequencing arguments of course). If you are neg vs. a K aff there's definitely a spectrum of what 1ACs framework is a more persuasive argument to me on. Affs should probably still have to relate to the topic - what "relating to the topic" means is something up for debate if the question is raised. 1ACs should have some sort of advocacy statement, whether it needs to be a USfg backed plan or something broader is up for debate... Beyond those two qualifiers, everything is fair game.
**ONE OTHER THING (POST-MEADOWS 2019):**
I'm becoming increasingly irritated by the butchered articulations of Afropessimism positions (mainly) by white debaters. I'm going to start tanking the speaker points of debaters who read arguments like Afropessimism or settler colonialism alongside ideologically inconsistent negative strategies. Defenses of conditionality do not absolve debaters of the inconsistencies between the worldviews that they forward within debate rounds. I voted down a fairly talented team at Meadows who never grappled with how their reading of a contradicting no root cause argument on-case was spun as proof that the negative's endorsement of Wilderson's ideology was only as a fungible means to an end of winning debate rounds, turning alt solvency. If a central component of your argument is that black bodies are rendered fungible for the benefit of others within civil society what the hell does it say that you'd read this argument alongside framework (which I've seen done repeatedly) or alongside case arguments which assert the logic of otherization lacks a root cause? If you are debating a team who makes a sweeping ontological or epistemic critique like one of these alongside milquetoast policy positions or other contradictory arguments please call it out. Not only will you likely have a very easy decision in your favor but I will reward your speaker points heavily. A CAVEAT: I think these arguments are less strong when applied to critiques like the Security K which don't call for an entire rewriting of the foundations of society and can be spun as a test of the affirmative's worldview for political decisionmaking. Basically, if your criticism would call for a fundamental restructuring of human relations or total opposition to engagement through any status quo mechanism, be it institutional or interpersonal, you ought to commit to your worldview because to do otherwise likely reifies your arguments about the way movements aren't addressed within status quo politics and are footnoted, ignored, or perverted for the benefit of the ruling class.
"T isn't genocide" is both a strawman and incomplete argument. When I hear those words in a debate round my mental image is of the speaker plugging their ears and screaming "LA LA LA LA." Further, a critique of T is not an RVI, and your generic "T is not an RVI" block is more than likely to be insufficient to answer an actual criticism of topicality. If debate is a game does that change the scope or context of any silencing/exclusion that may occur? Do games function without limits? Maybe think about these questions when formulating your response.
I want to be a part of the email chain for the round, ask me for my email before the debate.
Do not remove card taglines or plan/counterplan texts from your speech documents.
I do not open speech documents during the debate. My flow will be based entirely off of what I can understand being said/argued by both teams during their speech time (no 30 second grace period, my pen/typing stops when the timer goes off).
I may look at a few cards after the round is over, especially if the evidence in question is heavily contested or cited by one or both teams. In general, the more cards I need to personally read to decide the debate, the more I feel like I'm being forced to intervene.
Don't steal prep time holy hell people. Time used to delete analytics from your speech document is prep time. If an attempt to send the file out within 10 seconds of the words "stop prep" being said is not clearly made, the speaking team's prep time restarts. Take your hands off of your keyboards during dead time before speeches, unless you are pulling up the current speech document. Anything else is prep. Obviously I can't track the milliseconds of your prep time, so I'll dock your speaker points instead if it becomes a consistent issue.
If you speed through your theory blocks, T argument, or an important overview like a card I'm gonna absorb less of it. I'll still be able to write down your arguments, but (particularly for theory, T, and FW debates) I might miss a quick analytic, organize it differently from what you intended, or just think about it less. I'm gonna emphasize this further - your judges do not hear every word you say, stop taking for granted that you have your blocks prewritten in front of you and SLOW DOWN (especially if you're the type of debater to take your analytic blocks out of your speech doc - be willing to accept the negative externalities that result).
"Judge kick" with advocacies: The negative is obligated to tell me if I should view the status quo as a secondary option going into the 2NR/2AR. Any interpretation of this issue, absent debaters explicitly clarifying it themselves in-round, requires an amount of judge intervention to resolve. In those instances, I conclude that the path of least intervention is to assume that the negative is solely defending the world they've explicitly presented to me in the final speech.
LD
Don't waste time over-explaining your value if the debate isn't going to come down to it. Often times the value-criterion is where the real debate for how I should evaluate arguments in the round occurs.
The "number of contentions won" (actual phrase uttered by a debater I judged) is irrelevant in my decision calculus. I need to know why the arguments won matter underneath one, or both, frameworks presented in the round.
Don't run shoddy theory arguments, run ones you have a legitimate chance of winning. I think the time skew for the 1AR in LD has always been particularly egregious, and too many debaters rely on extraneous theory violations tripping up the 1AR to win their rounds. I don't want to vote for these arguments. I will if you convincingly win them, but your speaker points will likely not be that high.
"Plans aren't allowed in LD debate" is not a complete argument. It is an interpretation for a theoretical violation which I expect debaters to justify with arguments for why that's a better world of LD debate.
Also, criterion shouldn't essentially be a plan or idea on how to attain your value. I'm not sure when this idea became common among more local debaters, but your criterion is supposed to be an evaluative lens for me to judge the arguments presented to me in the round and their impact.
If you are time-pressed, reading the bold will give you a general idea of my judging philosophy, and reading the unbolded text around what is bolded should give you the full picture. **For Alta** Please scroll below to the Policy section and find the post-Meadows update.
Conflicts: Juan Diego CHS, El Cerrito, The Davidson Academy of Nevada, Cal Berkeley, Southwestern College
I debated for four years in high school for Juan Diego in Utah (2008-2012) - two years in LD and two in Policy, and for a year and a half in college Policy for Cal Berkeley (2012, 2014). In my time in HS I qualified for the TOC, advanced to late outrounds at various majors, attended the greenhill round robin, and earned top speaker at the Cal tournament. As a college debater I took second at the Cal college tournament and was a quarterfinalist at the UK freshman breakout.
I'm currently a high school Policy Debate coach for The Davidson Academy of Reno, Nevada, and a college Policy Debate coach for Southwestern College. I also do work online teaching speech and debate to students in China with Global Academic Commons.
I have a background studying a fair amount of different strands of academic literature that debaters would probably label as "K arguments" so interdisciplinary epistemological criticisms make me smile. Don't take this to mean your speeches can be intensely jargon heavy and inaccessible - debate is a communicative activity not an academic conference where participants present research papers. ** Extra speaker points if you are so well versed in whatever theory you are arguing that it comes across in your speeches and cross-x answers, and you seek to inform rather than obfuscate with your responses (this means for you security/threat construction/cap/[insert other structural logic] folks, start coming up with examples of failed foreign policies whose justifications rely on whatever logic you are critiquing - know some history). **
Some thoughts POST-BERKELEY 2019: I am tired of seeing students no-show to tournaments just because they can't clear. If you are already out of the tournament (0-3 or worse) when I am judging you, I will be increasingly generous with speaker points the further down the bracket you all are (barring hateful speech or lack of effort of course). I think you deserve recognition for showing up in spite of not being able to clear, which is an act of respect for both the tournaments you attend, as well as your opponents.
Long story short:
Debate is debate - my position as a judge isn't to tell debaters what arguments they can and can't make, but to decide, given the arguments presented to me by the debaters in-round, who has done the better debating. This means I look to write reasons for decision that have the least amount of intervention on my part to interpret arguments as possible so be sure to warrant and impact your extensions.
If there is some blatantly obvious gut-check, round over concession (i.e. negative block never answers conditionality bad and they actually read an advocacy that is conditional, someone concedes a T shell - like imagine you're debating a novice or someone fresh out of JV and they drop something absolutely crucial) please err toward using less of your speech time. I watched an elim-level varsity team at Stanford crush a pretty new JV team and there was actually no reason for the aff team to use anything beyond a minute of prep throughout the debate - nearly every flow was conceded. Yet the 2AR took the remaining 9:45 of prep the aff team had left..... I will reward your speaker points if you choose not to use all of your prep or speech time in instances like this.
A note on in-round language Ks like ableism, "you guys", etc.: I think apologizing can be a legitimate answer to a lot of these arguments but it needs to not be coupled with an immediate defense of the language used. If you choose to make a meaningful apology it should probably be done conversationally, not at full speed, because it should pose a material consequence on your speech if you don't think it should cost you the ballot. Otherwise, debate it. Sometimes engaging with problematic discourse is good - look at movements to reclaim the word queer by LGBTQ communities, or the history of the N word's modification and use by black Americans. All I'm asking is that you pick a lane and stick with it.
Short story long:
While I may have some proclivities about how arguments should be read, which I will try to be as earnest about as possible below, I as much as possible judge based solely off of what arguments have been made by the debaters themselves. I think it is possible to have a debate in-round about whether that's all I should base my decision on - if you want to make an epistemology argument justify it and be responsive.
I will flow the debate line-by-line unless arguments are made for me to do otherwise, or a request made before a more performative speech. This means if I'm listening to a performance aff and haven't been told not to flow line-by-line, I will write down what I think are the implied arguments of different parts of your speech.
Good debaters make arguments, great debaters explain why those arguments matter. This means a massive spread of arguments isn't always the best way to go. Consolidate your arguments as the debate moves on and try your best to "write my ballot for me" with your overviews of arguments in the debate. The less explanation there is on a given issue in a round, the more it feels like I'm forced to intervene in order to make my decision.
Don't ask me to disclose speaker points.
An aside on post-rounding: Don't. Barring a hard-line tournament policy preventing me from doing so, I will withhold submitting the ballot until after I've announced my decision and given a brief RFD. Beyond the bad optics of unsporting conduct, I am diagnosed with general anxiety disorder as well as PTSD and will, in this instance, use speaker points as a deterrent to debaters or coaches aggravating my mental health condition. Feel free to ask questions, just act like you're speaking to another human being and not berating a computer with a software glitch. The next debater that doesn't heed this warning will get a 25. The next coach who doesn't heed this warning will cause their students in the debate round to receive a maximum of 25 speaker points, possibly less depending on how much of the round the coach actually watched. I won't tell you this is happening either, you can figure it out on your cume sheet. I will simply pack up my things and then leave, offering to provide the other team feedback in a safer area. Take your attitude to Peewee Football where it belongs.
If you've gotten this far into reading my philosophy I want to reward your attempts to understand and adapt to your critics. Tell me that my cat Moe is the most adorable cat this side of the galaxy and I'll give you .4 extra speaker points the first time I judge you.
Policy
Folks, when I debated I read big-stick policy affs with heg and econ impacts, soft-left critical affs, personal narratives, bizarre postmodern kritiks, process cps w/ politics, word PICs, functional PICs, and probably some other nonsense too. I have a tremendous amount of respect for debaters who can be flexible, particularly as the activity has seemed to become more polarized. Read whatever arguments you want to read. Just be clear and impact them back to the debate.
Ok, there is one thing - terrorism impacts. Not only are most of these authors anti-Arab and/or Islamophobic racists, or just xenophobes period, but I just personally have always found these arguments comically bad. You can read these still if you really want and truly have nothing else, or you think you have a persuasive scenario, but if I have to actually vote for it as an impact scenario it's probably going to be a low point win. In seven years of judging I've not once voted on a terrorism impact in any debate event, but I have had to dock speaker points for the hateful garbage that comes out of some people's mouths while defending them.
Yeah, and framework. If you are aff answering a K, I'm probably going to be unpersuaded by the argument that Ks are cheating. I do think it is reasonable for the aff to argue that they get to weigh their 1AC (expect negative push back with sequencing arguments of course). If you are neg vs. a K aff there's definitely a spectrum of what 1ACs framework is a more persuasive argument to me on. Affs should probably still have to relate to the topic - what "relating to the topic" means is something up for debate if the question is raised. 1ACs should have some sort of advocacy statement, whether it needs to be a USfg backed plan or something broader is up for debate... Beyond those two qualifiers, everything is fair game.
**ONE OTHER THING (POST-MEADOWS 2019):**
I'm becoming increasingly irritated by the butchered articulations of Afropessimism positions (mainly) by white debaters. I'm going to start tanking the speaker points of debaters who read arguments like Afropessimism or settler colonialism alongside ideologically inconsistent negative strategies. Defenses of conditionality do not absolve debaters of the inconsistencies between the worldviews that they forward within debate rounds. I voted down a fairly talented team at Meadows who never grappled with how their reading of a contradicting no root cause argument on-case was spun as proof that the negative's endorsement of Wilderson's ideology was only as a fungible means to an end of winning debate rounds, turning alt solvency. If a central component of your argument is that black bodies are rendered fungible for the benefit of others within civil society what the hell does it say that you'd read this argument alongside framework (which I've seen done repeatedly) or alongside case arguments which assert the logic of otherization lacks a root cause? If you are debating a team who makes a sweeping ontological or epistemic critique like one of these alongside milquetoast policy positions or other contradictory arguments please call it out. Not only will you likely have a very easy decision in your favor but I will reward your speaker points heavily. A CAVEAT: I think these arguments are less strong when applied to critiques like the Security K which don't call for an entire rewriting of the foundations of society and can be spun as a test of the affirmative's worldview for political decisionmaking. Basically, if your criticism would call for a fundamental restructuring of human relations or total opposition to engagement through any status quo mechanism, be it institutional or interpersonal, you ought to commit to your worldview because to do otherwise likely reifies your arguments about the way movements aren't addressed within status quo politics and are footnoted, ignored, or perverted for the benefit of the ruling class.
"T isn't genocide" is both a strawman and incomplete argument. When I hear those words in a debate round my mental image is of the speaker plugging their ears and screaming "LA LA LA LA." Further, a critique of T is not an RVI, and your generic "T is not an RVI" block is more than likely to be insufficient to answer an actual criticism of topicality. If debate is a game does that change the scope or context of any silencing/exclusion that may occur? Do games function without limits? Maybe think about these questions when formulating your response.
I want to be a part of the email chain for the round, ask me for my email before the debate.
Do not remove card taglines or plan/counterplan texts from your speech documents.
I do not open speech documents during the debate. My flow will be based entirely off of what I can understand being said/argued by both teams during their speech time (no 30 second grace period, my pen/typing stops when the timer goes off).
I may look at a few cards after the round is over, especially if the evidence in question is heavily contested or cited by one or both teams. In general, the more cards I need to personally read to decide the debate, the more I feel like I'm being forced to intervene.
Don't steal prep time holy hell people. Time used to delete analytics from your speech document is prep time. If an attempt to send the file out within 10 seconds of the words "stop prep" being said is not clearly made, the speaking team's prep time restarts. Take your hands off of your keyboards during dead time before speeches, unless you are pulling up the current speech document. Anything else is prep. Obviously I can't track the milliseconds of your prep time, so I'll dock your speaker points instead if it becomes a consistent issue.
If you speed through your theory blocks, T argument, or an important overview like a card I'm gonna absorb less of it. I'll still be able to write down your arguments, but (particularly for theory, T, and FW debates) I might miss a quick analytic, organize it differently from what you intended, or just think about it less. I'm gonna emphasize this further - your judges do not hear every word you say, stop taking for granted that you have your blocks prewritten in front of you and SLOW DOWN (especially if you're the type of debater to take your analytic blocks out of your speech doc - be willing to accept the negative externalities that result).
"Judge kick" with advocacies: The negative is obligated to tell me if I should view the status quo as a secondary option going into the 2NR/2AR. Any interpretation of this issue, absent debaters explicitly clarifying it themselves in-round, requires an amount of judge intervention to resolve. In those instances, I conclude that the path of least intervention is to assume that the negative is solely defending the world they've explicitly presented to me in the final speech.
LD
Don't waste time over-explaining your value if the debate isn't going to come down to it. Often times the value-criterion is where the real debate for how I should evaluate arguments in the round occurs.
The "number of contentions won" (actual phrase uttered by a debater I judged) is irrelevant in my decision calculus. I need to know why the arguments won matter underneath one, or both, frameworks presented in the round.
Don't run shoddy theory arguments, run ones you have a legitimate chance of winning. I think the time skew for the 1AR in LD has always been particularly egregious, and too many debaters rely on extraneous theory violations tripping up the 1AR to win their rounds. I don't want to vote for these arguments. I will if you convincingly win them, but your speaker points will likely not be that high.
"Plans aren't allowed in LD debate" is not a complete argument. It is an interpretation for a theoretical violation which I expect debaters to justify with arguments for why that's a better world of LD debate.
Also, criterion shouldn't essentially be a plan or idea on how to attain your value. I'm not sure when this idea became common among more local debaters, but your criterion is supposed to be an evaluative lens for me to judge the arguments presented to me in the round and their impact.
TL;DR
I know stuff.
Bio (Completely Irrelevant)
I competed in PF for four years at Hamilton High School (2014-2018). In my senior year I was the captain of the team. I competed a lot on the AZ local circuit, and won/placed at a bunch of tournaments. I also competed a bit on the national circuit (broke boi couldn't afford all the plane tickets in HS), and have dabbled in Policy and Big Questions debate. Finally, I've also competed in the International Public Policy forum and achieved global Top 16 alongside my team. Today, I'm a student studying Computer Science and Physics at ASU.
Speed/Speaking
1. I can comprehend up to 275 words per minute, but my most accurate flowing happens at about 225 words per minute and under. Be smart about your word economy. If you can say it slower and make the same goddamn point just as effectively, do that. Do not sacrifice clarity for "speed" (I say "speed" because when you're messing up so much because you're trying to go faster than you're meant to, your effective speed is actually super slow.) Do not use the Gish gallop, this will annoy me severely.
2. I reserve the right to yell "CLEAR" at any point in the round; if I do, that means something with your speaking isn't working for me and it needs to be fixed; it could be speed, volume, enunciation, slurring, etc. I don't do this to be a jerk, I do it because I actually want to hear what you have to say. However, don't rely on my yelling of "CLEAR" as an absolute metric though, because you might just not be egregious enough for me to say it. If I look confuzzled or like I'm not understanding what's going on, that is likely the case.
3. There are a myriad of references you can make that will bump up your speaker points if they are eloquently incorporated into your speech: PewDiePie, Speedcubing, Lil Uzi Vert, Playboi Carti, Future, Juice WRLD, Eminem, Deadpool, Mr. Robot, or Avatar (NOT the blue aliens one). Saying "Subscribe to PewDiePie" at the end of the speech is no longer novel to me, and I won't count it.
Cross-Ex
0. As a general rule, cross is for you, not me.
1. I will not judge on what is said in cross-ex. If something important happens, please bring it back up in a speech so I can put it on the flow. (I do actually listen though - even if I'm walking around, eating, etc. - unless it's mind-numbing, which happens fairly frequently).
2. Cross-ex can be used to clarify and understand your opponents case, I don't frown on that. Don't be afraid to ask why; at best, their reasoning will be moronic and easy to dismantle, and at worst, we all learn something.
3. Don't go back and forth and waste time during cross. (But depth is awesome and absolutely necessary, don't misconstrue the two).
4. I don't see "my partner will answer this in speech" as a weakness if it's because the idea takes a bit to explain or if you already know your partner will expound on an idea you briefly mention, but I might still smile at it, because it's memey. But if it's a question that you should be able to answer, then that's probably a problem.
5. When someone asks for an explanation of a warrant, "we have a card for that" is not an appropriate answer. This is also true for the round in general, not just CX. ACTUALLY EXPLAIN THINGS; if the answer wouldn't have been satisfying for you then it's likely not satisfying for me either. A card is not a warrant in and of itself.
6. Standing or sitting, don't care. Do a handstand if you want.
7. First speaking team gets the first question, no need to ask, just get into it.
8. Towards the end of cross, y'all can reserve the right to end it if there's nothing to talk about, and just prep instead during that time (for a MAX of thirty seconds) (especially GCX).
Timing
1. Please time yourself. I basically always forget, so please keep track of yourselves and each other (that goes for speech AND prep).
2. If you need to verbally let me know your opponent is going over time, that's fine (just give them like 4 seconds of grace period). You can avoid all of the ambiguity by just using a timer that actually goes off at the end of the speech too.
Etiquette
1. Try to get to the round on time (I will too). If you need time in the room to get your stuff together, or pre-flow, I'm totally cool with that, I just don't want to accidentally tell Tabroom you don't exist (same reason I'll try to be there on time). But again, s*** happens, so I'm gonna try not to be annoying about time, as much as possible.
2. I like Aff on my left, Neg on my right. The world will not end if this is not true, however.
3. I’m not uptight; I like a chill vibe in rounds. I like judging rounds where everyone's actually having fun (especially me). Good jokes are great, bad jokes are colossal failures. (If you can make your opponents' argument seem so ridiculous that it's funny, you're probably being quite convincing). I encourage being savage, but in a tasteful-ish manner. Being savage is not the same as being petulant.
4. You can swear, I don’t care. Actually, I'll probably like it, especially if it helps with your rhetorical efficacy.
5. I’d rather not shake hands. Shaking hands with me won’t magically help or hurt your chances of winning, but it could get either of us sick.
Debate-y Stuff
1. Signpost everything, for the love of music, video games, Netflix, pets, and parents. I literally don’t know where to put stuff if you don’t signpost (and then I won't write anything, and it'll be your fault).
a. If you're refuting an argument, tell me what specifically you are responding to, and what happens to offense as a result.
b. If you're frontlining a response, tell me exactly which responses your frontline applies to, and what I need to extend as a result of this frontline.
2. Structure responses in a systematic manner, at the least. I really prefer numbered responses in rebuttals and I like numbered frontlines in the summaries and second rebuttals (this makes it easier to reference which response we're talking about at any point).
3. Please extend arguments throughout both Summ/FF speeches consistently, I will straight up cross off stuff on my flow that is not clearly extended. However, you don't have to yell "extend" before everything you extend (because that’s annoying), just contextualize the argument and why I should extend it.
4. If you’re not frontlining, you will probably auto-lose the round, because I want to watch an actual debate.
5. I like to have a roadmap before speeches, but it should NOT be flowery. For example: “framework, aff case, neg case.” If you’re doing something weird though, let me know. In most cases, I just want to know which side of the flow we're starting on.
6. There’s no reason to "extend" your own case in rebuttal if "time permits" if you’re the first speaking team. I don’t get why debaters do this, but it’s a waste, and I WILL drop speaker points for this.
7. 2nd rebuttal should address the 1st rebuttal.
8. 1st summary should address the 2nd rebuttal.
9. I’m cool with overviews.
a. If an overview applies to an argument specifically, remind me of the overview and cross apply it.
b. Your overview shouldn’t just be another contention though, that’s not the point.
10. If you read a definition, actually make it useful for your case. "But bro, they didn't have a definition, so you have to use ours" is not an argument.
11. Frameworks can be as important as you make them.
a. If your frameworks agree, just stop mentioning it, I’ll use it.
b. Weighing really helps to solidify a ballot, and a carded weighing analysis can really help with that. Also, you NEED to tell me how to weigh unlike things; it's easy to say $200 million is more than $170 million, but we all know this is rarely how debate functions. If you don't convince me of a way to adjudicate the round, I don't know what the hell to do.
c. "But bro, they didn't have a framework, so you have to use ours" is not an argument.
12. ALL offense must be in summary.
a. The first summary does not need to include defense unless this defense has been frontlined already.
b. However, turns must be in summary, otherwise they will end up only being terminal defense. (Otherwise it's abusive, the other team needs to know what you're going for).
13. I hate key voters, they obfuscate the round for me. Instead keep it on the flow, tell me why the arguments that are left actually allow you to win (essentially line-by-line, but don't think saying card names aimlessly is going to mean anything, so don't card dump).
14. I GREATLY encourage collapsing. Kick an argument and instead show me why the one you go for is enough for the win. (You can’t kick an argument with a turn on it and expect things to be okay for you though, obviously.)
15. Please verbally label turns explicitly. It really helps me to see how you get offense on your opponent’s case. (Like actually say the word "turn" or something very similar).
16. Don’t give me a specific advocacy of the Aff (akin to a Policy plan).
17. Don’t give me a random alt on the Neg.
18. Please don’t strawman, make sure you respond to the actual arguments your opponents are making. That's the number one way to get me to tune out quickly.
19. K's might not be the best idea because I default to post-fiat impacts. The only way you'll win with a K is if you actually convince ME I should go pre-fiat or your K solves in a post-fiat analysis.
20. I don't flow card names for the most part, so make sure to tell me what the card says.
21. I love creative, innovative, eye-opening, deep arguments that come from another angle. I hate stupid, nonsensical arguments that disguise themselves as novel when they're not. Running one of those will get you yeeted. Logic actually matters, people. (This isn't to say I'm not tabula rasa, I really am very close. The point I'm making is that my threshold for refuting inherently ridiculous arguments is inherently lower than those that actually make sense, so you're handicapping yourself severely within the context of the round by running something we all know is dumb. For example, if the Aff tells me that "elephants are purple" and the Neg responds with "no," I will consider that an effective response. Remember, in the words of Carl Sagan, "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" and if you're giving me less-than-extraordinary evidence, you're screwed, because your opponents are probably smarter than your "argument").
Please feel free to ask me questions about my paradigm and the way I judge before the round. If you want to know how you're doing in a round, look at me, chances are that'll give you some information because my face can be very telling. I might ask for cards after the round if I feel like something is sketch or it has been made an issue in the round. I will almost always disclose, and I will provide a detailed verbal RFD, which often includes a significant degree of roasting. You can ask me questions after the round about anything, but don't argue with me, because I will submit my ballot before I disclose. Good luck.
Key Considerations:
- Substance and quality of argument outweighs style of argumentation.
- Provide a clear thesis for which you are contending and make sure that you accomplish it in such a rate of delivery that can be followed.
- Strong development of IMPACTS, appropriate evidence, proper linkage are all assets in round.
- Healthy clash is encouraged so that each posited argument clearly claims its unique ground. Vigorous clash is welcomed as long as it is with clear respect for one's opponents.
- In the end, give me a clear route to giving you a winning ballot.
Experience:
- This is ONLY MY SECOND YEAR Speech and Debate coach. I am still learning and adjusting. I have judged in Public Forum, Congress and Lincoln Douglas debates at district tournaments, state tournaments and national tournaments.
Background:
I debated for 3 years at Bentonville High School, two years in CX and one year in PF. I qualified to NSDA Nationals twice, once in World Schools, and one in PF. I also qualified to TOC in PF once. I am not a lay judge, and I would not like to be treated like one, I am a tab judge, so you best believe I will follow my flows. I currently attend BYU, where I do not do debate
Speaking:
I do not care how fast you go, just be clear and articulate. I see speed as a useful tool to be effective if used correctly. It is NOT to try and confuse your opponents by trying to make them miss some of your points. If you go fast, and I cannot understand you, that is your problem, not mine. Be organized in your speaking, go down the flow line by line, and make sure you are giving me CLEAR reasons why I should vote for you.
Framing and Theory:
I did CX for 2 years, so I love these type of arguments. Although they are not traditional in PF, I would love to see these type of arguments. Just do it well, or not at all. Tell me how I should view the round, where I should put my focus. Please, do not argue about the Rules of PF, it is annoying and honestly, I do not care.
Sportsmanship:
Debate is an activity that can get heated quickly. I DO NOT want to see yelling, and tensions getting out of control in the debate space. Be respectful to your opponents as well as your partner! If I see you being rude or unprofessional, that can reflect in your speaker points.
Judging:
tech > truth. I weigh everything in a debate round, but in your final speeches, tell me what you believe I should vote on. I will not do much work for you. If you do not extend an argument in your rebuttal speeches, the odds of me voting on it in the final focus are slim. Make sure by the end of the debate, I have clear voters.
If you have any questions for me, email me at lane.julia.33@gmail.com
I am a traditional judge. I value topicality, and I like signposting by both sides so that I can flow the round. I do not flow cross ex, so if you have points to make based on cross-ex, you will need to include them in your rebuttal. I will not read a case that is submitted to me, as I believe that you should do the work of debating your case vocally. If your spreading prohibits my ability to flow your case, you are not likely to win your round. I am seldom swayed by complaints of "unfair"--it just sounds whiney.
Who am I:
MS CS. I build AI models in industry
7 Years of Debate mainly in public forum.
I am used to national circuit public forum. I won PKD Nationals in college public forum twice.
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Public Forum
I will do my best to come into the debate with no preconceived notions of what public forum is supposed to look like.
Tech > Truth unless the flow is so damn messy that I am forced to go truth > tech to prevent myself from letting cardinal sins go.
Here's the best way to earn my ballot:
1) Win the flow. I will almost entirely vote off the flow at the end of the debate. If it's not in the FF I won't evaluate it at the end of the day.
2) Impact out what you win on the flow. I don't care if your opponents clean concede an argument that you extend through every speech if you don't tell me why I should care.
3) Clash with your opponent. Just because you put 5 attacks on an argument doesn't mean it has been dealt with if your attacks have no direct clash with the argument. If you are making an outway argument, tell me and I can evaluate it as such!
4) Please.. PLEASE extend your arguments from summary to final focus. Public forum is a partner event for a reason. i don't want two different stories from your side of the debate. Give me an argument, extend it through all your speeches and that's how you gain offense from it at the end of the day.
K's/Theory
I am fine with K's but please be aware of the following:
Y'all this isn't policy. It's public forum where you have potentially 4 minutes to detail a K, link your opponents to it, and impacted it out. This doesn't mean I won't evaluate and potentially vote on a K, rather I would caution against running a K just to say you ran a K in public forum.
Theory makes debate a better space. Don't abuse it
Speed
I can keep up with pretty much whatever you throw at me. Signposting is critical but in the rare case I have trouble I will drop my pen and say clear to give you a notice.
Plan's/Counterplans
I will drop you if you run one of these. This is public forum.
Speaker Points
Speaker points will be given with a couple points of consideration:
1) Logic. Anyone can yell cards 100mph at the top of their lungs. Speaker points will be higher for individuals who actually use logic to back up their evidence. Honestly you should be using logic anyways.
2) Signposting and clarity: Organization and well-built arguments are key in PF and.. ya know.. life.
3) Coding jokes. I am a computer scientist and will probably lose it (.5 SP bump for adaptation)
Calling for evidence
I will only call for evidence that is contended throughout the round, with that being said if you want me to call for evidence, tell me to call for it and what is wrong with it so I don't have to throw my own judgement in.
Any other questions ask me in round!
Lincoln Douglas:
I have judged quite a bit of Lincoln Douglas in Idaho; however, I am primarily a national circuit Public Forum Coach. I have will no problem following your on-case argumentation. K's, while I have introductory knowledge about, are not my speciality and please adjust accordingly.
I have no problem with counter plans in LD and I will come into the round with an open mind of how LD is supposed to look.
4 Tips for me:
1. Win the flow by extending your arguments and collapsing on key voters.
2. I could care less if you win the value/c debate unless you tell me why it ties to your impacts in a unique scope that your opponent does not.
3. Coding jokes get a .5 SP bump for adaption. (I am a computer scientist and believe adaptation is important to public speaking. But you won't be penalized for this haha)
4. Have fun!
If you have any questions please feel free to ask!
Policy
I have judged well over 50 policy rounds in Idaho; however, I have never judged national circuit (TOC) policy. What does this mean for your adaption to me?
Add me to the email chain marckade@isu.edu
1. Run whatever you want. I have no problem with K's or any other argument some local circuits believe to be kryptonite. I believe debate is a game that has real world implications. I am tech > truth. See #3 for more info
2. I have ZERO issue with fast paced, spreading of disads, on case, and generic off-case positions such as counterplans. You can go as fast as you want on these as long as you are clear in the tagline.
3. If you decide to run something fancy (K's), you will need to slow down a little bit. I have judged K debate, but it is not my specialty and I am not up to date with the literature. But I believe most K's to be fascinating and I wish I judged them more. The most important thing you can do to help me vote for your K is EXPLAIN the links. Links are everything to me <3
cale@victorybriefs.com or SpeechDrop work
hi! i'm Cale. i've been coaching and judging pf & ld for 8 years. i debated in Texas before that.
general:
- read whatever you like: judging debaters who enjoy what they read is fun. however, keep in mind the coherence of my rfd will scale with your clarity- slow for analytics and tags, send well-organized docs, signpost, and number answers when you can. you'll be much happier with my decision.
- speaks reflect how strategic i found your debating to be. i'll evaluate any style, but admittedly prefer quick, clear debaters that read interesting arguments. (no 30 speaks spike or tko, please)
- i will not 'gut check' or strike an argument just because you've deemed it unwarranted or silly. instead, i encourage you to make an active response- it should be quick to do so if the argument is as underdeveloped as you say.
- extend your arguments. it doesn't have to be exhaustive, but something more than the tag is necessary, even if you think it's conceded.
- keep the round a safe and pleasant place for everyone. i will work hard to give you a thorough decision so long as we can all access the debate and speak about it afterwards without hostility.
- i am not going to use my ballot to make an out-of-round character judgement. if you are concerned your opponent is engaging in genuinely unsafe or violent behavior, a debate decision is not the appropriate means of redress- i will bring it to tab or the relevant party.
ld:
overall- i am best for policy debates, good for theory, worse for phil, and alright for Ks and tricks with some caveats (see below). ultimately, i'd like to judge your preferred strategy, but you will need to be more clear if it's something i'm typically not preffed into the back of. i am only human.
policy- i'll judge kick the counterplan. i lean neg on cp theory claims, and wish the aff would engage in a competition debate rather than read a blippy theory argument, particularly when the 1n is only like 3 off. i am good for your process/consult/intl fiat/etc cp, and, again, wish 1ars would just engage- if you are convinced there is not a discernable net benefit, the argument should be easier to answer. 3 word perms aren't arguments- explain the world of the perm. zero risk exists, and while it is difficult to achieve, it is entirely possible to make an argument's implication so marginal that its functional weight in the round is zero. i really appreciate well-executed impact turn debates, some of my favorite rounds to judge.
theory- no defaults, read w/e you want. always send interps and slow for anything you extemp. far too often in these debates there's no weighing or line by line done on paradigm issues: the 1n reads their theory hedge and vaguely crossapplies it to the 1ac underview, and then all of these arguments just float around in the 1ar and 2n without resolution- please lbl to make judging this tolerable. when going for T, keep in mind i do not actively cut LD prep or mine the wiki, so i don't have a reference point for your caselist or prep-based limits standard- add some explanation.
K- i frequently judge cap arguments, and often judge setcol. external to that, i'm much less experienced- happy to judge it, but i need instruction. please lbl clearly: i find myself most lost in k 2n/2ars when the overview is jargon-heavy and crossapplied everywhere. it is probably useful to know i can count on one hand the number of K v K debates i've been in the back of.
tricks- i often judge truth testing and skep and their associated tricks, but i don't have a deep enough understanding of the argument form to say i'm 10/10 comfortable if you read a nailbomb aff or a bunch of indexicals. in general, delineate in the doc and cross, be super clear abt the collapse strat, and i can vote for these.
phil- i have next to no experience with phil argumentation save for Kant tricks and some pomo (mostly just Baudrillard). need you to slow down and give me extra judge instruction if you're reading anything dense, but happy to learn.
pf:
extend defense the speech after it's answered and be comparative when you're weighing or going for a fw argument. otherwise, read what you think is fun- this includes theory, critical arguments, and other forms less common to PF. two things to add here: 1. don't read an argument just for the sake of it, read it well and 2. i am not amenable to the PF-style 'this argument form is holistically bad' response if we are in the varsity division- engage with substantive responses.
come to round ready to debate (pre-flowed, have docs ready if you're sending them, etc). the only way to frustrate me beyond being rude is to drag out the round by individually calling for a lot of evidence and taking forever to send it.
many PFers spend copious amounts of time impact weighing with multiple mechanisms. more often than not, you are better served reading one simple piece of weighing and investing that time elsewhere- either in more clearly frontlining and extending your case argument, or better implicating a piece of defense or turn on your opponents' case.
I am a big fan of rhetoric. I believe and vote primarily off strong links and proofs. If you’re going to make a claim make sure it has a good foundation and connects to the rest of your arguments. I don't care how pretty or cohesive an argument is if it's only tangentially related to the topic being discussed.
I’m fine with spreading as long as it’s understandable.
I don't mind theory or Ks, but if you decide to run one make sure you can justify it. Above all I care about the merit of your argument and the impact of what you're saying.
BG:
Currently, I'm a radio news producer and have been for the last two years. Prior to kick-starting my career, I debated in college for 3 years, coached high school debate for 4 years, and competed in high school debate for 4 years.
I'm really up on current events, considering current events are my 9-5 and hobby. However, I love to learn new things and hear compelling and unique arguments.
In college, I competed in parliamentary debate. The best way to describe the event is like policy debate and extemporaneous speaking combined. I coached all forms of debate. And in high school, I did Oregon parliamentary debate and Public Forum.
What I like to see:
I'm a big fan of clash and having a clear flow. If I don't have it down on my paper, I'm less likely to vote for the argument. I'm a bit of a scatterbrain (thank you ADHD) so while I can keep up with a hoppy flow, I would prefer it keep it as clean as possible, for yours and my sake.
I enjoy strong impact and link debate and believe that's usually where the debate comes down to. When judging K debate, I believe framework and the impact debate are most important.
Additionally, I LOVE hearing arguments you wouldn't normally hear or go for. So, that wacky K or questionable disadvantage... free game. Debate isn't just about winning--I believe the fundamental point is learning and getting better at the craft. Try new things out when I'm your judge. I'll give you feedback and let you know how to make the case stronger for your next round.
I'm fine with speed, but will clear you if I have zero idea what you're saying. If I clear you or your opponent does more than twice, I would recommend just slowing down.
Disclaimer: I'm a fan of trigger warnings when talking about sensitive subjects such as sexual assault and suicide. I won't automatically dock you if you don't inform me that you'll be talking about this before the start of the debate, but I probably will have a sour look on my face.
As always, feel free to ask me any specific questions before the round and I will answer them to the best of my ability.
Topshelf -
Impact weighing is near the top of my priorities when making a decision it influences how i frame the rest of the debate and the offense/defense of the debate.
Kritiks - Fine by me but i prefer they have solid links to the opposing side and that they are based in the topic literature.
Theory. Fine as long as they have clear standards and a reject the team arg, i have a high threshold for reject the team args.
The looking at cards off of prep time is somewhat okay but don't use it super often it makes the round unnecessarily long
I think 2nd rebuttal should cover opponents case and offense but this isn't something i will vote on its just something to keep in mind.
Email for email chains - Joshuadalemitchell@gmail.com
Hello debate enthusiasts,
Iam a parent judge who enjoys watching public forum debate. For the benefit of the community, I would like to use this passion and turn it into service as a debate judge.
Regarding speaking preferences, clarity is very mportant to me. I dislike spreading and prefer a more moderate pace.
Also, I value thoughtful and insightful debates with emphasis on impacts and command over topic literature.
In my book of judging, logic is as important as evidence.
Wishing good luck to all the competitors at the tournament!
I am a parent judge! That being said I have judged countless rounds on the Nat circuit and local circuit for 5+ years.
A few things I prefer:
Keep speed and clarity in mind when debating.
For any complicated economic argument please provide actual warranting when you are extending it.
Collapse and do weighing on the argument you want me to vote on, I won't do it for you.
Debate is about having fun so don't let the round get too heated.
Signpost, Signpost, Signpost
I usually won't question your evidence myself, so if you find bad evidence on your opponents side bring it up in round and in a speech as a response.
Defense is not sticky; make sure to extend it in summary if you are going for it
Frontline in second rebuttal, second summary is way to late in the round for your first time frontlining.
Comparative weighing wins rounds
I am a coach-adjacent (married to one) judge, and I have been judging policy, PF and LD for 15 years. I was also a policy debater in the last century. That said, I am not necessarily dialed in to the most current strategies and shorthand, especially in policy. My overall approach is basically tabula rasa- I will consider any argument that you can explain in terms of engagement with your opponent, i.e. if you can tell me WHY what you are bringing into the round should win my vote. That could be evidence, impacts, kritiks- whatever- I just need to know that you are listening to your opponent, engaging them directly and weighing their response to you. I’m not really drawn to debates about debate (theory?) in a debate round, but I value thoughtful kritiks about the appropriateness and shortcomings of topics/resolutions in the real world. I will vote on topicality, but it needs to be rigorously adapted to the case in round by specifying exactly why something is non-topical. I’m well aware of the implications for educational purposes.
In terms of mechanics, I can flow fairly speedy rounds, but I have always been a quality over quantity judge. Debate is still about communication and persuasion, and presenting a great volume of evidence/sources accomplishes neither goal.
For Public Forum rounds, much of what I like to see in policy applies, only more so because the time to make arguments is so abbreviated. The winning team will have narrowed their best argument down to one or maybe two by final focus, and will keep it tight, clear and concise.
In LD, I am old school, and I appreciate the idea of a ponderous, reflective and challenging philosophical discourse on a contentious topic. I want to see well developed cases and arguments that explore the moral implications of respective sides of a resolution. A good LD round, in my view, is one in which both participants can speak like orators and use the power of language to bring the listeners to hear the righteousness of their position.
please add me on the email chain, maggiepiercea@gmail.com
I did PF for three years in high school and then policy debate for four years in college. I did two years at the University of Wyoming and then two years and NYU. I was a 2A for three years and a 2N for one. I have about 3 years of experience in judging high school PF (scroll for PF paradigm).
POLICY
Please run whatever you feel comfortable with in front of me. I will evaluate pretty much any argument.
To win my ballot, you need to concentrate on persuading me. You can to this by:
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Articulating your arguments clearly. Big Tent Online will be my first tournament on this topic, so please explain your arguments well.
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Engaging with your opponents' arguments.
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Utilizing your evidence. Tell me why your evidence is the best. Make comparisons to your opponents' evidence.
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Extending your arguments well. I will vote tech over truth, but you must properly extend arguments even if they were dropped. I am not persuaded by arguments that are not fleshed out and impacted out.
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Explicitly telling me why you won in the 2NR and 2AR. In the final speeches, tell me a) why you won your argument and b) why it is important in the debate.
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Making the space safe and enjoyable. Your language matters. I do not tolerate hatefulness of any kind. If there’s anything I or the other debaters can do to make the space more accessible to you, please let me know.
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Not being rude during CX. If you’re winning an argument, then you’re winning the argument. You don’t need to be condescending on top of that. If you’re not winning the argument and being condescending, then you look like a fool.
Online procedurals
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Do not start any speeches until you have confirmed that everyone is ready. Don’t ask, “Is anyone not ready?” Instead, ask “is everyone ready?” and wait for confirmation.
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Keep your camera on when speaking unless you’re having internet issues.
General notes
- Case debate and case engagement are always very important
- I won’t evaluate evidence I couldn’t understand, so choose evidence that supports your claims and explain it well
- Impact everything out
Specific Arguments
Kritikal Affirmatives- I love K affs and have run them before. I do think they should be in the direction of the topic, but could be convinced otherwise depending on how the round plays out. I like when Ks have creative answers to T. Solvency mechanism warrants are important for me.
Topicality/Framework (v. K affs)- You should probably have a TVA that solves the aff offense. You also need to really impact out T.
Ks - A strong link story and good alt solvency is important to me. I am not well-versed in a lot of theory, so make sure your arguments are super clear and explain your evidence if you run that.
Counterplans- I don’t like judge kick. A counter plan is an advocacy. It is entirely your job to choose what you defend and don’t defend.
Disadvantages- Make sure a clear link and impact story established in the 2NC. I don’t like disads with shitty evidence. You can still get away with running them, but I will probably side with the aff if they do evidence quality comparison.
Theory- I like theory. Please slow down so I can catch everything.
PF
- impact out your arguments
- do impact & evidence comparison
- the only work I will ever do impact calc if I'm forced to. If no one mentions impact calc that guarantees low speaks.
- respond to turns before you kick out of an argument
- speak as clearly as you can. This includes me being able to understand the words coming out of your mouth and where you are on the flow. I can handle speed if you signpost.
- I will call for evidence if one of the teams tells me to. I take misrepresenting evidence pretty seriously, but it is the responsibility of the opposing team to bring it to my attention.
- Please don't be rude. This includes cross-x. If your opponent is not answering your questions well in cross-x either they are trying to be obnoxious or you are not asking good questions. Too often, it's the latter. Being rude makes debate inaccessible and unappealing to newcomers. It also tanks your ethos.
- Your language matters. I do not tolerate hatefulness of any kind. If there’s anything I or the other debaters can do to make the space more accessible to you, please let me know.
Speaker points
You'll get bad speaks if you steal prep, get caught blatantly misrepresenting evidence, or make the space unsafe for others. You'll get good speaks for organization, clarity, compelling arguments, and good impact calc.
Below 27.5 - ethical violations, you've made the debate space unsafe
27.5-28.4 - you had some glaring errors
28.5-28.9 - you performed well during this debate
29-29.4 - you are a great debater and I assume you do well in your other rounds
29.5- 29.9 - you are an incredible debater and I am very impressed
Specific Arguments
I will flow any argument. If you want to run framework, topicality, theory, etc I will evaluate it. Just make sure you have warrants, links, and impacts.
they/them
uwyo 17-21 (go pokes!)
former GA for MO State (iyk yk)
-- experience --
- 3 years HS PF
- 1 year HS LD
- 4 years College Policy
- 1 year CPD GA
-- tldr / this person is judging me in 10 minutes what do i need to know asap --
debate should be an activity that is engaging for a wide variety of individuals in a wide variety of contexts. if i'm judging you i'll do all that i can to make the round educational, fun, and safe for all folks involved. i will not condone exclusionary tendencies and practices such as, but not limited to, ableist, racist, sexist, or otherwise derogatory language and/or practices.
i will do my absolute best to adapt to each round. understandably i may not be the right judge for you so i encourage you to read through my paradigm proper (below) to ascertain a better sense of how i will evaluate rounds and determine if i'm a good fit.
if you see my little fur baby on camera (if online debate) - that's Rocko - you should follow his IG (@rockoroni)
-- paradigm proper --
- K -
i love k debate. imo k debate holds the potential to produce more nuanced understandings of ourselves, others, and our relationships to the sociomaterial world which are especially important in producing portable skills to challenge conditions of marginalization. i have a base knowledge of most critical literature - most well versed w/ set-col, cap, puar, orientalism
1. k affs everyday all day <3 - performance is fun, should be accessible. clear impacts at the end of case are key to garnering a W. i'm more compelled by affs in the direction of the topic and think totally non-topical affs have a larger uphill battle in fw debates. k affs not tied to the res can win in front of me but you'll need to invest more time impacting out reasons justifying the 1ac.
2. i'll definitely vote on t/fw (more in t/fw section).
3. k. v k. debate - favorite debates easy. affs probably get perms in most cases but i can be compelled by clear, impacted arguments against them. method comparison is essential - DAs to opponents method are large voters on my flow. when evaluating these rounds i look to the clash of methods and evaluate which theory of power best resolves the violence either team isolates in the round. the negative must establish a clear link to their critique that isn't a link of omission. you should focus engagement on the link and alternative debate because it gives me the best instruction as far as which impacts outweigh/turn
4. alt - well developed methods, comparison to aff plan
5. links - links of omission aren't compelling but are enough if not responded to. link stories should be clear and extended throughout the entirety of the debate avoiding tagline extensions. most compelled by links that directly indict aff ev/authors.
6. i will vote on a heg da v a k aff
- pics / piks -
1. matt liu put a soft spot for pics / piks in my heart
2. pic / pik theory is pretty interesting and i'm honestly not sure where i fall in terms of what i personally believe. compelling argumentation on both sides is key to convince me why/why not to vote for the pic / pik
- cp -
1. go for it - less familiar w/ cps in a competitive sense
2. i don't love theory debates and prefer other strats but i'll vote on it
3. perms are good, encourage an emphasis on developing the narrative of how the perm operates
4. read contradictory off-cases if you want but it doesn't take much to sell me on condo (mostly because i feel like it's not responded to well by the affirmative)
5. impacts
- da -
1. go for it - less familiar w/ das in a competitive sense
2. develop a clear link & uq story in the block
3. go ham on da o/w and turns case - be creative and get funky
4. read contradictory off-cases if you want but it doesn't take much to sell me on condo (mostly because i feel like it's not responded to well by the affirmative)
5. impacts
- t -
1. reasonability can beat t but you've got to impact it out
2. i prefer overlimit args
3. grounds/limits are the biggest voting issue on t bc i consider them a pre req to fairness, education, argumentative/potable skills etc.
- fw -
1. i love k debate a lot but will absolutely vote on fw and consider it a decent and relevant strategy (so no need to strike me but do ya thang)
2. fw w/o case engagement will probably not get my ballot. you need to have offensive reasons against the 1ac you're debating in the round i am judging
3. i prefer clash debates on fw. i think this is the most effective method to counter a non-traditional aff through impact turns and production of offense
4. i don't think fairness is an impact independently. it's best framed as an internal link to impacts like clash, education, argumentative/portable skills etc.
5. TVAs are probably necessary
6. reading a da against fw can be a useful strategy if effectively leveraged.
- case -
1. case debates are fun and can be compelling. giving a 2nr on case offense will be rewarded.
2. i'll consider voting on presumption but need the argument explained and impacted out - just saying "vote neg/aff on presumption" doesn't get there for me
3. impact defense isn't gonna win the case flow, turns make these args more offensive but i'm unlikely to vote on an impact turn independently.
- speaks -
1. speaks are subjective af, i'm a point fairy
2. be clear, speed's cool too but not be all end all
3. be confident, not aggressive
4. if you can make me laugh i'll probably give you pretty good speaks
5. unresolved / unacknowledged problematic behavior = zero speaks
-- anything else --
1. i will not vote on arguments that say the suffering of a group of people is good.
2. i will vote on spark/nuke mal if done in a compelling manner.
I've been a Speech and Debate coach since 2016 and have a background in teaching philosophy, literature, and critical theory. I'm most familiar with Public Forum, though I have exposure to Lincoln-Douglas, Parliamentary, Congress, and Speech events as well. I do flow, but I can't always flow as fast as you speak, so I appreciate taglines and signposting.
Public Forum: Make your impacts clear, and do a lot of weighing. If you're not interacting with the opponents arguments and weighing impacts, I've got nothing to vote on. I like to pay attention to cross, but you should bring it up in your speech if you want me to put it on the flow. Don't bring up new information in Final Focus if you value your speaks. I don't vote on extinction impacts without empirical evidence.
Lincoln-Douglas: I'm OK with theory and performance; I don't like tricks. I won't vote for phobic arguments
King Round Robin/NDCAs: you do you but probs would prefer topical debates seeing how far we all came for the tourney and TOC practice. Topical K’s fine I guess but still prefer substance.
Gabe Rusk
☮️
Background
Debate Experience: TOC Champion PF 2010, 4th at British Parli University National Championships 2014, Oxford Debate Union competitive debater 2015-2016 (won best floor speech), LGBTQIA+ Officer at the Oxford Debate Union.
Wanna come hang with me this summer? Sign up for the Summer Speech & Debate Think Tank at Stanford University.
NSDA PF Topic Committee Member: If you have any ideas, topic areas, or resolutions in mind for next season please send them to my email below.
Coaching Experience: Director of Debate at Fairmont Prep 2018-Current, Senior Instructor and PF Curriculum Director at the Institute for Speech and Debate, La Altamont Lane 2018 TOC, GW 2010-2015. British Parli coach and lecturer for universities including DU, Oxford, and others.
Education: Masters from Oxford University '16 - Dissertation on the history of the First Amendment. Religion and Philosophy BA at DU '14. Other research areas include Buddhism, comparative religion, conlaw, First Amendment law, free speech, freedom of expression, art law, media law, & legal history. AP Macroeconomics Teacher too so don't make econ args up.
2023 Winter Data Update: Importing my Tabroom data I've judged 651 rounds since 2014 with a 53% Pro and 47% Con vote balance. There may be a slight subconscious Aff bias it seems. My guess is that I may subconsciously give more weight to changing the status quo as that's the core motivator of debate but no statistically meaningful issues are present.
Email: gabriel.rusk@gmail.com
Website: I love reading non-fiction, especially features. Check out my free website Rusk Reads for good article recs.
PF Paradigm
Judge Philosophy
I consider myself tech>truth but constantly lament the poor state of evidence ethics, power tagging, clipping, and more. Further, I know stakes can be high in a bubble, bid, or important round but let's still come out of the debate feeling as if it was a positive experience. Life is too short for needless suffering. Please be kind, compassionate, and cordial.
Big Things
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What I want to see: I'm empathetic to major technical errors in my ballots. In a perfect world I vote for the team who does best on tech and secondarily on truth. I tend to resolve clash most easily when you give explicit reasons why either a) your evidence is comparatively better but also when you tell me why b) your warranting is comparatively better. Obviously doing both compounds your chances at winning my ballot. I have recently become more sensitive to poor extensions in the back half. Please have UQ where necessary, links, internal links, and impacts. Weighing introduced earlier the better. Weighing is your means to minimize intervention.
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Weighing Unlike Things: I need to know how to weigh two comparatively unlike things. If you are weighing some economic impact against a non-economic impact like democracy how do I defer to one over the other? Scope, magnitude, probability etc. I strongly prefer impact debates on the probability/reasonability of impacts over their magnitude and scope. Obviously try to frame impacts using all available tools. I am very amicable to non-trad framing of impacts but you need to extend the warrants and evidence.
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Weighing Like Things: Please have warrants and engage comparatively between yourself and your opponent. Obviously methodological and evidentiary comparison is nice too as I mentioned earlier. I love crossfires or speech time where we discuss the warrants behind our cards and why that's another reason to prefer your arg over your opponent.
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Don't be a DocBot: I love that you're prepared and have enumerated overviews, blocks, and frontlines. I love heavy evidence and dense debates with a lot of moving parts. But if it sounds like you're just reading a doc without specific or explicit implications to your opponent's contentions you are not contributing anything meaningful to the round. Tell me why your responses interact. If they are reading an arg about the environment and just read an A2 Environment Non-Unique without explaining why your evidence or warranting is better then this debate will suffer.
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I'm comfortable if you want to take the debate down kritical, theoretical, and/or pre-fiat based roads. I think framework debates be them pre or post fiat are awesome. Voted on many K's before too. Here be dragons. I will say though, over time I've become increasingly tired of opportunistic, poor quality, and unfleshed out theory in PF. But in the coup of the century, I have been converted to the position that disclosure theory and para theory is a viable path to the ballot if you win your interp. I do have questions I am ruminating on after the summer doxxing of judges and debaters whether certain interps of disc are viable and am interested to see how that can be explored in a theory round. I would highly discourage running trigger warning theory in front of me. See thoughts below on that. All variables being equal I would prefer post-fiat stock topic-specific rounds but in principle remain as tabula rasa as I can on disc and paraphrasing theory.
Little Things
- (New Note for 2024: Speech docs have never intended to serve as an alternative to flowing a speech. They are for exchanging evidence faster and to better scrutinize evidence. Otherwise, you could send a 3000 word case and the speech itself could be as unintelligible as you would like without a harm. As a result there is an infinite regress of words you could send. Thus I will not look at a speech doc during your speech to aid with flowing and will clear you if needed. I will look at docs only when there is evidence comparison, flags, indicts etc but prefer to have it on hand. My speed threshold is very high but please be a bit louder than usual the faster you go. I know there is a trade off with loudness and speed but what can we do).
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What needs to be frontlined in second rebuttal? Turns. Not defense unless you have time. If you want offense in the final focus then extend it through the summary.
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Defense is not sticky between rebuttal and final focus. Aka if defense is not in summary you can't extend it in final focus. I've flipped on this recently. I've found the debate is hurt by the removal of the defense debate in summary and second final focus can extend whatever random defense it wants or whatever random frontlines to defense. This gives the second speaking teams a disproportionate advantage and makes the debate needlessly more messy.
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I will pull cards on two conditions. First, if it becomes a key card in the round and the other team questions the validity of the cut, paraphrasing, or explanation of the card in the round. Second, if the other team never discusses the merits of their opponents card the only time I will ever intervene and call for that evidence is if a reasonable person would know it's facially a lie.
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Calling for your opponent's cards. It should not take more than 1 minute to find case cards. Do preflows before the round. Smh y'all.
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If you spread that's fine. Just be prepared to adjust if I need to clear or provide speech docs to your opponents to allow for accessibility and accommodation.
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My favorite question in cx is: Why? For example, "No I get that's what your evidence says but why?"
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Germs are scary. I don't like to shake hands. It's not you! It's me! [Before covid times this was prophetic].
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I don't like to time because it slows my flow in fast rounds but please flag overtime responses in speechs and raise your phone. Don't interrupt or use loud timers.
Ramblings on Trigger Warning Theory
Let me explain why I am writing this. This isn't because I'm right and you're wrong. I'm not trying to convince you. Nor should you cite this formally in round to win said round. Rather, a lot of you care so much about debate and theory in particular gets pretty personal fairly quickly that I want to explain why my hesitancy isn't personal to you either. I am not opposing theory as someone who is opposed to change in Public Forum.
- First, I would highly discourage running trigger warning theory in front of me. My grad school research and longstanding work outside of debate has tracked how queer, civil rights advocates, religious minorities, and political dissidents have been extensively censored over time through structural means. The suppression and elimination of critical race theory and BLM from schools and universities is an extension of this. I have found it very difficult to be tabula rasa on this issue. TW/anonymous opt outs are welcome if you so wish to include them, that is your prerogative, but like I said the lack of one is not a debate I can be fair on. Let me be clear. I do not dismiss that "triggers" are real. I do not deny your lived experience on face nor claim all of you are, or even a a significant number of you, are acting in bad faith. This is always about balancing tests. My entire academic research for over 8 years was about how structural oppressors abuse these frameworks of "sin," "harm," "other," to squash dissidents, silence suffragettes, hose civil rights marchers, and imprison queer people because of the "present danger they presented in their conduct or speech." I also understand that some folks in the literature circles claim there is a double bind. You are opting out of trigger warning debates but you aren't letting me opt out of debates I don't want to have either. First, I will never not listen to or engage in this debate. My discouragement above is rooted in my deep fear that I will let you down because I can't be as fair as I would be on another issue. I tell students all the time tabula rasa is a myth. I still think that. It's a goal we strive for to minimize intervention because we will never eliminate it. Second, I welcome teams to still offer tw and will not penalize you for doing so. Third, discussions on SV, intersectionality, and civil rights are always about trade offs. Maybe times will change but historically more oppression, suppression, and suffering has come from the abuse of the your "speech does me harm" principle than it benefits good faith social justice champions who want to create a safe space and a better place. If you want to discuss this empirical question (because dang there are so many sources and this is an appeal to my authority) I would love to chat about it.
Next, let me explain some specific reasons why I am resistant to TW theory in debate using terms we use in the literature. There is a longstanding historical, philosophical, and queer/critical theory concern on gatekeeper shift. If we begin drawing more and more abstract lines in terms of what content causes enough or certain "harm" that power can and will be co-opted and abused by the equally more powerful. Imagine if you had control over what speech was permitted versus your polar opposite actor in values. Now imagine they, via structural means, could begin to control that power for themselves only. In the last 250 years of the US alone I can prove more instances than not where this gatekeeping power was abused by government and powerful actors alike. I am told since this has changed in the last twenty years with societal movements so should we. I don't think we have changed that significantly. Just this year MAUS, a comic about the Holocaust, was banned in a municipality in Jan 22. Toni Morrison was banned from more than a dozen school districts in 2021 alone. PEN, which is a free press and speech org, tracked more than 125 bills, policies, or resolutions alone this year that banned queer, black, feminist, material be them books, films, or even topics in classrooms, libraries, and universities. Even in some of the bills passed and proposed the language being used is under the guise of causing "discomfort." "Sexuality" and discussions of certain civil rights topics is stricken from lesson plans all together under these frameworks. These trends now and then are alarming.
I also understand this could be minimizing the trauma you relive when a specific topic or graphic description is read in round. I again do not deny your experience on face ever. I just cannot comfortably see that framework co-opted and abused to suppress the mechanisms or values of equality and equity. So are you, Gabe, saying because the other actors steal a tool and abuse that tool it shouldn't be used for our shared common goals? Yes, if the powerful abuse that tool and it does more harm to the arc of history as it bends towards justice than I am going to oppose it. This can be a Heckler's Veto, Assassin's Veto, Poisoning The Well, whatever you want to call it. Even in debate I have seen screenshots of actual men discussing how they would always pick the opt out because they don't want to "debate girls on women issues in front of a girl judge." This is of course likely an incredibly small group but I am tired of seeing queer, feminist, or critical race theory based arguments being punted because of common terms or non-graphic descriptions. Those debates can be so enriching to the community and their absence means we are structurally disadvantaged with real world consequences that I think outweigh the impacts usually levied against this arg. I will defend this line for the powerless and will do so until I die.
All of these above claims are neither syllogisms or encyclopedias of events. I am fallible and so are those arguments. Hence let us debate this but just know my thoughts.
Like in my disclaimer on the other theory shell none of these arguments are truisms just my inner and honest thoughts to help you make strategic decisions in the round.
Please just have a nice little case debate :(
Signpost or it didn't happen;
Arguments have to be in summary and final focus;
Consider slowing down a little for my tired old ears;
Err silly and down to earth over perceptually dominant;
Weighing is very important and shouldbe evidence-based;
It's okay to answer a theory shell then go for substance. Encouraged, even;
And meet NSDA rules for evidence or strike me. You have to have a cut card at a minimum.
Put me on the email chain and title it something logical: gavinslittledebatesidehustle@gmail.com.
Please include me on the email chain: jdutdebate@gmail.com
Do what you do best. I’m comfortable with all arguments. Practice what you preach and debate how you would teach. Strive to make it the best debate possible. I reward self-awareness, clash, good research, humor, and bold decisions. I will not tolerate language or behaviors that create a hostile environment. Please include trigger warnings for sexual violence. Feel free to ask me any questions you have before the round.
Specific things:
Speed - I'm comfortable with speed but please recognize that if you're reading typed blocks that are not in the speech doc at the same speed you are reading cards, there's a chance I will miss something because I can't flow every word you're saying as fast as you can say them. Slow down just a bit for what you want me to write down or include your blocks in the doc. I will say "clear" if you are not clear.
Topicality- I enjoy good topicality debates. To me good topicality debates are going to compare impacts and discuss what interp of the topic is going to be better for the debate community and the goals that are pursued by debaters.The goals and purpose of debate is of course debatable and can help establish which impacts are more important than others so make sure you're doing that work for me.
Counterplans- I enjoy creative counterplans best but even your standard ones will be persuasive to me if there is a solid solvency advocate and net-benny.
Theory - In-round abuse will always be far more persuasive to me than merely potential abuse and tricksy interps. I expect more than just reading blocks.
K- I really enjoy a good critical debate. Please establish how your kritik interacts with the affirmative and/or the topic and what that means for evaluating the round in some sort of framework. Authors and buzzwords alone will not get you very far even if I am familiar with the literature. I expect contextual link work with a fully articulated impact and alternative. If your K does not have an alternative, I will weigh it as a DA (that's probably non-unique).
Performance - All debate is a performance and relies on effective communication. If you are communicating to me a warranted argument, I do not care how you are presenting it.
Hi Debaters,
I started participating in debate judging about six years ago when my son began participating in debate. My focus is to understand the discussion from an ordinary person's point of view who is not well versed in the topic. This helps me understand who can convince me of their point of view and rebutt other teams' arguments.
My style is of a lay judge. I like/dislike the following:
- Clear and concise arguments
- References should add value to your argument
- Speak at pace to be understood
- Be respectful to the other side
- focus on rebuttal but don't take all the time to make your point
I am looking forward to learning from you on the topic of debate.
Good Luck.
Sandeep
In short, I'm a flow judge. I don't care what you put on my flow (types of arguments) or how it gets there (delivery and speed). I want a clear and consistent story on the flow to vote on.
I usually judge LD, but I often judge CX and PF as well. I don't care about your style of debate. I just want a clear reason to vote for you.
I flow and vote from the flow. I want to be able to look at the flow and see a simple, clear, and unbroken story about why you win based on the framework that you provide. Crystallization is important throughout to give me this story. Overviews are often effective. Your last speech should probably include voters if you want to win my ballot.
My experience with T and theory debates are more limited than circuit judges. It doesn't mean that I won't vote for them, as I often do. A blippy T or theory argument is unlikely to get my vote, however. I want the "abuse" clearly explained.
I enjoy good k debates. If you're clear about your k's thesis, its connection to the topic or an argument that your opponent made, and explain how the alternative works, then they're fun and interesting. That also doesn't mean that you should run a k. If you like them and want to run one, go for it. I think that the philosophical ideas in a k can add a lot to discussions of topics. I doubt that I know a ton about your literature on the k, however, so don't expect me to have a lot of background. Of course, usually you just pulled up someone else's k file to write the k anyways.
Framework for why your impacts matter is vital. You can win deontological positions, but you need to give offense under those frameworks too! I default to a cost-benefit analysis if no framework is provided. What else am I supposed to do? I'm open to suggestions, but I'd prefer that you give me a clear framework.
Special note for PF: Please, crossfire time starts when the first person asks the first question that is not, "Do you want the first question?" or "Can I have the first question?" just like we give off-time roadmaps for the order you're going on the flow.
A little bit about me:
Debated Public Forum for 4 years in high school.
I am addicted to chapstick, (Burt's bees) so if I put on chapstick a lot during the round that's why.
I want to be your friend, probably.
Judging style:
Be respectful to each other, but I like a little sass lol.
I don't flow cross and usually don't listen.
Be sure to weigh for me so I don't have to.
Warrants are essential. If you can't back up your evidence with logical reasoning and warrants then the argument is not an argument at all.
Defense is key. Frontlining in second rebuttal is ideal.
I enjoy unique arguments, but your link chain needs to be established clearly. I won't weigh arguments that don't make sense.
I am fine with speed as long as you can be understood by the opponents and myself.
Sign posting is a MUST. Roadmaps should not be longer than 5 seconds.
Don't ignore contradicting evidence and continue to restate your evidence as an answer, INTERACT with your opponents evidence and explain why I prefer yours over theirs. Same goes for warrants. PLEASE compare your warrants and why I prefer yours over theirs.
I am a fan of organization in your speeches. Tell me where you are going. I lose a lot of motivation to flow if you jump around randomly every .2 seconds.
I don't want to be confused at the end of the round. Make sure your FF is clear.
If your opponents are saying something abusive or untrue, there is no need to get visibly frustrated to let me know what they are saying isn't right. Like you I also have ears, so take a deep breath and maintain your composure. I will catch it.
Please don't take 78483927 years to pull up your evidence. I will be very very sad. :/
When you are reading evidence you need to take prep! I'm really not out here tryna stay in one round for 2 hours.
You can run anything as long as it makes sense, but as a PSA I do not have a lot of experience with theory or K's, so if you run theory, you better approach it as if you are explaining it to a white suburban mother of 6.
PLEASE make the round fun. I beg of you. If you make me laugh, I will increase your speaker points by 0.2
These are super basic principles, so if you have detailed questions you can email me at hunterjakesteele@gmail.com
If you have any questions email me vanslootenandrew@gmail.com
I'm a tab judge.
I'm good with speed.
Impact debate please.
End your last speech with a limerick for extra points.
Also, Avengers references are welcome.
Hello, I am a parent judge and have been judging local debate for several years. I don't have much knowledge about each topic so please explain it well. Please don't go extremely fast and have fun!
Former coach at Copper Hills High School in West Jordan, Utah.
I want to do as little work for your argument as I have to. If you're going to go fast, I want to be on the email chain. Mac.walker24@gmail.com. There is no argument that I won't vote for as long as you explain it well. If you have any specific questions before the round about my preferences, please don't be afraid to reach out to me and ask.
I view my role in the round, is as a critic of the debate. Therefore, I rely upon the four competitor's to tell me how I am to evaluate the round, what's important in the round and where I am to look, to evaluate the round. I will fiercely defend my role as a critic, as I will not connect the dots, or complete incomplete arguments to the defense of teams.
these rounds are safe spaces
I have judged Policy yearly for the past 15 years. I prefer LD and PF, but I am familiar with the ins and outs, but I don't know them intuitively as I have never competed in Policy. I am willing to try and follow whatever you present. However, I expect you to communicate with me. I am the judge, not your opponent. What that means is this, you need to tell me what you are doing and why. Slow down and communicate with me. When I say slow down, what I mean is this:
1. I don't follow speed. I try, but I won't get most of what you say if you are going a million miles an hour. However, I understand the strategy and need. If you spread, you need to slow down and tell why I should care about what you just said. Give me a quick, slowed down summary of what you said, and why I should care.
2. Make taglines very clear! Don't assume I heard your 'next DA' when you're going a million miles an hour. If you want it on my flow, make it clear what it is and where to put it. Spread the rest, but slow down for taglines and summarize what you just said! This is especially important for the 1AC and 1NC.
3. Email chains are helpful, but not. It is nice to have an email chain, but if I have to read the email to understand what you are saying, why give speeches? Also, trying to follow evidence because I can't understand you makes it difficult for me as a judge. I will refer to reference, but will not pour over it after a round to determine a winner. Doing that means I don't need to hear from you. I could sit at home and read your evidence to determine a winner. Don't rely on chains.
Lincoln Douglas
I prefer traditional LD Debate with a Value/Criterion. I have voted for flex-negs, and other more progressive type arguments, but I prefer debates that use Value/Criterion. Don't spread! If you spread in LD, I won't flow. You can go at a crisp pace. In fact, I prefer a crisp paces, but...spread and you will most likely lose.
I currently serve as the head coach for Park City High School.
In-round Preferences:
- Weigh.
- Collapse.
- Weigh.
- Please signpost — it makes it much easier to flow
- I appreciate critical arguments, but keep them accessible to people who aren’t terribly familiar with K debate or literature
- Weigh.
- Please be consistent with your warranting.
- Offense must be in summary and final focus.
- Weigh
- Because I coach, I am very familiar with the resolution you are debating.
- Do not say racist, homophobic, xenophobic or sexist things. Pay attention to the language you use, and know that I will, too.
- A sense of humor is always appreciated. Have fun. Don't take yourselves too seriously. Please do not be condescending to your opponent during cross.
- Weigh.
- I am an experienced coach and judge. I know the rules. Win the round fairly (because your arguments/analytics are better). It's that simple.
- I have been involved in debate with Park City High School since 2017. I respect and admire students who are committed to learning about and engaging in academic conversations. Thank you for being a part of debate.
Make this your best round possible. I look forward to judging, and hope you share the same enthusiasm for competing.
Finally, should I judge something other than PF: In terms of theory, I don't like it. If you insist upon running it, I will listen/judge begrudgingly and choose truth over tech. I hate frivolous or abusive theory - only run it if it's a true violation.
My email (for questions): awilliams@pcschools.us
TL:DR: Flow Judge, Speed is cool, I like specific links on Disadvantages and Kritiks. On Aff, I favor innovative cases. K affs are welcome as well. Just make sure that you communicate your points effectively.
What I look for overall: Effective logical analysis and communication is the framework for which all forensic competition is judged. Make your taglines clear and concise, and make clear logical connections between points. The If-this-then-this chain needs to be crystal clear on the flow, and signpost the arguments you're addressing during rebuttals.
Speed: All good, just makes sure I can understand your taglines. Please speed through your cards though.
Affirmative: I don't have many preferences insofar as the aff case is concerned. Kritikal Affirmatives are welcome as long as you understand the aff and can communicate it effectively.
In the absence of another framework, I will default to a stock-issues, policymaker framework; weighing the value of the aff according to its practical application, feasibility and effectiveness. However, if you propose an alternative framework, I will judge accordingly.
Negative: On-case arguments and Off-case positions with specific links are most favorable. Make your advocacy clear. I am weighing the aff against the negative alternative: The SQ, The K alt or the CP, so clearly state your advocacy and prove to me that the neg world looks substantially more favorable than the aff world.
The Negative Strategy: Target the solvency and/or harms with specific case arguments. Run 2 or 3 good disadvantages and stand behind your advocacy. A good Counterplan or Kritik will have equal swaying power with me to the SQ.