Hi all! I am the Head Coach of Speech and Debate at Pinecrest High School in North Carolina. I am a former extemper with pretty deep knowledge of the happenings in the world.

LD & PF

--I am fine with speed, but remember with speed comes the risk I won't get it on the flow. If you see me stop typing/pen is no longer writing/I am staring blankly at you, consider that your cue to slow down.

--Make sure to differentiate your sourcing. Authors' last names are great, but tell me where the source comes from first. John Doe from the Council on Foreign Relations in 2022 sounds better than Doe 22. After that, you can refer to the source as CFR or Doe and I'm good on what you are referring to.

--Please weigh. Please. You have to do this in order for me to be able to determine a winner.

--Respect. Respect your opponents, partner (if in PF), self, and the host school. Competitive debate is a great activity; but you must maintain some sense of decorum throughout your time in the round.

Congress

--When you go to an in-house recess to determine splits, or inquire as to why no one is speaking, you have done yourself and your fellow competitors a disservice by not being prepared. Please avoid this as much as possible.

--I'm fine with rehashing arguments to a point, but you need to add more evidence to support this rehashed point. Something niche and unique that can catch the opposing side off guard.

--Presiding Officers: thank you for volunteering to run the chamber. Please only defer to the parli when you are unsure of certain procedure.

Backgroud/"qualifications:"

I debated for 4 years for Charlotte Latin School. I did congress for 3 years and switched to PF my senior year. I qualified to TOC and NSDA Nationals in both events, finaled at Emory and Harvard in Congress, won Durham Academy in PF, and made semis at Bluekey in PF.

PF Paradigm:

I'm a flow judge and can handle reasonably fast PF teams, but if you want to spread, switch events.

A few important things for me:

Signposting: Please tell me where on the flow I should be putting responses. This does not mean an off time roadmap before rebuttal where you tell me "I'm going to start on my opponent's case and then go back to mine." Rather, just say, "as an overview" or "starting on my opponent's first contention" before you make your overview or first response. This will help me actually consider your responses at the end of the debate rather than spending half your rebuttal trying to figure out where to flow things.

Responses: Please make sure your responses actually engage with your opponent's arguments and aren't just the same three cards you read against every Aff case. I would much rather you analytically attack an argument which you are unprepared to answer than attempt to misapply evidence you've already cut.

On that note... Evidence: I have no problem with paraphrasing evidence as long as you stay true to the author's original intent. Conversely, just because you directly quote or line down a card does not mean you are fairly representing the author's point of view.

Evidence indites: If you indict a card, that's great, but explain why that indict matters. Ex. Don't just say "the thinktank our opponent cites is funded by big pharma" explain how that conflict of interest led to poor scholarship or data manipulation on the part of the author.

If you have any other questions about my preferences feel free to ask before the round.

Congress Paradigm:

Here's how my rankings usually turn out at the end of the round:

Last. The kid that actually says nothing

6. The kid that speaks, but says nothing of value

5. The kid that says nothing of value, but confidently

4. The kid that says something of marginal value to the round but poorly delivered

3. The kid that does the same in a more compelling manner

2. The kid that borderline spreads to cover the flow, but does so well

First. The kid that does the same as #2 but with better word economy

As you can see by these rankings, I value argumentation above delivery but consider delivery a tiebreak between equally skilled debaters. I think later round speeches should do more refutation/weighing, but if you have an actually unique constructive point late-round, I understand that you don't always get to speak as early as you might want. I also pay attention to when you start standing and I'll be impressed if you switch sides/rewrite your speech because you aren't called on early. On that note, please don't give the *insert number greater than one* aff/neg in a row. You'll always be better off switching sides and giving a slightly worse speech than speaking on the same side as everyone else in the round.

As far as writing bills is concerned, if you submit a bill I will take into account the quality of the debate and the saliency of the issue. Since congressional debate requires lots of people to speak, a bill with a very limited scope of argumentation is not a good bill. Since congressional debate is meant to model the US congress, it should be conceivable that what you submit could be brought before congress. And most importantly, since congressional debate is meant to be a debate, your bill should have arguments for and against it, not just enough ground to give an authorship speech and then shame everyone who goes neg because it's an impossible position to defend. I know that by the time you read this, it's too late to change what bill you have submitted, but these are the things you should consider before you ever begin writing legislation in the first place.

Lastly, if you use rhetoric that either A) I came up with, B) one of my teammates came up with, or C) I've heard used verbatim before, I won't be impressed and might count it against you. I'd much rather you give a brief intro based on some historical fact than steal catchy rhetoric (trust me, I've heard it all and you won't be able to reuse rhetoric without me noticing).