Top Level

Former debater (Walter Payton ‘16 and Pitt ‘20) and former coach (Central Catholic high school). No longer actively involved and not familiar with the topic.

luisacusick [at] gmail (put me on the e-mail chain)

I'll do my best to make a decision based solely on the arguments presented in the debate. Your speaker points will benefit from specific and well-researched strategies

Please be kind to your opponents and partner! I am very concerned with the way (esp. national circuit) policy debate trains us to treat other people

Relevant Predispositions

- Condo is good. Counterplan theory depends on the quality of the solvency advocate and my proclivities change from topic to topic
- I default to kicking the counterplan for the neg if they win offense but don't win the counterplan
- Skills and process framework arguments are more persuasive to me than topic education arguments
- I don’t like how little evidence quality matters in policy debates. I wish it were debated more
- It pretty much never makes sense to assign anything 100% risk. Likewise, minimizing an argument's risk to a small enough signal means it's overwhelmed by noise, and that's enough to assign it 0 risk

I have no background in debate. However, with a PhD from MIT, I understand how to follow an argument and, most importantly, evaluate how well a line of reasoning is supported by valid evidence. What I mean by valid is that all data, findings, and expert opinions must be rigorously derived and presented to be counted. Feel free to challenge anything otherwise. In terms of communication, I don't mind fast pace, but you must be understandable at all times. Good luck to both sides!

John Masslon (updated 3/17/22)
Years judging: 16

(Some of this stuff is stolen from other philosophies. I have only done so when I agree 100%.)

*IMPORTANT* - Read below for my mask-specific rules.

About Me
I am not a full-time educator and/or debate coach. I haven't judged much this year because I refuse to judge virtual debates and the idiots in the DC area did not have many in-person tournaments this year. So don't assume I know topic-specific lingo.

Policy Debate

Cliff Notes for Preffing
- If you like straight up policy debates, I'm a good judge for you.
- If you like to go for a kritik in every 2NR, I should probably be in the middle of your pref list.
- Strike me if you are a performance team.

Ethical Issues:
It's unfortunate that we've come to a point where I need to put this at the top of my philosophy; however, teams that fully follow their ethical obligations are becoming all too rare. So here it is:
- If you say “mark the card at x" you actually have to mark the card at x either during the speech or immediately afterwords and then provide a marked copy of your evidence to your opponent. It's your job to do that with or without prompting from your opponents. Failure to do so could result in a finding of clipping.
- I follow the NDCA policy with respect to card clipping. I also follow the same procedure with respect to other ethics challenges. I will sua sponte intervene on obvious card clipping and evidence falsification. If the round is stopped sua sponte then the winning team will get the speaks they were going to get at that point in round.
- You are (almost certainly) representing your school while debating. This means that if I see any shenanigans akin to what happened after the CEDA quarterfinals several years ago there will be major consequences. Such consequences may include, but are not limited to, a loss, 0 speaker points, informing tab, informing your principal/superintendent/school board, contacting the police/district attorney, etc.

Rules
- I won't allow alternative use time.
- If you want to negotiate for another critic to adjudicate the round and that person is OK with it and it won't harm the tournament, I'm fine with that.
- I will intervene on the flow if a new argument is made in the 2AR because the negative doesn't have a chance to respond. Otherwise, it's your responsibility to tell me that an argument is new and why I should disregard such an argument.
- I won't give double wins or all 30 speaks because it is unfair to the rest of the tournament. If you make such an argument your speaker points will be lowered. I'm not opposed to double losses.
- I will disclose and give an oral critique if tournament rules don't prohibit the practice. I think this increases education.

General Philosophy:
I am open to a variety of arguments: case, DAs, CPs, T, and Ks. To me the genre of your argument is less important than the question of its implications: explain those well in a manner that answers your opponents main claims and you’ll be in good shape. I'll vote for stupid arguments, e.g., spark or timecube. If you can't beat those arguments then you deserve to lose. I lean heavily towards the tech end of the tech v. truth spectrum.

Below are a list of defaults. Debaters can convince me to change any of my argumentation defaults other than my position on performance debate. If you ask debaters that have debated in front of me frequently, they'll likely tell you that I am at heart a judge that loves a DA/CP/case debate but that I will vote for other arguments. I just personally won't enjoy the round as much. I'd strongly urge against doing a 180 on your strategy because of these defaults unless you are a performance team. You will lose more by being uncomfortable than you will gain by conforming to my defaults.

Topicality/Procedurals
I default to competing interpretations. Most T debates are won or lost on standards. Saying ground, fairness, brightline is not enough. You need to tell me why the ground you give to the aff and neg is best for debate, why your interpretation is fairer, and why a brightline is good for debate. Evidence helps here. If you are running ASPEC or something like that and you don't ask for clarification in cross-x you better explain to me why it advances debate to force such specification(s) in the plan text instead of having cross-x check abuse.

Theory:
I default to a specific abuse claim rather than just pure offense/defense. Theory arguments should be as specific as possible in regard to both the argument and its relation to the round and/or topic. Tell me why to reject the team and not the argument. You won't get far reading your camp theory block in front of me. You need to be explaining why, if I adopt your approach to debate, the activity will be better and if I adopt the other team's approach debate will be worse off.

Counterplans:
I am open to all theory on them. That being said, I lean towards the neg on conditionality (although this decreases as the number of conditional arguments increases), PICs, 50 states, and international actors. I lean towards the aff on consult. I do expect that if you are running a CP that it is written down, either in soft or hard form. Too many teams don't do enough to articulate what their net benefit to the CP is. If you are trying to perm a CP, you need to do more than just say "perm do both." You need to explain to me why your perm solves. I will not judge kick the CP unless the neg asks me to. However, the aff can win that I should not judge kick the CP. If the neg kicks the CP I am open to the aff arguing that presumption still flips because the neg ran a CP; however, I default to presumption staying with the neg.

Kritiks:
I frequently vote on kritiks, but the chance of me having read the author(s) is 0. Kritiks should clearly explain what they mean, how they apply specifically to the plan or round, and why I should vote for them. Role of the ballot arguments are fine, but I need to know how they relate to the round or debate. I will find it very difficult to vote for an argument at the end of the debate that I do not really understand. I am not willing to tell the aff that they lost to an argument which I cannot explain somewhat to them at the end of the debate. Perming a K is like perming a CP, you need to do some work on that end as an aff to win by ballot.

DA/Case:
DA flows are generally more persuasive when cards and warrants are extrapolated rather than giving me tagline extension or a card throw down. Storytelling will win or lose you the round here. Case debate has been heavily under-utilized, despite being a persuasive avenue for the neg. I do believe there is such thing as 0 risk of a DA or advantage.

Non-traditional debate/projects/performance:
In the past I voted for performance teams more often than I voted against them. However, I have decided that I will no longer vote for a performance team. The reason is simple. It is destroying debate. I don't want to be an accomplice to that destruction.

Speaking:
I don't care if you sit, stand, lay down, etc. during your speech. I mark down the last word spoken before time expires and that is all I will listen to. My clock is official (if I'm timing). If being prompted I don't listen to the prompts. I'm OK with speed but it needs to be clear. If you are not clear I will yell clear twice each speech. After that, I quit flowing. There is an exception, however, I will not yell clear if you are wearing a mask. Nor will I tell you I'm having trouble hearing you. Wear a mask at your own peril. I prefer that tags and cites be differentiated by your voice in some manner. If you are reading a list of standards, a definition, etc. use common sense and slow down a bit. CX is binding and I flow it if necessary. I like signposting. It makes my life easier. Making my life easier normally will make your life easier too.

Speaker Points:
- Have fun and enjoy yourself. Humor and good-natured fun will get you everywhere.
- I penalize heavily if you try to steal prep time.
- You will get more speaker points for giving a 30 second 2R if that is all that is necessary to win than wasting 4:30 of my life.
- Your speaks will suffer if your partner is dominating your CX.

Paperless:
- I highly prefer email chains or PADS sites unless it is somehow not feasible. Notwithstanding what is said below, if I think an email chain or PADS is feasible and you are flashing, prep won't end until both members of the other team have the speech doc up.
- Prep time is stopped after a) flash drive is on the way to your opponent; b) email has been sent; or c) speech is posted on your PADS site.
- I reserve the right to ask all speeches be flashed/emailed to me prior to the speech being given or at any time prior to making my decision.
- Technical failures will be dealt with on a case-by-case basis.

Misc:
- People underutilize analytical arguments. Some of the best arguments in a debate round won't have a card to back them up. Tell me why an internal link doesn't make sense or why the opposing team's cards should be given little weight.
- I am a huge believer in a good overview or underview from both the 2AR and the 2NR. I view the job of this speech to explain to me exactly why I should sign my ballot for that side. Too many teams just spew out responses and don't tell me why they should win the round. Anytime you make me do more work there is a smaller chance of you winning.
- Sometimes a decision must be based on something said in a card when no other alternative is possible, but these situations are rare. This is when I call for cards. When I do so, I will not be pulling out warrants that were not talked about in round. As a related matter, I usually decide pretty quickly.

If you have any other questions just ask me through e-mail or in the halls. I will not be repeating this whole thing prior to a round but will answer specific questions.

Other Forms of Debate
Public Forum
If you are reading cards, you need to actually give me an author or date or I consider it an analytical argument. I think public forum is different from policy debate (that is why it was created). I won't put up with kritiks or spreading in Public Forum. I will just decide whether or not the resolution is true (a form of hypothesis testing). This doesn't mean that I am opposed to "unique" arguments. I have heard some pretty awesome pros and cons that think outside the box. I obviously think evidence is important in a public forum round but it is not the be all end all. Communication skills will play some role in speaker points but debate skills play a much bigger role for me.

Congress
I used to be a very active member of the National Association of Parliamentarians and have been hired to serve as parliamentarian for a wide variety of organizations. I hold my presiding officers to a very high standard when I am serving as parliamentarian. When evaluating speakers I consider the following (from most important to least important): Analysis, Clash, Impact, Evidence, Style, Rhetoric, Questions, Extempore, Attitude.

LD
I am fine with speed. I am open both to traditional LD debate and to more progressive forms of LD. Because of this, I know I will judge lots of "clash of worlds" debates. In these types of debates, you need to explain to me why your version of LD debate is good for the activity. At the end of the day, I'll ask myself which debater convinced me that in 10 years I'll want to be judging LD debates under their set of rules instead of the other debater's rules.

In more traditional LD debates, I find that one of two things normally happens. First, debaters don't realize after the NC that the whole debate is going to be decided on framework and so we should essentially drop the contention level debate and just head straight to the framework debate for the rebuttals. Second, debaters don't realize that because of the contention level debate one side has the ability to win no matter who wins the framework debate and therefore we need to be on the contention level debate instead of the framework debate. This normally is an easy issue spotting exercise but people keep failing at it. If you are trying to win under your opponent's framework, you need to make this explicit in this speech and explain why.

In more traditional LD debates, I greatly prefer to have all of the value and value criterion discussed together in the rebuttals because I flow them on one sheet. If you are going to go against this preference, I ask that you give be internal signposts so that I know that you have moved to/from the contention level debate to the value debate.

Parli
I believe there are are three types of resolutions in Parli, one that should be debated like policy, one that should be debated like LD, and one that should be debated like public forum. That is how I'll try to evaluate the round.

World Schools
I will adjudicate who I believe won the round and then assign points, not vice versa. It should be evident that I'm a very flow oriented judge. I believe that if you don't extend an argument in a speech and the other side points that out then you can't bring that argument back up later in the debate. Make sure you let me know where you want me to flow stuff if you are not going line by line. I understand that in world schools debate there is much more general clash, but that clash must still go somewhere on my flow. I'd advise splitting the opposition block in some manner. I won't be happy if the opposition reply is just repetition of the third opposition. I'm a huge fan of models and counter-models; however, don't run them unless you know how to do so. I'll be mad if you speak when standing for a POI if the other team can easily see you. There is no need to do that.

Email: christianmendoza4975@gmail.com

I debate for the University of Pittsburgh; third year of college debate.

Please add me to the email chain, before the round would be nice. Email me if you have questions before or after the debate.

Online debate:

If you have a technical issue, just pause your timer and let everyone know.

Mics will cut out sometimes, if this becomes a problem, I will let you know and pause the speech.

Prefs:

Clarity over speed, but you can go fast, and I’ll keep up on the flow

I’m not incredibly familiar with this years topic so explain your acronyms and make your tags clear, also differentiate them from the cards because online debate can be hard to hear. I will read your cards and figure it out from there as long as you’re making honest arguments you can defend and explain.

I judge primarily by listening to what you say, which means cx matters, judge instruction tells me how to evaluating my decision and I’m not going to just look at your cards while you read them instead I will pay attention to what you’re telling me. Impact comparison makes it much easier to evaluate the debate but don’t sacrifice a good framework debate.

Argument stuff

I am not tech over truth. While you can win on technical aspects of the flow that doesn't mean I default to tech when you can make simple arguments with good evidence.

I am partial to the affirmative in framework debates, however, I will vote on the most persuasive team which means you have to answer questions for me which include what your model of debate looks like or your critique of the resolution/debate etc.

Fairness is an IL to Education, not an Impact in itself. If your impact is fairness, you need to explain what debate is and not rely on a premeditated idea of debate. I like when teams write my ballot in the 2nr and 2ar.

The best way to win a round is to narrate what happened in the debate and sit on a couple of arguments rather than try and go for too much without a clear line of thinking.

I tend to protect the 2nr, so try not to lie too aggressively in the 2ar and sit on your biggest pieces of offense that were won.

Dropped arguments should be extended but will not get you an auto win by any means unless you use them for a different part of the debate. I would much rather vote on a team that made the best arguments and consistently kept it clean on the flow then a team that relies on debate tech to get out of tough spots on the flow. Make it make sense.

Speaks:

Finally, debate rounds are fun and can be very educational. Try and keep the debate interesting because it really does take 2 hours.

Do not harm others with your language because debate is a real activity.

Hi, my name is Neale Misquitta and I am a senior at The Pennsylvania State University studying Energy Engineering with a minor in Environmental Engineering. I have not competed in collegiate debate but in high school, I competed in Lincoln-Douglas and Parliamentary debate primarily. I also competed in Congress, Extemp, and Worlds. I have experience judging all of these as well as Public Forum and Policy.

Email: ema3osei@gmail.com

Pronouns: They/Them

Debated at University of Pittsburgh

I think about debate strategically primarily. Bad strategy => bad decision-making => bad comparison => bad debate. Lack of argument comparison also generally means more of a focus on skill than arguments which makes for less substantive feedback which has a negative feedback loop on the quality of judging experienced by debaters and the growth of teams themselves in my view. Substance is cool even when the substance is literally just about the meta-game.

I like judging different things, there are many different styles and many get overlooked or forgotten, so do your thing and do it well. I have a higher threshold for how you answer presumption in rounds without a plan and will filter a lot of the debate through solvency.

I'm typically more interested in a K that has offense either about the consequences of the plan or the consequences of the process but if you can win your overarching thesis claim outweighs plan/method focus, then go for it. The whole point of a K is to disagree with the assumptions of the affirmative so I don't understand the turn to agree with the affirmative's assumptions about how it should be evaluated vis-a-vis their various interps.

If you have a K that fundamentally disagrees with the epistemic starting point of the affirmative, then the latter part of the prior statement probably applies more than the former two even if you do have an embedded impact turn to the affirmative considering you likely have epistemic disagreements on starting points that inform what counts as an impact turn and also how to evaluate it comparative to other arguments on the level of uniqueness.

I don't have any specific feelings about framework as long as you're doing impact comparison. Regardless of whether you are winning a procedural or a terminal impact, it doesn’t really mean you auto win unless you have effectively zero’d/excluded all the opposing team’s offense, so offensive applications of impacts matter, if only from a strategic point of view.

Everything else is pretty round-by-round, please pic out of things, use theory intelligently and capitalize on mistakes and cross-examination early. Things may be unfair but unfairness can be justified or argued to not be unfair if a team lacks core justifications against competing claims to uniqueness/barriers to effective implementation. Same reason the neg gets to exclude the entire aff from evaluation if they win the procedural comes before aff offense.

Always keep in mind that just because you're right doesn't change the fact that you're still a debater doing debate. Every round is different and every debater debates/interprets arguments differently, so don’t switch up. Popular opinion (in debate) rarely matches reality anyway.

Please think about what is your strongest argument instead of ones that are superfluous, waste time, are unfamiliar to you, or otherwise have no strategic value. I try to give good speaks, but rarely super high. I prefer debates with fewer sheets. Don’t spread faster than is comprehensible and prioritize clarity. Make it make sense.

A dropped argument is not a true argument, though it may be persuasive. Micro-aggressions exist but so do mistakes. Your standard for how to engage them is likely biased and/or strategic. The easiest way to engage is to be a less than terrible person. If you have to worry about that you have more personal work to do.

Anyways, see ya~

I was my school's debate coach for five years and have been judging both public forum and Lincoln Douglas debates during that time period.  I am now retired but continue to judge for my former team. 

While I am ok with speed, please do not spread and be careful that you enunciate clearly.  If I can't understand what you are saying, I won't be able to flow your speech and I will be frustrated at the end of the round. 

I do work my way down the flow and prefer that debaters argue in the order of the flow.  I do pay attention to dropped points but only if there is additional commentary on why the drop is important. Organizational skills matter so please go in the order that items were mentioned and try not to bounce around. If a round is close, I do consider voting issues to be a good way to break ties so please leave yourself enough time to include them.

I also expect all competitors to be respectful of each other. I will dock points for outwardly rude or arrogant behavior.

Hey, just wanted to say this is my first time back judging since COVID began, so I don't have any experience on this topic in-round, you could consider me casually knowledgeable about this topic, as it is adjacent to many of my interests, but some details you think may be base topic knowledge I might not have been exposed to yet.

Below is my paradigm from 2020, i doubt my preferences have changed much from then. But I will say that if you try to run politics shells, or international relations scenarios, I will not be able to help myself from simply just believing your authors are getting paid to talk out their asses. I genuinely don't think accurate predictions can be made in those realms in this current context, so as a judge I will very begrudgingly listen and look visibly upset if you put me through these arguments. You're gambling on me if you choose to run an argument like that, im not just gonna give you want cause you happen to have a card from this morning or whatever.

I will not shake your hand after the round. I mean no disrespect but y'all keep getting me sick. Just think about how many hands you've shaken by round 5, and how many hands your opponents have shaken. Its unsettling. (Yes this part is unedited from 2020, i was right that we are all disgusting)

I debated throughout high school and have been judging since (four years). I studied History and Philosophy of Science, and Sociology at Pitt. I've competed in and judged national break rounds. I'm experienced in running and evaluating traditional or critical arguments. Feel safe to run whatever arguments and frameworks you wish, but I am not without some preferences.

I would prefer to see unique arguments in the round, things like politics disads or the states counterplan are run in the same exact way so often it becomes horrible to sit through and often ends the same. However, I would strongly prefer you running your generics that you know well over poorly running something you aren't used to. On a similar point, in the past I've seen a lot of rounds ruined by trying to run four or five off case arguments at a sub-par level. I would much rather see a directed, thought-out, and well-debated round, and I think it would serve you best strategically as well. At the end of the day, you know your files and many of your opponents better than I do.

The arguments I have a bias towards are low magnitude - high probability affs that address structural violence and I typically prefer those frameworks and how they affect the debate. K's are probably going to win impact and link debates on me a little more than some other judges because I find a lot of their claims to be true, thus I think one of the best ways to defend against them is on the framework flow, an alt debate, or having a critical edge of your own. But again, stick with what you know, these are debates you could easily lose through inexperience.

EMAIL: nickpweb@gmail.com