I need you to clearly resolve clash and explain your arguments from the resolution to impact in both summary and final focus. I value weighing, practical impacts, and proper attire. A fancy tie will go far. If you don't do that, and I reach the end of the debate still not understanding the argument, and lamenting your choice in neckware, I will not intervene in your favor, and you will lose. You can find me post round for fashion advice.

Director of Forensics at Bentley School, Lafayette
High school and college experience

I flow the round, but I promise there is a high probability that I will get lost if you go too fast or jump around with your arguments. You’ll benefit from signposting and staying organized. I prefer fleshed out arguments and not blips. Don’t assume I know theory. If something is a voting issue, explain it to me. Always tell me "why".

I’ve spent many years coaching speech events and I appreciate quality public speaking skills, along with respect towards your teammate and opponents.

By the end of the round, you need to tell me why I should be voting for you over your opponent. What are the voting issues and how do your impacts outweigh your opponent's impacts?

Congress Paradigm - I have been judging congress on a national level for over 30 years and look to the following criteria when judging competitors.

I appreciate the debate element of congress but there is a difference between congress and debate. I look for focus on the key issuesrather than speed and coverage of all issues raised. Empirical evidence is crucial when it comes to persuading on policy issues that have the potential to impact millions of lives. I appreciate good rhetoric but it is no substitution for real analysis and evidence. If you are speaking later in the round, I will look for crystallization and the bringing to light and analysis of the key issues in the round.

Never forget you are a legislator and this should be evident in your arguments, language and decorum.

I've competed in high school parliamentary debate for 3 years, high school policy debate for 3 years, and NPDA in college for UCLA for 3 years. I'm relatively okay with spreading, but I will yell "clear" or "slower" if I need to… mostly because I want to hear your arguments! I have a relatively low threshold on theory, but you need to prove to me that there is in-round abuse. Also, if you're going to go for this in the rebuttal speeches, I need you to give me more than just a restatement of voters that you gave in your constructive speeches. Tell me why it matters! Kritiks are fine as long as you really understand them yourself to run them, and I prefer specific links to link of omissions and generic links. Lastly, impact framing is very important to me in the last two rebuttal speeches. Be comparative with both of the teams' impact scenarios. For example, if you're going to go for an extinction impact tell me why magnitude outweighs others and if you're going to go for a systemic impact tell me why timeframe + probability outweighs magnitude. If it's an extinction v. extinction scenario, don't talk about the magnitude and move on to tell me why your scenario has higher probability/faster timeframe. 

Congress Paradigm - I have been judging congress on a national level for over 30 years and look to the following criteria when judging competitors.

I appreciate the debate element of congress but there is a difference between congress and debate. I look for focus on the key issuesrather than speed and coverage of all issues raised. Empirical evidence is crucial when it comes to persuading on policy issues that have the potential to impact millions of lives. I appreciate good rhetoric but it is no substitution for real analysis and evidence. If you are speaking later in the round, I will look for crystallization and the bringing to light and analysis of the key issues in the round.

Never forget you are a legislator and this should be evident in your arguments, language and decorum.

Experience: 4 years of College Parli and College LD. Currently Assistant Director of Debate at Concordia University Irvine where I coach Parliamentary Debate in addition to Assistant Director of Forensics at Oxford Academy where I coach Public Forum debate.  I participated in National Circuit NPDA debate in College where speeds can get pretty high without cards, CX, or prep. I can flow, however there are some things that you may want to adapt when doing policy debate in front of me.

1.    Please be really clear with your taglines, the more accurately I have your tags, the better things will fare out for you.

2.    I would prefer to be able to hear you actually articulate the internal warrants of your evidence instead of just hearing buzzzzzzzzzzzz…that’s Porter 13. I honestly do not understand the pedagogical value of Policy Debate if the reading of cards is completely incomprehensible because of the expectation and norm that judges can just ‘call cards’.  At this point, why not just have both teams email their cards to the critics and let them render a decision on who has the better cards given the way the collapse happens?

3.    Your cards/evidence do not make arguments-you make arguments using your cards/evidence. I would like to see you applying specific pieces of evidence to others and explaining how the internal warrants interact. This is called warrant comparison. Often times this skill is lost underneath the guise of ‘implicit clash’ which I think can be done well, but more often than not results in lack of substantive clash.

DA/CP:  As always, be very precise with your tags. Also, I appreciate when you contextualize your link evidence to the Affirmative.  Explain how your more general Biz Con link actually applies to what the Affirmative plan text does.  Your Disads should outweigh/turn the case. Making analytical connections between your evidence and the Affirmative is very very good. Delay, Veto Cheato, Study CP’s are terrible. Not the biggest fan of Politics but will listen to it providing you can articulate a sound link argument. Big fan of tight topic disads that turn the case with CP’s that solve the Aff. Advantage CP’s are great as are PICs that are grounded in solid literature.

Case Debate: I’m not exactly sure why I don’t see more case debates in an event with disclosure and publicly accessible evidence resources.  I thoroughly enjoy Negative strategies which include spending a substantial portion of time reading both offensive and defensive arguments against the case solvency/advantages.  Also really reward 2A’s who are able to efficiently respond to this strategy as well. Too many teams just concede that the Aff solves and that their Advantages happen-all it takes is one solid solvency takeout to destroy the entire foundation of the Affirmative.

Criticisms: I love criticisms and quite frequently read them throughout most of my time as a debater. I think that they are an essential part of the toolbox for any well-rounded debater.  I think that Kritiks should be centered in some sort of Affirmation-how that manifest is up to the debaters of course. To give some context, my senior year my partner and I read a Baudrillard criticism with an alternative which was precisely the lack of an alternative.  On a separate occasion, we ate a piece of paper with the topic (ag subsidies) written on it as performative interrogation into our consumptive ethics and talked about consumerism. I think that performative, rhetorical or discursive critical arguments should also have a central point of locus for the Negative to leverage offense against. While I am most familiar with Rhetorical criticism, Postmodernism and Race, I am generally familiar with most K literature-however this does not mean I intend on filling in gaps for you-these are your arguments to make or break. Critical Affs are fantastic and very strategic.  Negatives would do good to find leverage points to counter-kritik and/or PIC out of critical affirmative teams more. I am fine hearing FW against the K, but this should probably be part of a larger strategy, which hopefully also engages the K as well.  Negative teams reading the K against policy Affs should be prepared to defend their K against Framework as well as impact turns.

Theory: Not the biggest fan of theory on the larger totem pole of arguments to hear.  I will need you to say your interpretation clearly at least twice so that I get it down.  Especially if there are multiple interpretations/definitions. I think that generally Topicality generally comes down to who controls the internal links to Limits, Precision and Grammar.  You should be impacting out your standards and explaining why they are important. Theory should be reserved for instances of protecting yourself from abuse, i.e. Topicality, Framework, Condo/PICS Bad, etc. Spec arguments are a waste of time.  I will listen to Framework against the K, however you really need to explain to me how this justifies me automatically dropping them.  I think that Framework is a lens for the round, however if you win that I should use your lens, then it’s likely your opponent cannot filter their offense through that lens.  While I do think that Conditionality is generally abusive in Parli, I have no predisposition on its use in Policy. However, I am compelled by arguments about multiple contradictory conditional advocacies being bad.

Rebuttals: Rebuttals are about doing a few central things: impact calculus, warrant comparison, collapsing and crystallizing. High speaker points and favor awarded to those who are able to explicitly identify the arguments that still matter in the debate by the Rebuttals and the arguments that don’t.

Presentation: I don't care whether you sit or stand. My only preferences are that you be comfortable, look good and speak well. Don’t mind tag team CX.  I don’t like having to time flashing evidence but if you are lolly-gagging, I will make you time it to keep the tournament on schedule. Higher speaker points awarded to those who speak passionately, clearly, organizationally, and humorously. Also, if you have no more to say, PLEASE sit down. It's really annoying to watch people repeat themselves just to fill time.  Your speech time allocation is a ceiling, not a floor-only speak for as long as you can/need to. Overviews and signposting should be your best friends. Feel free to ask specifics before the round.

Happy Hunting!

I have decent experience judging PF and LD.

I am okay with speed, but make sure you have clarity in your arguments. It’s not about how fast you go, but how good your arguments are.

I give more weight to cross-examination while evaluating the round.

I will flow the round, but I may not consider arguments that you do not extend throughout all of your speeches. Emphasize the arguments you want me to prioritize.

I prefer an evidence-based debate. Include strong warranting in each of your arguments and emphasize the impacts. The more specific your cards, the better.

Please be respectful to your opponents and have fun debating!

Good luck!