EMAIL: jcohen1964@gmail.com

I judge Public Forum Debate 95% of the time. I occasionally judge LD and even more occasionally, Policy.

A few items to share with you:

(1) I can flow *somewhat* faster than conversational speed. As you speed up, my comprehension declines.

(2) I may not be familiar with the topic's arguments. Shorthand references could leave me in the dust. For example, "On the economy, I have three responses..." could confuse me. It's better to say, "Where my opponents argue that right to work kills incomes and sinks the economy, I have three responses...". I realize it's not as efficient, but it will help keep me on the same page you are on.

(3) I miss most evidence tags. So, "Pull through Smith in 17..." probably won't mean much to me. Reminding me of what the evidence demonstrated works better (e.g. "Pull through the Smith study showing that unions hurt productivity").

(4) In the interest of keeping the round moving along, please be selective about asking for your opponent's evidence. If you ask for lots of evidence and then I hear little about it in subsequent speeches, it's a not a great use of time. If you believe your opponent has misconstrued many pieces of evidence, focus on the evidence that is most crucial to their case (you win by undermining their overall position, not by showing they made lots of mistakes).

(5) I put a premium on credible links. Big impacts don't make up for links that are not credible.

(6) I am skeptical of "rules" you might impose on your opponent (in contrast to rules imposed by the tournament in writing) - e.g., paraphrasing is never allowed and is grounds for losing the round. On the other hand, it's fine and even desirable to point out that your opponent has not presented enough of a specific piece of evidence for its fair evaluation, and then to explain why that loss of credibility undermines your opponent's position. That sort of point may be particularly relevant if the evidence is technical in nature (e.g., your opponent paraphrases the findings of a statistical study and those findings may be more nuanced than their paraphrasing suggests).

(7) I am skeptical of arguments suggesting that debate is an invalid activity, or the like, and hence that one side or the other should automatically win. If you have an argument that links into your opponent's specific position, please articulate that point. I hope to hear about the resolution we have been invited to debate.

Hi,

I'm a student at Northeastern University who currently competes in Parliamentary debate, but I did PF and some Congress in High School. What that means for you is that I can follow some speed but not full-on spreading, and that I tend to prefer logical arguments or empirical ones.

PF PARADIGM

I'm probably not gonna vote off a relatively minor point. In your final focus, spend more time explaining the biggest issues of clash in the round and why you outweigh. I don't want to here every single aff and neg contention being treated as it's own voting issue. I'll vote off of how those contentions interact with each other.

Give warrants other than specific pieces of evidence. People find cards for all sorts of trends, and there's usually conflicting evidence. If you have a logical warrant for why your card makes sense, I can vote off that. But if both teams just give me stats without explainations, I can't vote off either.

Also, refer to cards by the thing they say, not the author/source, otherwise I have no idea what you're referring to.

For high speaks, try to attack an argument at the warrants and the impacts, and then outweigh it even if you lose that point. Don't be afraid to not spend too much time responding to low-impact points just for the sake of not dropping somethingif it means you're using your time to develop the more important issues in the round.

CONGRESS PARADIGM

I don't judge Congress much, so in general treat your speech like a speech in a debate event. By that, I mean that I don't care much for rhetorical devices, I'd prefer warrants an impacts. Try to include substantive refutation in your speech if there are

a) really important refutations that you have to make 

or b) clear, repetitive issues on either side that should be compared, refuted, and weighed.

I have four years experience as a public forum debate judge as a parent.

Several things:

1.  Please speak slowly and clearly.

2.  Articulate slowly the first sentence of each contention.

3.  Like most people, I respond best to a well organized and compelling narrative.  That is, tell me a logical and consistent story, rather than giving me a series of random facts or pieces of evidence.

4.  Always be courteous to your opponents.  Rudeness or condescension is never acceptable, even in the heat of the debate.

Former debater, current lawyer. I judge based on the flow.

I am a parent judge from Acton-Boxborough Regional High School.  Although I flow to some extent, I mainly vote off the way you articulate your arguments.  If you speak well, and your arguments make logical sense, I will pick you up more often than not.  

Evidence

I will never call for evidence unless you blatantly tell me to. If it comes down to that, I will look at the evidence, but I would prefer to not get boggled into an evidence debate.  I would prefer you give me a reason to buy   

Speed

I can't keep up with faster speakers, so keep it slow for me.  That makes my job easier, and it heavily increases your likelihood of winning the round.

Speaker Points

Speak well and I will be extremely generous.  Speak rudely to your opponents and I won't be.  Simple as that.

Weighing

I will never weigh for you.  That's your job as a debater, so explictly tell me why something outweighs.  

Jargon

I don't like, nor do I understand circuit-y jargon, so don't use it. 

Etiquette

Debating is supposed to be a learning experience in which you should respect your evidence, your judge and your opponents.  Any rudeness towards your opponents or towards me will result in a loss.  Any falsification or tinkering with evidence will result in a loss. 

Please be kind with the way you debate, and if you have a problem with my decison, come find me after the round for more explanation.  I will disclose after the round, and if you disagree, I cannot change my decision, but I will happily listen and answer any questions you have about the round, and how I feel you can improve.  At the end of the day, it's not about winning or losing, it's about improving as individuals.  

I'm the coach at Boston Latin School, and I've been coaching at the high school and college level for about the last 15 years. I've done most forms of debate at one time or another, including Policy, Parli, LD, and even Congress and Worlds. I'm generally fairly well versed in the topic area, but it doesn't hurt to define unusual acronyms the first time you use them. Also, just because I can follow technical debate it doesn't mean that you need to be a spewtron with a million cards to impress me. Especially in PF I tend to appreciate a slower, more well reasoned case over a ton of carded claims any day.

Specific things to know for me as a judge:

1. Be honest about the flow and extend arguments by tag, not by citation. I like to think I can generally flow decently well. Repeatedly telling me your opponents dropped something that they actually had multiple responses to it tends to annoy me and degrade your credibility (and speaker points) pretty quickly. That said - don't assume I've snagged every card citation you blitzed in your constructive. When you extend carded arguments, extend via the tag - not via the citation. Even if I do have the cite for that specific card it's going to take me longer to find it that way and while I'm doing that I'm paying less attention to what you're saying.

2. Don't be a [jerk]. I don't generally flow CX, though I do listen and may jot down relevant things. DON'T BE A JERK IN CX (or elsewhere). Like many people, I tend to have a bit of a subconscious bias to see kinder and more respectful people as more reasonable and more likely to be correct. So even if you're not interested in kindness for its own sake (which I hope you would be), consider it a competitively useful trait to develop if you're stuck with me as a judge : )

3. Warrants really matter. I generally care much more about warrants than I do about citations. That means that putting a citation behind a claim without actually explaining why it makes logical sense won't do you a ton of good. There are a fair number of teams that cut cards for claims rather than the warranting behind them, and that practice won't go very far against any opponent who can explain the logical problems behind your assertion.

4. Extend Offense in Summary, Defense extensions are optional there. What it says. Any offense that isn't in the Summary generally doesn't exist for me in the Final Focus. Extending your offense though ink also doesn't do much - make sure to answer the rebuttal args against whatever offense you want to carry though. On the flip-side, If you have a really important defensive argument from Rebuttal that you want to hi-light, it certainly doesn't hurt to flag that in the Summary, though I will assume those arguments are still live unless they're responded to by your opponents

5. Explicitly weigh impacts. Every judge always tells you to weigh stuff, and I'll do the same, but what I mean specifically is: "tell me why the arguments you win are more important than the arguments you might lose." At the end of the vast majority of rounds each side is winning some stuff. If you don't directly compare the issues that are still alive at the end of the round, you force me to do it, and that means you lose a lot of control over the outcome. As a follow up (especially as the first speaker) make sure to compare your impacts against the best impacts they could reasonably claim, not the weakest.

6. Collapse down. I respect strategic concession - make choices and focus on where you're most likely to win. By the Summary you should have an idea where you're likely to win and where you're likely to lose. If you try to go for everything in the last two speeches you are unlikely to have enough explanation on anything to be persuasive.

If you have any questions about any of this, feel free to ask.

Good luck, have fun, and learn things.