Experience/Background: I coached at Columbus HS from 2013-2021, primarily Public Forum, and now coach at Carrollton HS (2021-present). I did not debate in high school or college, but I have been coaching and judging PF, a little LD, and IEs since 2013, both locally (Georgia) and on the national circuit, including TOC and NSDA Nationals. I spent several years (2017-2022) as a senior staff member with Summit Debate and previously led labs at Emory (2016-2019).

Judging Preferences:

If you have specific questions about me as a judge that are not answered below (or need clarification), please feel free to ask them. Some general guidelines and answers to frequently asked questions are below:

1. Speed: I can flow a reasonably fast speed when I'm at the top of my game, but I am human. If it's late in the day/tournament, I am likely tired, and my capacity for speed drops accordingly. I will not be offended if you ask me about this before the round. For online rounds, I prefer that you speak at a more moderate speed. I will tell you "clear" if I need you to slow down. If I am flowing on paper, you should err on the slower side of speed than if I am flowing on my laptop.

2. Signposting and Roadmaps: Signposting is good. Please do it. It makes my job easier. Off-time roadmaps aren't really needed if you're just going "their case, our case", but do give a roadmap if there's a more complex structure to your speech.

3. Consistency of Arguments/Making Decisions: Anything you expect me to vote on should be in summary and final focus. Defense is not "sticky" -- meaning you cannot extend it from rebuttal to final focus. Please weigh. I love voters in summary, but I am fine if you do a line-by-line summary.

4. Prep (in-round and pre-round): Please pre-flow before you enter the round. Monitor your own prep time. If you and your opponents want to time each other to keep yourselves honest, go for it. Do not steal prep time - if you have called for a card and your opponents are looking for it, you should not be writing/prepping unless you are also running your prep time. (If a tournament has specific rules that state otherwise, I will defer to tournament policy.) On that note, have your evidence ready. It should not take you longer than 20-30 seconds to pull up a piece of evidence when asked. If you delay the round by taking forever to find a card, your speaker points will probably reflect it.

5. Overviews in second rebuttal: In general, I think a short observation or weighing mechanism is probably more okay than a full-fledged contention that you're trying to sneak in as an "overview". Tread lightly.

6. Frontlines: Second speaking team should answer turns and frontline in rebuttal. I don't need a 2-2 split, but I do think you need to address the speech that preceded yours.

7. Theory, Kritiks, and Progressive Arguments: I prefer not judging theory debates. Strongly prefer not judging theory debates. If you are checking back against a truly abusive practice, I will listen to and evaluate the argument. If you are using theory/Ks/etc. in a way intended to overwhelm/intimidate an opponent who has no idea what's going on, I am not going to respond well to that.

8. Crossfire: I do not flow crossfire. If it comes up in cross and you expect it to serve a role in my decision-making process, I expect you to bring it up in a later speech.

9. Speaker points: I basically never give 30s, so you should not expect them from me. My range is usually from 28-29.7.

I’ve been in debate for 5 years now. I started debating on the military withdrawal topic and I’ve debated every year since. I have also debated this debate year, so there’s no need to slow down, I know what the high school topic is this year (surveillance) and I understand everything you’re saying. 

For LD:

Speed (spreading) is fine, a-spec, T, CP, Kritik arguments are fine. See policy arguments below for opinions on T, Ks, etc. I'm pretty open to voting on anything just tell me why you win and the person who does the best debating will win. (Simpson-Jiles 15)

For Policy

Discliamer before you read this philosophy -- read what you were going to read before you read this wiki. I am more interested to hear what you have to say, what you think is strategic, and I prefer to hear you debate how you debate. That's going to make me more happy than whatever is in this wiki.

Philosophy: 

Topicality: T is a voter if you win it, and I view T and framework to be essentially the same thing - as a result I won't say T is never a reverse voter because I do believe that bracketing out important discussions, especially the discussion of race, with T can be bad. I don’t believe that T shouldn’t be under-covered just because you run a clearly topical AFF, but I do believe that the AFF can smartly answer T with an obvious counter interpretation. I’m a logical person and understand definitions both ways, so don’t be afraid to go for T and don’t be afraid if the other team does. T is a very line-by-line debate and I will judge it as such. 

CP: I like to watch this type of debate. This has even been my go-to strat on some topics. When going with a CP, make sure you make the net benefit obvious, whether it’s a DA or internal. I am cool with any CP you can come up with as long as you can defend it as net beneficial, and I am super duper cool with the PIC. I love PICs. Sorry. I think it's strategic, but that doesn't mean I necessarily think that it's fair. Debate it out.

DA/Case: This is my least favorite type of debate. Hate the PTX DA. You know what to do, just properly explain solvency deficits to magnify the DA, or just straight up go for turns on the DA. I really, really look at uniqueness when you’re going for a DA, so make sure it’s up to date and goes your way. 

Ks: I understand and debate Ks. Your K should win a link. If you win a link you often win the debate, often times the link/impact flow is more important than the alternative, although a good alternative debate will make me warm and fuzzy inside. I am fairly familiar with most K literature, I am more familiar with Deleuze as a specific author, ableism foremost, feminism, capitalism, speciesism, "race", and Ks of method. What does this mean? It doesn’t mean that you don’t have to explain the debate to win, it just means that your rebuttals shouldn’t be the generic “this is how X K functions” and should be instead centered around smart analysis of how the K interacts with and wins against the affirmative. AFF, answer the K smartly and don’t forget your 1AC is your biggest form of offense. I do not care how you word your perms, but you need to explain to me HOW your perm functions.

Theory: Tell me what to do with it. Do I reject the argument or the team? Why? If you plan to go for theory, go for theory. Don’t be afraid; I am a judge who votes on theory and who will flow the entirety of the theory debate – I just need to be told what to do once I decide which team is winning the theory flow. 

K AFFs/Performance AFFs: I’ve debated these, I’ve run these, I like these, and you can run these in front of me. Make the question “why vote AFF?” very clear to me, don’t be sketchy about it, and you’re in a good place. I don't care if you have a plantext, I don't care if you don't say anything at all in your 8 minutes, just tell me why I vote for you.

DISCLAIMER – THINGS THAT WILL GET YOUR SPEAKS DOCKED: -- Racist/Sexist/Ableist slurs -- Being rude. This isn’t cute to watch. Prep ends when you say it is over.

PRONOUNS: they/them/theirs

mstekl@stanford.edu -- please put me on the email chain

PhD student @ Stanford, in Modern Thought and Literature

Emory '19 (did not debate; judged on the GA circuit for 4 years)

Bishop Guertin '15 (debated on the national circuit, went to the TOC, etc. etc.)

***UPDATE for Berkeley 2020: This will be my first tournament on the topic. Please do not assume any familiarity with the topic or especially with any topic-specific acronyms. You can spread, but clarity is paramount as always — clarity over speed any day, but today more than ever!***

My favorite judges in high school were jon sharp, Calum Matheson, and Jarrod Atchinson.

In general, you should not change what you do because you have me in the back of the room. As a debater, I tended to be pretty flexible, alternating frequently between "critical" and "policy" positions. This is your space to argue, not mine, so I will vote for the arguments on the flow that yield the path of least intervention. Pure objectivity being impossible, I nonetheless do my best to keep my subjective argumentative preferences out of the picture. That said, I'm not quite a blank slate; for instance, I won't be persuaded by racism/sexism/etc. good, or by any unapologetically discriminatory positions or practices.

I’m pretty well versed in K lit – I study theory at a graduate level, so I should have some degree of familiarity with whatever you choose to read. I'm an especially good judge for any brand of poststructuralism, including those concerned with questions of identity. Obviously, this doesn't mean that you can rely on buzzwords to get out of explaining your argument; it does mean, too, that I'll know if you have no idea what you're talking about. You should have at least a working knowledge of the position you are asking me to vote for, which requires you to do at least some cursory background reading and thinking. Then, bring your knowledge of critical theory to bear on the particulars of the aff, balancing overarching framing questions with specific link and impact analysis.

I'm not convinced that the aff must defend governmental action. Which is only to say that I will not enter the room with any dogmatic biases against plan-less affirmatives. That said, I probably enjoy a good framework debate more than most, and find myself voting for framework as often as I vote against it. Still, I don't think it should be your only strategy against all K affs; I will be more persuaded if you at least make an effort to substantively engage the aff. Of course, particularly obscure affs or those lacking a consistent advocacy will tend to be harder to defend against framework than core, topic-specific K affs.

***UPDATE September 2018: As I've judged more debates, I've become increasingly wary of framework as a default negative strategy against K affs. In my experience, framework very often becomes a lazy cop-out, even an excuse to avoid debating the substance of the aff. I can still be convinced that this is not always the case, and I will continue to evaluate framework debates technically, but it is on framework debaters to prove the value of their strategy.***

I think I tend to prioritize evidence quality less than most judges. Not that good cards aren't important – they're the pillars of your argument – but they can't replace good analysis. Depending on your argumentative genre of choice, it may be better to establish your position through evidence-reading or through your own explanation in the constructives; but in most cases, I'd rather you invest more time in nuanced and specific applications of your argument than read another card. In the final rebuttals, you absolutely shouldn't rely on your cards to do the work for you – extensions should be much more substantive than simple author name-drops. If you can't explain your author's argument, as well as its implications for the debate, I won't explain it for you.

Clear! I'll take clarity over speed any day. You should be comprehensible enough that I can understand the text of your cards. I will not call for cards after the debate if I was unable to understand them when you read them; I only read evidence for the sake of refreshing my memory.

Chill out. While antagonism is inevitable in this competitive forum and may even enhance debates in limited doses, I maintain that debaters too often take aggression to unhealthy extremes. Outside of a small number of "critical" strategies that benefit performatively from hostility, there is no reason to deliberately be an asshole to the other team, or – especially – to your partner (!!seriously!! if I can hear you yelling at your partner during prep time, you're doing something wrong). Jokes can also help ease the tension.

Speaks – Points vary by tournament (i.e. I'll give higher points at Samford than at the NDCA). Generally speaking, I'm a bit of a point fairy. Methods for improving your speaks include innovative, specific strategies and clear logical organization. Humor is the icing on the cake.

30 – Among the best speakers I’ve ever heard: you should be top speaker and win the tournament. A+
29.5-29.9 – Outstanding: expect to be one of the top 5 speakers – you should be able to make it to late elims. A
29-29.4 – Very impressive: a noteworthy performance with quite little room for improvement; you deserve to be among the top 20 speakers. A-
28.6-28.9 – High average: you are in or near the top of your division; with any luck – and, more surely, with just a little more practice – you should be able to break. B/B+
28-28.5 – Average: you're doing well, but still need to iron out some remaining issues with your clarity of speech or of argument. B-
27.5-27.9 – Low average: you have potential, but displayed: a) notable problems with both speaking and argument development, or b) more serious problems in one of the two areas. C/C+
27-27.4 – Below average: your performance was passable, but suffered from critical issues of both style and content. C-
26.5-26.9 – Needs improvement: you spoke poorly, made major strategic mistakes, and likely dropped some important arguments. D
26-26.4 – Needs major improvement: you failed to answer a majority of your opponent’s arguments and made some manner of unforgivable mistake. D-
0-25 – You did something offensive. F

Clipping will result in an immediate loss and the lowest speaks allowed by the tournament. I will follow along with the speech doc and record the debate; if I catch you clipping, I will stop the round you even if your opponent doesn’t call you on it.

This is not, in fact, your CX.

*** Update March 2019: YES TKO PLEASE TKO! Far too many debates drag on painfully long after they (should) have technically ended. For this reason, I am following B. Manuel's paradigm and urging you to invoke "total knock-out" mode if the other team makes an utterly irredeemable mistake – e.g., double turn, dropped T or a K, etc. Of course, you must stake the round on this; if you can pull it off (i.e., if you can satisfactorily extend the dropped/devastating argument while covering all your bases, e.g., answering condo if going for a dropped K...), then you will win the round after your speech and receive 30s. If you are unsuccessful, you lose and get a hard cap of 27.5. ***