Who the heck is Candice Ahl?

       I was on the Fremont Senior High School debate team from 2000-2004 under the instruction of Fred Robertson. During my time there I competed in LD, Public forum, and Student Congress. Aarron Schurevich from Millard North was my Public forum debate partner. I qualified for Nationals and TOC.

        Since high school, I have been judging the last five years for LD, Student Congress, and Public forum. I am entering my first year as an assistant coach for Omaha North high school.

How to win my ballot - There is nothing that will automatically win or lose you the round. I will not dictate what kind of arguments you must run. With that being said, I believe that debate needs to be topical and have clear, well warranted clash. Unless a debater is running a blatantly evil case I am likely to vote for any argument that is well explained.  I will judge how you tell me to. Like almost every other judge, I have biases, but if you do the better debating, those biases will become irrelevant. Give me crystallization and voters at the end of the NR and 2AR. Make it obvious why I should be voting for you.

I see debate as a community and academic space where we should be able to have valuable discussions.

Engage and compare – lots of teams just do “extend extend extend” without engaging the other team’s arguments. The first step is always important, but the second step needs to be there. Tell me why your arguments are good/important, and then why the other team’s arguments are not. Tell me reasons to prefer your evidence/arguments. Tell me what comes first. Tell me how and why and why not to evaluate arguments. I can and will follow the flow. For extensions to be granted a debater cannot simply say “Extend my card which says x.” I need a claim, warrant and impact.

Cross-Examination - I don't flow cross-x or use it to determine my rfd. If you get a concession or something relevant and important comes from cross-x then it should be referenced in your rebuttal. You can say "remember judge they said ___ in cross-x." There are two roles of cross-x as I see it 1.) Clear up anything you found unclear or don't understand, and 2) Try to get your opponent to concede to something.  The latter is much more difficult and if your opponent isn't biting, please, please, please let it go and move on. Cross-X is not the time for you to try and prove your point or arguments true. Save that for your rebuttals. "Don't you think that" questions are unfair, biased, and tell me nothing.  Please be polite and give the other team a chance to speak--doing so won't cost you the round/speaks. 

Theory debate - I am not a huge fan of theory debate. However, I will vote off of theory if obvious abuse is present and well explained. But I greatly prefer resolutional debates. Running theory for the sake of running theory is not advantageous. I need to know you understand what you are saying, the applications, and implications. If it is a confusion tactic, please don't do it.

Speed- I can keep up with moderate speed but I will probably not get down a majority of what your saying if you go too quickly. Some debaters simply go too quickly for me to flow and most debaters just don’t spread very clearly. I will say “clear” or “slow.” Even with speed, I want variance in your tone, inflection, or speed so that you can indicate to me what is the MOST IMPORTANT parts of your case and evidence so that you make sure I don't miss it.   

Other Random Stuff-
1. Author qualifications are debattable. You can tell me why they are important and can discredit the validity of what your opponent is arguing. You do not need to accept everything your opponent is running or citing as truth.
2. Don’t sacrifice clarity for speed.
3. I award speaker points in a range of 26-30, but only include .5 as another variance to this. If I can't tell you what I think you should have done better then you will earn a 30. Cross-X is a place will I determine a speaker worth a 29 or a 30.                                                                                                                                          4. There’s a difference between being aggressive and being rude – no need to call people or arguments stupid or dumb. Don’t be racist, sexist, homophobic, or a jerk.

Hi! I'm what they call an "old" judge now. I coached for 13 years, but I've been out since 17, so I know things have changed.

My big issues/preferences are this:

Organization. You should be telling me at all times where I should be looking on my flow. If not, I can't guarantee I'm extending what you claim you are.

I think of LD rounds as a scale. The aff begins to tip it to their side, and the neg balances it out. However, if the neg doesn't give me anything to tip it to their side (i.e. offense more than "you can't affirm"), then it's a level scale, not one tipping towards the neg.

I have a degree in Broadcast Journalism, which means I had to study case law and governmental regulations in America, for what it's worth.