LD/Parli: Check the wiki

PF Paradigm: 

TL;DR–Do whatever, but if you’re going to do it, do it right. Full citations and impeccable evidence ethics are mandatory. If it ain’t in summary, then it shouldn’t be in final focus. Speed is fine as long as you’re clear and not monotonous. I’ll always disclose unless the tournament has rules against it, in which case I will make it clear that the creators of such rules are jackasses.

Public Forum is very simple compared to LD, which is my event. I debated at some local PF tournaments my freshman year and am happy to say that I have not done so since. If I’m judging you in PF, I’ll adjudicate any argument (including non-PF ones, such as T, theory, conditional advocacies, off-cases, plans, counterplans, kritiks, etc…), though I suggest, as always, that you stick to what you’re comfortable with. I don’t want to see a PFer try to run theory if they have no clue as to how the argument functions. Just because it’s PF doesn’t give you free license to hijack and pervert policy/LD arguments. If you’re going to do it, do it right.

Other than that, I have no real paradigmatic issues for PF. Though I’m known as “slow-ish” in LD, I’ve never seen a PF round that I cannot follow, so speed shouldn’t be a problem for me. BUT SLOW THE HELL DOWN FOR AUTHOR NAMES! YOU PFers DUMP TEN CARDS IN ONE SPEECH AND NEVER ONCE ENNUNCIATE OR DISTINGUISH A NAME FROM THE REST OF THE SENTENCE. STOP. DOING. THAT. As always, full MLA/APA citations are necessary for a card to warrant the ballot. (Update: I hold varsity debaters to this standard, but in Novice/JV, I can probably entertain a degree of flexibility). You don’t have to include them in the speech doc as is done in LD and policy, but if I call for a card, I want to see the citation as well. In the speech, last name and date is fine, but that’s the bare minimum. I will not evaluate any cards that are not read initially with a last name and a date, nor will I evaluate any cards that are given to me without an actual citation. I don’t care how well you debated, and I don’t care if it’s just an honest mistake. No citation means no evidence. You can paraphrase all you want (but don’t invoke any “creative licenses” or other such liberties) but you still need to have actual evidence, prefix your paraphrasing with the author name and date, and provide the actual card and citations when asked. I’m aware that PF evidence ethics are terrible, so I’ll always call for cards that have come into question, and might even call for some cards on my own accord. If you screw up the evidence (i.e., don’t read the word “not,” fabricate it, try and pass some study of two counties off as a “national metastudy,” or otherwise majorly misconstrue it), you lose and the guy who read it gets zero speaker points, while his partner gets 20. Academic dishonesty is a cancer that must be irradiated, quashed, and disposed of.   

You don’t have to extend your case through your rebuttal, but if you want to win off of something, it needs to be in final focus, and if you want to say something in final focus, you need to have mentioned it in summary. I’d like it if your second speaker at least pays lip service to his team’s constructive, but I understand that rebuttals are supposed to be straight-ref speeches, so no biggie if you don’t get around to it. Bonus points (literally) if you get around to extending your case and taking out turns and defense. I guess that only really applies to the round’s fourth speaker, though. Oh well.

I’m aware that PF crossfires are complete and utter jokes, especially grand crossfire, so you’re welcome to use that as prep. I really don’t care. In LD, we have something called “flex prep,” and I don’t know if that concept exists in PF. But I’m willing to pretend that it does because I believe that the flexibility it entails allows for better debates, especially against dense, tricky, or odd arguments.

I give low speaker points. 27.5 is about average, and I am more than happy to throw out 26s 25s, and even single-digits if a) the quality of your argumentation, b) the integrity of your evidence, or c) your speaking style and verbal fluency are adequately low. That said, you don’t get below 25 without doing something that really pisses me off. 30s don’t really happen, unless you do something really crafty or cool, or if you bring me a Monster Ultra Zero (yellow, please, but I’ll drink any color except black) before the round.

Though I’m apt to criticize and berate PF for being overly simplistic, the fact of the matter is that a small part of me recognizes that high-level PF rounds include mind-boggling amounts of empirical data and technical comparisons, even more so than in LD. Thus, I’d very much appreciate it if you’d be so gracious as to slow down for twenty seconds at the beginning of summary and final focus and give me a specific yet satisfyingly broad and general overview. “We win because they drop the Johnston card” is not an overview. However, “We win because they drop the Johnston card from our rebuttal, which 1: de-links their turn on our second contention, 2: is terminal defense on their first contention, and 3: means that their defense on our third contention is meaningless. The warrant for the Johnston card is _______. Extend and cross-apply the weighing arguments from our summary speech; the third contention outweighs their case on magnitude and reversibility. Game over.” That’s the kind of overview I’m looking for. I can’t guarantee the accuracy of my decisions sans overviews, so your ballot will thank you for giving them.

One last thing: I strongly believe in disclosing the ballot and speaker points. It makes for better debate if the winners of a round know how they won and what to repeat, and if the losers know what they should’ve, would’ve, and could’ve done. If I can’t disclose, then I’ll just have to “accidentally” show you the ballot or use some clandestine hand gestures. Hehehe.