Background: 2 years LD for Copper Hills High School, judging/coaching after high school, no college experience

I was more of a traditional debater, but I understand progressive pretty well. I probably won’t connect the dots if you’re just stating authors or shells, so make sure to explain any and every argument you’re using. I don’t have a preference to what you’re running as long as you’re explaining it well and clashing with your opponent’s case.

I’m a flow judge, so your biggest concern should be clash, organization, clarity, etc. If it’s not making it onto my flow, then I’m probably not weighing it.

Weighing is telling me WHY it matters. Just because you win the argument doesn't mean that I care. Tell me why I should care. You should be addressing this throughout the debate so the judge isn't doing your work for you.

EXTEND YOUR ARGUMENTS. Once you extend, I'll write it down. Save time and keep organized. You should also be weighing the argument while extending it, instead of just re-reading the same taglines.

Specifics:

Speed: Spreading/Spewing is ok, but slow down on tags. If you want me to understand your case, then make sure you’re slowing down for the main ideas. I’ll say “clear” if needed, so let me know if you’re uncomfortable with that.

Prep: Time yourselves, but I’ll also keep time.

Progressive (CP/Kritiks/Theory/DA/etc.): Didn't run much of it personally, but definitely enjoy judging these rounds. Since I’m not familiar with specific authors, shells, etc., make sure to slow down on tags, explain it in a way that I can see that YOU areunderstanding it (not just spreading a prepped document), and weigh it.

Traditional: Although logic is great, make sure to have cards/evidence to support your arguments. WEIGH.

Body Language:I’m also usually flowing, so no need to be nervous about eye contact.

I look forward to judging you! If you have any further questions, feel free to email me caoanhp@gmail.com.

• • • • • • • •

I am a high school English teacher: I teach AP English Language and Composition. Debate functions as an exceptional foundation for multiple, lifelong communicative capacities/realms. I value organization, solid understanding of one’s case, appropriate citation of relevant sources, and concise refutation of opposition. Regarding delivery, any speed is acceptable.

With an appreciation for the effort required in case preparation, I encourage debaters to deliver their cases with the same amount of gusto with which they prepared their cases. I acknowledge debate's intrinsic educational value; accordingly, I simultaneously judge and cheer as competitors engage in this fruitful, beneficial educational exercise.

A tabula rasa judge cloud is a lovely place to dream; however, a judge with a completely clean slate --void of previous experience and knowledge-- lacks benefit for all involved. Thus, I will do my best to safely tuck away any personal bias(es) as my function is to judge your debate skills, abilities, and effectiveness.

Background - Debated LD in highschool. Current debate coach.

Speed - 9/10 on speed, but signpost very clearly if speaking quickly.

Style - prefer traditional, but progressive is fine if run well.

Framework - I like value and criterion clash. I evaluate winner of framework first, then use the winning framework to evaluate impacts.

Impacts - Every argument should be clearly impacted. I heavily weigh imminent and highly likely impacts over potential hypothetical slippery slope scenarios (ie don't run nuke extinction unless the path to extinction is very clear and highly probable). I ask that you provide an impact analysis in your final speech. Show me clearly where your impacts outweigh.

Topicality - I rarely vote for topicality unless opponent is blatantly off-topic.

Theory - fine if you run it well.

Kritiks - fine if you run them well. Explicitly state where the links apply.

Plans - Aff is never required to have a formal plan, and no plan text is required when discussing possible pragmatic implementation. I don't vote for counterplans (instead run it as a traditional style argument).

Prep - Flashing isn't prep, but you do your best to be quick. Excessive issues will result in loss of speaker points.

Respect - I am fine with heated debate, but no blatant disrespect, ableism, homophobia, racism, sexism, transphobia etc, and no advocating in round for murder, genocide, or oppression.

I judged many years of debate and IE events except policy. I can handle any speed but do not like the speed of progressive policy. Every event has its rules and structures, I like road map and framework, they help a lot to see whether the person or the team is sticking with their flow.

LD, l look for things that whether the value and value criterion line up with their contentions. Evidence credible or not. Speaker has the fire along their speech or argments but not sound yelling?

PF, team needs to know their topic well. Time management on speech whether things are well organized by FW or flow, evidence always important in PF. Wrong information under my knowledge, definitely out some points from me. Plan should not be spending time during in PF, it is not policy event. Speaker point should be high with high convincing tone and voice but not yelling.

Please do not spend time in rule argument, I want hear your opinions on the topic!

If you have any specific questions, please ask in round.

I don't disclose. I don't ask for evidence. I don't accept post-rounding. The round should be controlled by debaters, and anything that you feel is important to earning my ballot needs to be addressed in the round. Once completed, the round is out of sight and mind. Any critiques I have will go on the ballot. No one's opinion is worth an additional ten minutes of hearing themselves talk.

While I am flexible in terms of argumentation style, for PF and LD, I prefer traditional arguments. It's super easy to rest on jargon and to vomit a case. Brevity is becoming a lost skill in debate, and I like seeing it. If you think you can win on progressive arguments regardless, please present them.

In Policy and PF, I judge almost entirely on impact and framework. In LD, VC gets a little more weight, naturally. Voters are super helpful. Anything you drop is weighed against you.

Topicality is annoying, so please avoid running it. If you think you can swing Theory, do your darnedest. Kritiks are cool, too.

If you want to do speed, that's fine, but anything I can't understand can't go on my flow, and I'm not gonna correct you. You're in charge of your own performance.

FLASHING COMES OUT OF PREP, unless done before the 1AC. Also, if your preflow takes more than five minutes, I will dock speaks for each additional minute.

Clashing and some aggressiveness is fine, but if you're scoffing or snickering at any opponent, I'm going to be especially motivated to find reasons to drop you, obviously. Even if I like your argument or pick you up, I'm probably going to give you really low speaks. Respect the fact that your opponents also work hard to be in the same room as you.

When I call "time," nothing you say gets added to the flow. Simply stop speaking, because it's not going to be counted. No exceptions.

Most of all, if you have me as your judge, relax. It is debate. You're not defusing a bomb. You're not performing neurosurgery. You'll make it out of the round alive, and you'll probably go on to debate many other rounds. You want to do well, and a lot goes into that. You will be okay, regardless of how I vote.

Miscellaneous items that won't decide around, but could garner higher speaks

-Uses of the words, and various thereof, "flummoxed," "cantankerous," "trill," "inconceivable, "verisimilitude," and "betwixt"

-Quotes from television series Community, Steven Universe, Friday Night Lights, Arrested Development, and 30 Rock

-Knowing the difference between "asocial" and "antisocial"

-Rhyming

https://judgephilosophies.wikispaces.com/Olsen%2CNick

I did LD in high school and preferred a progressive style. I can handle speed, and will give an audible "clear" if I cannot understand you. COMPREHENSIVE UNDER VIEWS AND CLEAR EXTENSIONS. Do not extend a point hidden in the interior of a card that was not stressed prior. I think that spreading through key parts of evidence (tags and crucial lines) is abusive, especially when an opponent does not seem comfortable with speed. 

Original arguments delight me, and VERY original arguments delight me more! Make me laugh I like that.

Racism/ Sexism/ Homophobia/ Classicism/ other offensive "isms" are not original.

Background: I competed on national and local level LD for all of high school during which I achieved moderate success and qualified to the TOC. I judged consistently throughout college and coached for 3 years on the national level. I have only judged a few times in the past two years. My pronouns are he/him/his.

Email for chain: calenjsmith@gmail.com

Warning: I haven't judged in a bit but find that I am still ok at keeping up in high speed rounds, though the Stanford 2021 tournament is my first virtual tournament so just check in throughout the round.

Speaking: I used to do and coach national circuit debate so I am fine with speed however my tolerance is diminished so I will probably be better at judging medium paced rounds. I will tell you to slow down. If I tell you to slow down I have probably already missed arguments you are making.

Substance: Ill judge any round (K, Theory, Substance, etc) I am probably more adapt at judging framework debates but I enjoy anything that is well explained and am happy to judge kritiks, theory, policy making etc.

For local tournaments

I think that if you are going to do progressive debate at a tournament where your opponent is more traditional it would be great for you to have some way they could read your case if you are spreading. I don't think it is constructive or education to not assist someone who is unfamiliar with terminology or specific types of cases.

Additionally, while it is probably my preference to judge more progressive arguments I would prefer to watch a good traditional debate than a mediocre progressive debate.

LD

This is the event I’m most familiar with. I competed in highschool and am good with most types of arguments. Honestly just do what you feel most comfortable with.

K arguments

I am comfortable judging k-affs, performance Ks and regular Ks.

I love a good K and am familiar with a lot of the literature. If it is something obscure I need you to explain the K (for my sake and the sake of your opponents.

CPs

go for it

Topicality

I need weighing against counter-interp. no RVIs plz

Theory

For both theory and topicality I need them to be justified. I don't think an excessive theory shell makes sense at all strategically nor do I believe that it is a good use of time.

Policy

Good with whatever, if you have any specific questions lmk. Please include me in the email chain.

Public Forum

I’m a flow judge, am good with speed and I’m really okay with whatever you want to run. Please, please, please use sign-posting and clear extensions. line-by-line is helpful for everybody in the room.

If you are going to claim an opponent is violating the rules, I need this to actually be the case. Particularly due to time constraints I really don’t want to watch a debate about the rules of debate if the argument of abuse is not grounded - it’s honestly a waste of your time, your opponent’s time and my time.

Random bits and pieces

1. I’m not going to be flowing cross-x, I view it as mainly for the benefit of debaters.

2. I don’t have any preference around sitting or standing, just do whatever is comfortable.

3. I have a weak immune system, please do not shake my hand.

email: claire.e.smith@me.com

I have a pretty traditional paradigm. I prefer normal speaking speed and good evidence-based debating. In events such as Lincoln-Douglas debates, I do not particularly enjoy progressive debating (i.e. arguing about definitions instead of focusing on the topic and points made by the opponent). Just good old-fashioned debates!

haydenlw4 [at] gmail. com

Include me in the chain without asking me.

Judge philosophies are terrible to read because they all read the same and aren't true. I will try to make mine as useful as possible by being descriptive of how I think that I differ from the community standards.

Background:

I am the head coach at Bingham HS. I have been involved in high school debate for over a decade. But the fact I am a head coach means that I rarely am actually judging so my flow speed is below average and I will need adjustment at the beginning of rounds. This is true for national circuit debates only. I am still capable of flowing local circuit rounds. This also affects my topic knowledge. I will have some knowledge on the topic but I am thinking about it on a weekly basis not a daily basis.

General

I personally care a lot about politeness. I will start with warnings, then taking tenths of points off speaker points but if the lack of politeness becomes unbearable I will drop the offending team. I will not do any warnings while I am on a panel but I still very much care for politeness.

I try to be a very expressive when I judge. If I'm liking your arguments then I want my face to reflect that so you can adapt on the fly.

DA's

DA and case debates are some of my favorites to judge. I will look first at the link level before the impact level on these debates.

CP's

I am aff biased for cheater cps (consult, process, delay, etc). I try to not buy the negative analysis that "1% risk of a net benefit is a reason to vote neg" for those types of cps. Because of my thoughts on DA's it makes me more willing to vote on perms and defense.

K's

I have less content knowledge of the k's that have become more popular recently. That would be afro-pess and settler colonialism. I will stick to the description of the K that happens in the round. I don't know how poems are arguments. This leads me to barely flow poems.

T

I like T more than most. I think that if you are good at T my threshold is quite low. But I have noticed myself not voting on T because I didn't think that negative did enough smart work. I enjoy TVA's, perms on T, explaining why the aff does not meet their C/I or are not reasonable. The T debate that I am most persuaded by is accurate descriptions of the flaws of the topic and why your interp helps solve the flaws of the topic.

Theory

If I were to construct rules for debate they would include: 2 conditional worlds, no floating piks, aff's/cp's must have a solvency advocate.

K affs vs T-USfg

My historical tendencies (when I was younger) is towards liking K affs. I still love to listen to a fun k aff 1ac that is very topic specific. But I wasn't very active in debate from 2014-2016. The k aff seems to have proliferated in that time. I have been leaning more towards the negatives fairness claims since I returned. I think that the best way to describe my preferences at the moment is that I am in the middle waiting to be convinced in the round. BUT my voting record is currently leaning towards framework.

Prep:

Prep stops when the email is sent or when the flash drive comes out of the computer. I will give grace period because I understand computers are weird sometimes. But if it takes more than a minute to resolve then I will hate you.

Speaker point scale:

29.5+ — the top speaker at the tournament.

29.3-29.4 — one of the five or ten best speakers at the tournament.

29-29.2 — one of the twenty best speakers at the tournament.

28.8-28.9 — a 75th percentile speaker at the tournament; with a winning record, would barely clear on points.

28.6-28.7 — a 50th percentile speaker at the tournament; with a winning record, would not clear on points.

28.2-28.5 — a 25th percentile speaker at the tournament.

27.9-28.1 — a 10th percentile speaker at the tournament.

To help with speaker point inflation I will give .1 speaker point bonuses for things that I want to reward. These rewards will only happen if you explicitly ask me about them immediately after the round and before my rfd.

Rewards for:

-Good flows.

-Good disclosure practices (great cites / full text).

-Making the debate round pleasant (humor or kindness).

-Utah Jazz and stand-up comedian (Kumail Nanjiani, Hannibal Burress, Eugene Mirman, Bo Burnham, and John Mulaney) references are appreciated.