I’m a lay judge, so treat me as such. However, I will take notes and try to follow along with the debate to the best of my abilities. If I have clarifying questions at the end of the round, I may ask them after the debate is over.

I am a parent judge and had been judging public forum twice.

Debate is a game. Evidence quality matters.

All arguments are valid. Creative arguments should be tested in debate.

As a generality, only speak as fast as you need. I am not good at flowing, don't go crazy fast. If you go super fast with tons of analytics, chances are I have no idea what's going on.

Sign-post well and please organize your cases in an easy-to-flow manner. I'd like to see you putting the pieces together instead of having me connecting the dots for you.

Background Info

I work at VMware in R&D, and am a judge from Dougherty Valley. I have judged at a couple of tournaments with only 1 year of experience. I have only judged Public Forum rounds in the past, so Theory and K's are a foreign concept to me. I am still a parent judge, and have no debate experience in the past. I take the RFD and the ballots very seriously so I do follow along the entire debate. I am not a flow judge, but I do take notes throughout on each side's arguments.

Speaker Points

I award speaker points based on confidence and clarity when speaking; teams that aren't loud enough or aren't confident about their arguments don't get awarded as many. I usually award 27's to the average speakers, 28 to the good, 29's to the speakers that were excellent, and 30's to the extraordinary. I will award lower speaker points for rude behavior/rude language(i.e. shouting).

Voting

At the end of the debate, I look to see which teams has defended their case better and also which team has refuted their opponents' case better. If I cannot hear you in the debate, I will signal to you to be clear, and if after a couple of times it doesn't seem to be working, I will just not be able to flow your speech. I do take notes throughout the debate, but again, I am not a flow judge.

Other

Clothing/Appearance: doesn't matter too much to me; it somewhat matters, but isn't a must and won't exactly influence my decision in the round.

Use of Evidence: Very important to me; if evidence isn't used, I will not consider the arguments stated.

Real World Impacts: Without stating impacts or giving me any, you aren't telling me what the effects of your side is. Weigh the affirmation world vs. negation world, and tell me what your side is providing that the other side isn't. Sometimes debates can boil down to impacts, so if I don't receive impacts, I will not be able to weigh your side. Stating impacts is extremely important for the debate.

Cross Examination: I find crossfires in the debate one of the most impactful periods of time in the debate. If I find that one team is dominating the crossfire, that will be heavily considered when looking at who to vote for in the round.

Arguments: I prefer truthful arguments as well as debating skills. Having weak arguments will be negative in the round as will not having good cross-examination skills and refutations. Please don't speak too fast in your speeches as I will not be able to take note of your arguments.

Mariel Cruz - Updated 1/3/2024

Schools I've coached/judged for: Santa Clara University, Cal Lutheran University, Gunn High School, Polytechnic School, Saratoga High School, and Notre Dame High School

I've judged most debate events pretty frequently, except for Policy and Congress. However, I was a policy debater in college, so I'm still familiar with that event. I mostly judge PF and traditional LD, occasionally circuit LD. I judge all events pretty similarly, but I do have a few specific notes about Parli debate listed below.

Background: I was a policy debater for Santa Clara University for 5 years. I also helped run/coach the SCU parliamentary team, so I know a lot about both styles of debate. I've been coaching and judging on the high school and college circuit since 2012, so I have seen a lot of rounds. I teach/coach pretty much every event, including LD and PF.

Policy topic: I haven’t done much research on either the college or high school policy topic, so be sure to explain everything pretty clearly.

Speed: I’m good with speed, but be clear. I don't love speed, but I tolerate it. If you are going to be fast, I need a speech doc for every speech with every argument, including analytics or non-carded arguments. If I'm not actively flowing, ie typing or writing notes, you're probably too fast.

As I've started coaching events that don't utilize speed, I've come to appreciate rounds that are a bit slower. I used to judge and debate in fast rounds in policy, but fast rounds in other debate events are very different, so fast debaters should be careful, especially when running theory and reading plan/cp texts. If you’re running theory, try to slow down a bit so I can flow everything really well. Or give me a copy of your alt text/Cp text. Also, be sure to sign-post, especially if you're going fast, otherwise it gets too hard to flow. I actually think parli (and all events other than policy) is better when it's not super fast. Without the evidence and length of speeches of policy, speed is not always useful or productive for other debate formats. If I'm judging you, it's ok be fast, but I'd prefer if you took it down a notch, and just didn't go at your highest or fastest speed.

K: I like all types of arguments, disads, kritiks, theory, whatever you like. I like Ks but I’m not an avid reader of literature, so you’ll have to make clear explanations, especially when it comes to the alt. Even though the politics DA was my favorite, I did run quite a few Ks when I was a debater. However, I don't work with Ks as much as I used to (I coach many students who debate at local tournaments only, where Ks are not as common), so I'm not super familiar with every K, but I've seen enough Ks that I have probably seen something similar to what you're running. Just make sure everything is explained well enough. If you run a K I haven't seen before, I'll compare it to something I have seen. I am not a huge fan of Ks like Nietzche, and I'm skeptical of alternatives that only reject the aff. I don't like voting for Ks that have shakey alt solvency or unclear frameworks or roles of the ballot.

Framework and Theory: I tend to think that the aff should defend a plan and the resolution and affirm something (since they are called the affirmative team), but if you think otherwise, be sure to explain why you it’s necessary not to. I’ll side with you if necessary. I usually side with reasonability for T, and condo good, but there are many exceptions to this (especially for parli - see below). I'll vote on theory and T if I have to. However, I'm very skeptical of theory arguments that seem frivolous and unhelpful (ie Funding spec, aspec, etc). Also, I'm not a fan of disclosure theory. Many of my students compete in circuits where disclosure is not a common practice, so it's hard for me to evaluate disclosure theory.

Basically, I prefer theory arguments that can point to actual in round abuse, versus theory args that just try to establish community norms. Since all tournaments are different regionally and by circuit, using theory args to establish norms feels too punitive to me. However, I know some theory is important, so if you can point to in round abuse, I'll still consider your argument.

Parli specific: Since the structure for parli is a little different, I don't have as a high of a threshold for theory and T as I do when I judge policy or LD, which means I am more likely to vote on theory and T in parli rounds than in other debate rounds. This doesn't mean I'll vote on it every time, but I think these types of arguments are a little more important in parli, especially for topics that are kinda vague and open to interpretation. I also think Condo is more abusive in parli than other events, so I'm more sympathetic to Condo bad args in parli than in other events I judge.

Policy/LD/PF prep:I don’t time exchanging evidence, but don’t abuse that time. Please be courteous and as timely as possible.

General debate stuff: I was a bigger fan of CPs and disads, but my debate partner loved theory and Ks, so I'm familiar with pretty much everything. I like looking at the big picture as much as the line by line. Frankly, I think the big picture is more important, so things like impact analysis and comparative analysis are important.

Berkeley:

I’m a parent judge. This is my first tournament. Make smart arguments but be clear and efficiently explain why I should vote for you. Do clear weighing of your impacts.

Background:

My name is Jessica Jung. I won NPDA in 2018-2019 with my partner, Lila Lavender as a hybrid team (the first all transwomen national champion team yay!!) I also did NPDA Parli for four years in college for UC Berkeley where I competed on and off. I was mostly a kritikal debater personally but I dabbled in case and theory every so often. I generally believe that debate is a game and should be treated like one. This means that I am content agnostic (for the most part and with a few exceptions such as instances of violence in the round) and that I see debate from a more technical standpoint. Technical debate was what I learned at Cal and is what I am most familiar with and thus, that tends to affect my judging. That being said, one of my goals in debate when I competed was to turn debate into a spectacle (whether that was good or not has yet to be seen) but as such, I am very open to new arguments, new types of debate and pushing the envelope for what NPDA parli is or could be. That being said, anything that is new takes some getting used to so don't be surprised if I find these cool new novel arguments difficult to evaluate.

A few personal requests:

1. Please read trigger warnings or content warnings before discussing any topics related to sexual violence. Please do so before the round and not at the top of the PMC so that if I or anyone else in the room needs to take a second, or abstain from the debate, there is a moment to exercise some amount of personal privilege.

2. Do not misgender your opponents, intentional or otherwise. I would generally recommend defaulting to "they" if you do not know someone's pronouns and to use "my opponents" in the round as I find using people's first names in the round to be kind of uncomfortable.

3. I would prefer you do not give me a "shout out" or refer to my personal history during your speech or during debates. Not sure exactly how to phrase it but I find it uncomfortable for debaters to refer to me via first name or reference my debate history in the round. Before or after is fine, we can make small talk etc but please just don't be weird about it during the round.

4. Please debate however makes you the most comfortable, I have zero preferences whether you sit or stand, what you wear etc as long as you're respectful of your opponents and your partner.

TL;DR fine with theory, K’s, case, explain your arguments with warrants and explicit implications, will default to tech evaluation on the flow, don’t be bad to your opponents

Evaluative Framework:

- I'm comfortable with case, theory, K's etc. I'm fairly content agnostic in this regard.

- I'm fairly comfortable with speed but if I call clear or slow, please heed these requests, otherwise I will just miss things on the flow because I can't write fast enough.

- I evaluate the debate based on the flow, which generally means I will vote in whatever way minimizes my intervention in the round. I think that some amount of judge intervention is inevitable but I will still aim to make decisions with the least amount of intervention possible.

- I stole this from Trevor Greenan but we got a similar debate education so this should be totally justifiable: I vote in this order:
1. conceded arguments
2. arguments with warrants and substantive analysis
3. arguments with in-round weighing/framing
4. arguments with implicit clash/framing
5. arguments I am more familiar with

- In round articulation of arguments is very important. Even if conceded arguments have certain potential implications for the round, unless those implications are made explicit or within the original reading of the argument, I am unwilling to grant you those implications as that feels interventionist. This generally means you should be more explicit than not. This applies to: concessions, extensions, impacts, weighing etc.

- I generally don't like voting on blippy arguments or underdeveloped arguments especially if these arguments are just claims with no warrants or impacts. I have a high threshold for these types of arguments and am also willing to grant late responses if the original argument or its explanation was unclear or massively underdeveloped.

- I do not grant shadow extensions, or at the very least, treat them as new arguments. This means that arguments not extended by the MG cannot be leveraged in the PMR, arguments not extended by the MO cannot be leveraged in the LOR etc. While grouped/blanket extensions are fine, for example if an entire advantage/DA is dropped or extending a section of the flow like all the impacts, but for the most part if you want anything specific from these extensions you should do them in the MG/MO. This also includes new cross applications from extended arguments onto other sheets/layers of the debate as these cross-apps should have been done by the MG/MO.

- I protect against new arguments but you should call Point of Orders just in case as I am not perfect and can/may miss things.

- I have a high threshold for voting on presumption and presumption is a portion of debate I may not be the most comfortable on. I'm still willing to evaluate the layer, just don't assume that I'm following your presumption collapse 100%.

- I don't mind conditionality. That being said, my preference is towards less wide, more tall/deep debates but whatever floats your boat.

Argument Specifics:

Theory:

- have a stable and clear interp text
- read theory arguments with explicit voters
- if not explicitly articulated, I will default to drop the argument
- I default to competing interpretations
- read brightlines for reasonability
- generally friv T is fine by me but I'll be honest and say I don't find friv theory debates to be all that interesting
- I might have a lower threshold for voting on RVI's than other judges on the circuit but I am still generally unwilling to pull the trigger on them unless they're substantively developed, even if its conceded (see the point about implications/explanations above)
- if standards are not articulated in substantively different ways or are not given different implications (like terminalizing out to fairness or education) then I am unwilling to auto-vote on a conceded standard if the other similar standards have answers to them or if the other team has some amount of mitigation.

Ks:

- sequencing arguments such as prior questions or root cause claims need to be warranted and substantively explained as well as interacted with the other portions of the debate
- clear links please, not links of omission, try and make them specific to the 1ac
- I evaluate links via strength of link. comparative work on the links done by the debaters would make me really happy! be sure to weigh relinks and links against each other
- rejecting the resolution in front of me is fine as long as you defend and justify your choice
- I believe that I can follow along with most K arguments you read in front of me but don't assume I'm intimately familiar with the literature
- do not assume that because I did mostly kritikal debate in college that I am exclusively a K hack, if anything I am likely to expect a lot from K debates and may have higher evaluative thresholds for K's because that's what I am most familiar with. that being said, I love kritiks so feel free to run them in front of me.
- I evaluate permutations as a test of competition and not advocacies unless told otherwise. I also prefer to have explicit perm texts and I'm talking like "permutation: do both" as a fine example of an explicit text. Just saying the plan and the alt are not mutually exclusive does not count as a perm argument.
- I'll evaluate/vote on severance permutations if there is substantive explanation and if there's no argument why severance is bad/unfair.

Case/CPs

- not sure if there's really such a thing as terminal defense but am still willing to buy these arguments
- prefer less generic case arguments than not (who doesn't really) but am still fine with your generic advantages and DAs.
- more specific and warranted the better
- CPs need to stable texts
- I evaluate permutations as a test of competition and not advocacies unless told otherwise. I also prefer to have explicit perm texts and I'm talking like "permutation: do both" as a fine example of an explicit text. Just saying the plan and the CP are not mutually exclusive does not count as a perm argument.
- PICs/cheater CP's are fine with me but so is PICs bad and CP theory

I am a parent judge. I value truth over tech. Please go slow and be engaging. Never judged ld before.

I have been judging High school PF for more than a year. My rules are simple, but I have been and will be a tough judge.

1- you need to have strong conviction on your story or claim

2- you need to sell me on your argument (easier if #1 above holds good)

3- your speech has to be coherent and connecting various ideas being presented

Beginning Speech -

I generally look for contentions directly related to the original resolution being asked for. The contentions have to show clear establishment of the position should layout the framework as to how they support the resolution or the negation that-of. I'd like to see at least 1 evidence per claim that will stand up even if challenged.

Crossfire and Argumentation -

I'd like to see teams challenge each other and defend their own vigorously, going to the core of the contentions, I'd like to see teams being able challenge every one of other's ideas, and counter them with evidence and data of their own. They have to be related to the argument presented and not way off. If a point goes unchallenged throughout, I will assume that you agree to that contention.

Summary Speech -

Tie this back to the original set of contentions and basis. no new ideas or evidence (unless discussed during CX), no straying of positions. plus points for those who expose inconsistencies or flaws in opponent's stories or facts (which means you paid attention to detail).

Speaker points -

Like I said, I am a tough judge and do not go generally beyond 28, unless you are exceptional. To go past that, you really need to show exceptional/extraordinary vocal skills, ideas, preparation and delivery. You do not normally get there without years of preparation. Also, as a general rule, only 5% and above are in the exceptional category. If you did reasonably well, then you can expect anywhere between 25-28.

Good Luck and Happy Debating!

I competed in PF for 3 years in high school and am familiar with the event/ debate in general. My threshold for speed is decent, but if you’re going too fast I’ll let you know.

I like when overviews and frameworks are stated outright- I think they keep the round organized and provide a good roadmap for me to evaluate your team’s performance. On this note, I also appreciate signposting in summary and FF. I also need to hear author name/year for all evidence, and may call for cards if necessary. I will drop arguments brought up in FF that weren’t in summary.

I award speaker points based on clarity through all speeches and how you conduct yourself in cross. If you are offensive, sexist, racist, etc at any point in round, I will likely vote you down and dock your speaker points.

Good luck!

Lay judge. Please speak more slowly and time yourselves. Don’t use problematic rhetoric. Keep volume at normal levels.

i am a parent but i have been judging for a long time (over 6 years) now. i want to see everyone in the round signposting.

for public forum, i want to see you guys weighing impacts in the last 2 speeches. i will do my best to flow and keep track of the debate. mild to moderate speaking speed is ok.

above all, be respectful and polite to each other and have fun. you will get higher speaker points for making me laugh. there is a fine line between being aggressive and rude, and if i feel that you are being disrespectful, i will not hesitate to drop you.

Be nice to each other. Don't go fast. Make extensions and weighing clear. If your argument doesn't flow through cleanly, I'm not going to do work for you. Quality of arguments > quantity. Frontline in second rebuttal.

Blueface references are +1 speaks. If you can fit an entire verse in one of your speeches, I'll probably give you a 30. Don't be abusive. I don't evaluate Theory or Kritiks.

I debated (mainly LD) for four years in high school primarily in my local circuit in Colorado, and very occassionaly on the national circuit. I like extremely traditional debate. If you are going to make any claim, I need to hear distinct warrants and impacts. I am ok with spreading on some level, but honestly just don't do it. Especially if you are unclear, your speaks will suffer and my decision will be affected significantly. It impresses me if you can concisely and simplistically convey an argument. It does not impress me when you are overly agressive, so plese be cordial with your opponent. I don't particularly like watching K or theory debates, and I generally base my vote heavily on framework. I also like to hear clear voters- tell me why you win, don't make me crystallize the round for you. Overall, speak cleary, be nice, and have fun!

I debated for Loyola High School for 4 years (policy), Wake Forest University for a semester (policy), and El Camino College for two years (parli). I now coach PF at the Harker School.

I've debated both traditional and nontraditional forms of debate. There really isn't an argument that I won't hear. I have a higher threshold for theory, and rarely vote on potential abuse. But beyond that I do not have any serious predisposition to any arguments you read. Or at least I shouldn't... Blatantly offensive arguments, like impact turning racism or etc, probably will lose you the round though. Just be smart.

Speaker point break down - I'm pretty fair about speaker points (though I don't think there will be a judge who will tell you they aren't fair about speaker points) but I'm quick to catch on to things on general impoliteness vs sass (love sass). Just be a good person and speak well etc etc. Y'all should be mature enough to know what that means.

PF -- "paraphrasing" your evidence is not evidence and will result in a loss.

I am an 8 year PF coach but never competed in debate myself. I love it when teams make arguments that make sense. I am not a fan of jargon and believe public forum debate was intended to be accessible to amateur judges so I hate spreading. I never vote for a team who cannot articulate an understanding of the opposing argument. I entertain framework arguments and definition battles but calls for evidence need to be followed up by a use of what you found or I will punish you for wasting everyones time. I don't flow crossfire and expect any admissions you reveal there to be used in follow-up speeches. The summary is for impacts and the final focus is for weighing voting issues. If you are still arguing cases after the rebuttal I will think you believe you are losing and I will agree with you.

You are young and intelligent and spend your leisure time on competitive public speaking. You are a nerd. Don't take this round, your opponents or yourself too seriously. Your future is very bright, so have fun, treat each other with respect and you may just earn my vote.