Estherhandbook1013
2021 — Beijing, CN
Paradigm List
All Paradigms: Show HidePlease try to focus on the effeciency of your outputs,pay attention to the following aspects.
A.Specificity.Judges cannot always fully understand your points,so try to balance your output and specificity.Making judge fully understand your strongest statements is the most important.
B.Emphasis.Judges cannot always flow or remember all you mentioned,appropriate emphasis on winning issues like key rebuttals,evidence,statistics etc. will help a lot.
C.Stress.It is easy to get lost or miss the important information if your voice is monotonous.
Please pay attention to emphasize the importance and give explicit weighings
A.Emphasis on importance.Proving something true isnt the end,instead,only telling judges the importance of the matters ,can we realize how important it is,and how urgent it is,which help to fully realize these points.
B.Weighing.Without explict weighings,especially in arguments about opportunity cost.it is easy to waver if debaters dont tell judge why A outweighs B.Please pay attention to making sure that you win in weighing.
If you speak too fast or uncivil,you will lose me,
If you have great engagement ,focus on logic and are passionate,it will help you stand out!
So,overally,I vote by
A.how many clashes you win.
B.whether you can use fewer clashes to successfully weigh other team's clashes.
I have 4 years PF debate experience and have attended several NSDA and NHSDLC regional and national tournaments in China, as well as Harvard, Stanford, and Berkeley annual debate tournaments. I've been coaching debaters in several debate camps in China during 2019, and I have worked as a PF debate coach from 2021-2022. In turns of judging experience I've judged several regional PF debate tournaments and the 2019 NHSDLC Nationals for both MS and HS divisions, as well as Stanford/Harvard annual debate tournament.
In terms of judging PF debate, I would like to hear more weighing and impact comparison from both sides, and debaters to directly engage with opponents' arguments instead of simply presenting defensive arguments. I prefer contentions with strong logic links and data/evidence and line-by-line rebuttal.
Hey there! Please feel free to ask me about my philosophy before round
Experience
Competitor
2 years - Community College NPDA/IE's
3 years - National Circuit NPDA/NPTE
Coach
1 year - Asian Parliamentary Debate/Public Forum
2 years - NPDA/NPTE
Some BP
My preferred pronouns are he/him/his.
Public Forum Notes
Do you have any strong predispositions for or against any particular arguments? If so, what?
I am open to any kind of argument as long as it is well warranted and reasoned. As a debater and coach, I have worked with all kinds of arguments and tend to think that debaters should read the arguments that they are most personally compelled by.
What is your stance on student delivery? Should debaters be fast or slow?
I have no strong predisposition for or against speed. I just ask that all debaters are able to comprehend the debate round.
Do you call for evidence in debate rounds? What do you look for?
I call for evidence if there is a dispute on interpretation, but I tend to defer to debaters' interpration.
What do you tend to think the most important questions in a debate are?
I am fine with speed, as long as all of the debaters are.
I am not prejudiced strongly for or against kritikal arguments.
I tend to think providing a framework for the round is important.
College Stuff
General Notes
Specificity wins debates.
Interpretations and advocacies should at least be read twice and slowly. Ideally you provide the judge(s) and competitors with a copy.
Pretty much nothing in my philosophy is absolute.
I tend to believe that the way we discuss the world has real impacts outside of the debate round.
If debaters are debating ethically, I tend to believe that framework arguments are more persuasive than the arguments against it. However, I will vote based on how the debate plays out. If you win that defending the topic is bad and you reject the topic, you will likely win the debate.
An argument without a warrant isn’t an argument.
I tend to believe that recording, sharing, and watching rounds is good for debate.
Theory and Framework
I love a great theory or framework shell. I am happy to vote here. I think debaters need to step outside our normal buzzwords and discuss how our interpretations alter the debate game and our education.
Counter Plans
I’m uncertain about conditionality. I am sympathetic to arguments about the MG being key and difficult. However, I also believe the negative should have some flexibility. Feel free to run your shell. Feel free to be conditional. I will vote depending on how condo plays out.
PIC’s are usually abusive in NPDA debate, but often strategic and occasionally justified – especially if the topic provides aff flex.
Delay is almost always bad, so are process CP’s.
Kritiks
These are fine. I read them a lot, went for them occasionally. Please provide early thesis-level analysis. I think most K shells I’ve seen are incredibly inefficient and vulnerable to impact turns. Teams should likely cut major portions of their FW page and instead develop solvency and internal links to the case.
MG’s should be more willing to go hard right (or left) to answer K’s. The aff probably links to Cap, but there is SUBSTANTIAL lit in favor of cap.
Performance
I think performance arguments can be amazing. However, they are easy to do inefficiently and hard to do well. An aff that is rejecting the motion needs to justify why: 1. Your thing matters more than the topic 2. Why you can’t discuss your thing on this topic OR 3. Why your thing is a prior question to the topic.
On the neg, you need to prove that you are an opportunity cost to the aff. Maybe it’s as simple as you need to keep debating, but you need a reason.
Since 2015, I have been judging for National High School Debate League of China, including dozens of online debates and offline regional tournaments in Chongqing, Chengdu, Shenzhen and Guangzhou.
For the whole debate, I expect clear expression with appropriate speaking speed, which actually is an essential requirement that many debaters neglect to meet. At the beginning of one debate, I pay extra attention to see if there’s a complete structure of the constructive speech, especially that the framework should be a requisite. As to the crossfires, I appreciate effective evidence to support strong logic. Bear in mind that an argument is a claim and warrant with an impact. I don't like arrogant debaters showing no respect to either the judge or their opponents.