Im a student at UVA and a former congressional debater in high school for all four years. I currently coach public forum, congress, OO, and LD at the middle and high school level.

congress:

I look for strong speakers who can assert and distinguish themselves in the round. People who are able to situate themselves in the round and address whats been said before, and change the course of the debate and add to their side with their speech are the ones that I most prefer. Each subsequent speech should build off the ones previous and understanding where your speech is in the round and what it does for the round is really important. As such, there needs to be refutation, weighing, and defense. PLEASE WEIGH!!!! you will lose my ballot if you don't weigh especially in later speeches. congress is a debate event, there needs to be clash. generally, however, avoid techy language and technical debate-y strategies.

speaking style is important. I look for good pitch, speed, and volume modulation.

Authorships/sponsorships should lay the problem out clearly and explain why the legislation solves. I need a firm basis for the round. Assume I know absolutely nothing about what the bill is on.

pf:

Clarity is critical. Assume I know as much as a normal college student about the topic (that is probably as much as I will know). if i don't understand the case i won't vote for it. need clear links and clear warranting. especially true for impacts. I need impacts if there aren't developed impacts, you won't win. If the impacts aren't linked you won't win.

don't paraphrase ev.

be respectful

frontline 2nd reb

I find it hard to vote for theory and K's in PF because I think it is contrary to the purpose of public forum and I find that they are generally inaccessible and are not good for the public forum event. be careful about running it for me. that said, I am not entirely opposed to voting for a case that runs theory if it is done right and I am persuaded by it. walk me through it and really explain to me why I should vote for it in light of the concerns expressed in this paradigm.

tech over truth

I flow cx sometimes just to orient myself to the argumentative commitments of either side. That said, If you think something in cx is important, bring it up in a speech.

I think speaking is important in debate and especially in PF. don't spread please. I can handle a little bit of speed but if its too fast for me to understand I won't flow it and you will probably lose.

She/They

Email: stephaniezhang19@gmail.com

I don't like friv theory and I don't care what event it is. Please stop reading theory just because you don't like what your opponent is doing.

If there are concerns/questions: email me or flag me down before round.

I did four years of high school debate (2015-2019) which was primarily policy although I did a brief stint in LD (circuit and local) with some success. I’ve been both a 2N and a 2A while in policy. I graduated from UVA in May 2023 and spent all four years of undergrad coaching middle/high school LD, PF and speech. I'm now a PhD student at UCLA studying sociology. In other words, I can probably pick a winner but since I don’t coach/judge circuit LD or policy regularly, overly topic specific things or community norms on T and theory will probably require more explanation as well as a slight decrease in speed for the first 30 seconds or so.

I was never a super successful debater and there will be things I don’t understand being said or done. That being said, most of the things on this paradigm are a weak default and the longer I've been out of debate (particularly as I swing in and out of various judging hiatuses), the more I vote against things on this paradigm or that I think are true.

Top level thoughts

Things not up for negotiation: Speech/prep time and the fact that I am signing your ballot and it is only who I think won.

I don’t think I’ll have to do this but if a round is getting out of hand (racial slurs, deadnaming, misgendering, sexual harassment, violence of any kind), I reserve the right to step in, stop the round and get tab involved.

Based on my experience, I am very concerned about the way people treat small school debaters, young debaters starting out or debaters who debate on primarily lay/traditional circuits. If you're going to be rude to these debaters for not understanding your argument (being unwilling to explain it, calling them names when they aren't sure how to engage it, etc) or refusing to adapt even the tiniest bit then I will give you a 25 with very little sympathy.

Tech > Truth within reason. I think bad arguments should be beaten and called out but the proliferation of terrible theory arguments in LD is convincing me that not every bad argument deserves a full answer beyond "this is absurd". Hence, the sillier an argument is, the lower my threshold is for answering it but you still have to answer it in some way. If you can't, then sadly for me and for you, you shouldn't win. Dropped arguments are not automatically true—you still need to tell me why drops matter and do the analysis and warranting for me to buy it. [2022 judging update: if you say things that are clearly untrue I will disregard them unless it is proved true otherwise]

Clarity > speed: Speed is the number of arguments on my flow, not your words per minute. You get one clear and after that I’ll only flow what I can with very little sympathy for what I don’t catch. I flow every event except for WSD on paper, so keep that in mind when you think about how much I'll actually write down.

I don’t read card texts and when I do, it’s either a few pieces of evidence in a super close debate or all the evidence in a debate where no one did any work for me. This means it’s important you control the spin of evidence, flush out warrants and do comparisons. I tend to think quality over quantity for evidence—smart analytics can beat bad cards and you should call out bad evidence.

Write my RFD and resolve important questions—I take the path of least resistance when making decisions. Good final speakers will make voting issues clear through framing, judge instruction, filtering comparison through nexus questions and organizing responses to their opponents. When I evaluate a round, I generally look to the biggest points of clash and impact comparison first, and filter everything through that.

Nuance tends to win rounds in front of me. The more specific you are with your analysis and the scenario you give me, the more likely I am to vote for you.

Presumption can be convincing, and I tend to think that terminal defense can tip a debate.

Tag team is ok but I’ll only flow the person who’s supposed to be speaking.

Be nice. Have fun. Treat your partner and your opponents with respect. It's nice to be important, but it's even more important to be nice

Policy, Progressive LD

Fw

Debate is a game. Whether it should mean anything else is up for debate. Fairness is an internal link (stuff like fairness is important to maintain a particular kind of debate), and I think I’m usually better for debates that pit two models of debate and their educational benefits against each other. TVAs are sometimes very useful and sometimes not necessary.

I find that I tend to vote for the side that most directly engages the other.

T

I err slightly (55-45) towards reasonability, but the more "what on earth" an aff is, the more persuaded I am by T. I don’t really think good affirmatives on a topic have to fall under one definition, but one random person defining a word in a completely different context is not a "definition".

No RVIs please and thank you.

LD: I'm pretty skeptical of the Nebel ev (and the argument as a whole).

Theory

Don’t just word vomit your theory blocks. If I miss half your standards I’m not going to think that it’s a reason to reject. Most theory debates end at reject the argument, rejecting the team is a very steep uphill battle.

I’m not a fan of "new affs bad", disclosure theory (btw disclosure is still important!), and the like. As long as a reasonable attempt has been made to disclose (this does not necessarily mean the wiki) then I think disclosure theory has very little merit. If someone doesn't know what the wiki is, running disclosure theory is an auto-25. Friv theory will make me put my pen down. I don’t care what event it is.

I tend to think condo is good, but this becomes a sliding scale the more conditional options end up in the 1NC.

LD:

-Not a fan of whatever """theory""" is in LD. Policy oriented theory (condo, cp theory, perm theory and the like) is ok.

-I understand the proliferation of RVIs in LD and find it ridiculous that this is due to the proliferation of garbo theory args because here RVIs just boil down to "this is stupid, 1AR time skew is bad, vote for me". I am very persuaded by reasonability in these debates.

K

Since I don't coach, I haven't read with the intent of debating since high school but I do read a lot for school. I would say my K knowledge is average overall but quite low on authors who argue that language has no meaning, everything is meaningless, or rely on convoluted metaphors. Based on what I study you can assume some knowledge of literature around race, colonialism, capitalism, technology, etc but you can ask before round regarding specific authors/literature base.

I like Ks that are applied specifically to the aff, not just a broad theory of understanding the status quo or “the topic sucks”/“fiat sucks”. The best K debates spin convincing stories by filtering the action of the affirmative through their literature base into a convincing story that doesn't rely heavily on jargon.

I think mitigating harm is a good thing. Take that how you will

I think a team can win metalevel framing questions and still lose technical concessions

Please just be honest about how long your overview is, although if it's more than 2 minutes I would suggest reevaluating it later.

The ROB is only a question of impact calculus. Framework debates matter surprisingly little if each side puts up a fight.

I have very little experience with K v. K debates, but my default is that the affirmative gets a perm. Perm theory, like most theory, tends to annoy me when it’s done poorly.

DA/CP

I dig. Impact/link turns (within reason) are always welcome. Dedev will get a slight chuckle from me.

Topic literature is the best indication of what CPs are competitive. You should have solvency evidence in the 1NC.

Affs

Case debate please and thank you.

For K Affs:

I tend to think the affirmative should have a direct relationship to the topic (kudos for creativity), a stable advocacy/action in the 1AC (i.e: not generated after hearing the 1NC) and a robust framework response. I tend to dislike when the framework response relies on analogies or comparisons to policing or roleplaying arguments.

I’m not going to make presumption arguments for the neg, but I might raise my eyebrows at solvency claims. Both sides should take advantage of that

LD notes:

-Phil args will take more explanation in front of me. Assume 0 knowledge and slight distaste of Kant, Hobbes, and the like.

PF, Traditional LD

Evidence quality matters. That includes source, dates, including the full text of the evidence, etc. I realize traditional LD (and the PF debates I’ve seen) don’t particularly reward evidence disclosure, but that shouldn’t be an excuse to engage in dubious practices (making up evidence, clipping, mis-citing evidence) for the sake of winning. If I catch you doing so I will auto-drop you, since this is academic dishonesty.

I get irritated when the last speeches devolve into overviews. Even if you're outlining voter issues for me, you should be filtering them through nexus questions and explaining why I prefer your side or why your value/vc is better AND responding to your opponent's arguments in a coherent way. I should be able to trace a point A to point B in your scenario.

Other things

For circuit tournaments I start at a 28.5 and move up/down depending on the division. For WACFL non-policy, speaker points start a point lower (27-27.5). For WACFL policy, they start a half point lower (28-28.5).

Non-disclosure as a policy is absurd and pedagogically harmful. If I have time I will absolutely give feedback after the round, especially if it is something that needs to be fixed before other rounds. If we are in person you are absolutely welcome to track me down to ask for more.

I have a pretty terrible poker face and you 100% should use that to your advantage.

I get really peeved when debaters give silly answers during cross x. Just answer the question.

I don’t feel comfortable making a judgement on something that happened outside of the round.