Hey there!

I am an alum of Grady (now Midtown) who graduated in 2012 and participated in Speech and Debate. I have been away from the debate community for many years (7-9+ years) but am returning to judge. I participated in Extemporaneous Speaking, Impromptu Speaking, Original Oratory, and Duo Interp.

Last year, I started judging novice policy as a way to reconnect with students, who are my favorite part of speech and debate.

In round preferences:

1) Debaters please tell me your initials or introduce yourselves in your first speech.

2) Both teams should aim to keep track of their own prep time and speech times. I will be timing the round to make sure it runs smoothly, however, I can sometimes forget and pay a lot of attention to who is speaking!

3) If you and your teammates have multiple computers and all join the Zoom, please choose one computer to speak into, and mute those who are not speaking during that speech.

4) For novice policy, the biggest thing I look for is the flow of the argument and if each debater connects their arguments and points across all the speeches in the round.

Spread: Please do not use this technique unless you are able to clearly articulate your arguments while speaking at speed.

I value a well organized and clearly presented arguments. I believe that delivery goes a long way to the power of persuasion. Eye contact, passion in your voice, and a modulated delivery will be factors in my scoring.

Civility and politeness is of course expected.

I value a well constructed and logical argument.

I judge based on the following priorities arranged in the order of their importance in winning the debate:

1. Clearly defined contentions with no ambiguities in their stated meaning
2. Crisp and well documented factual evidence with sources and data supporting each contentions
3. Presenting the contentions in the order of their significance/importance (start with most important)
4. Spreading is fine as long as you enunciate clearly and make a pause ( brief but distinct) as you move between presenting the contentions or distinct arguments
5. Unambiguous mapping of presented contentions to the value criteria

Hi, I am a parent judge. I appreciate well-organized speeches that are creative, informed, and delivered with conviction.

Remember to speak slowly and clearly and to the entire audience in the room.

This is my second year judging at a Speech & Debate tournament. I am a second year coach of the Wheeler High School Speech and Debate team. 

Speak slowly enough that I can understand. You must use evidence to support your claims. Make sure to clearly emphasize impact. Be certain to listen to the opposing argument and respond directly to that argument. Don't forget to tell me which arguments you have refuted and why you have won the argument. 

Congressional Debate:

I have judged and/or been parliamentarian at local, regional and national tournaments, including Isidore Newman, Durham Academy, the Barkley Forum and and Harvard. My students have found success at both the national and state levels.

POs- I default to you. Remember, your tone as PO has a big influence on tone of the chamber. Be efficient, clear and consistent and have fun.

As far as the round and debate within the round, consistency is important to me. The way you speak and vote on one piece of legislation should most indeed influence your position on similar limitation unless you tell me otherwise. Debate and discourse does not exist in a vacuum.

Acting/characterization is fine as long as there is a reason and has a positive impact.

Finding a balance of logos, ethos and pathos is important. Difficult to accomplish in three minutes? Absolutely. The balance is what gets my attention.

I'll be honest. I don't like when debate jargon leaks into the chamber. SQUO, affirmative/negative, counterplan, link/turn, etc. This event is it's own unique event with norms.

Additionally, Student Congress is not Extemp-lite. If you are trying for three points in a speech, how do I know what to focus on? If everything is equally important then nothing is important. Take a stance, go for the impact and make the balance between logic and emotional to persuade. Include previous debate points, elucidate your point of view and have fun.

I am a judge for IE. My background is as faculty at various universities providing mentoring to Capstone and thesis graduate students who present their scholarly projects and research information.

I stay faithful to the judging criteria for content and relevance. Even if you are an animated and a well poised speaker, if you lack content or do not adequately develop and organize your information, my judging will reflect that you did not meet the criteria established. Conversely, a speaker who may not have the best presence but has great content will rank higher than a good verbal talker without good context. You will not get first if you go over the time limit and the established grace period.

Please let me know what type of hand signals you wish to have to help you with managing your time.

Thank you for the privilege of hearing you speak.

I am a parent judge and my daughter has been doing the debate for little over 3 years, I understand the structure of the PF debate. Don't speak too fast and speak in a phase your rendering is understandable. I expect both the teams to be respectful to each other.

Close your eyes. Breathe in. Breathe out. Relax. Now take your next step.

I am a lay-judge but have been an educator for eight years now. I studied public-speaking in high school and have judged debate at the Riverwood Big Questions event and Alpharetta Treasure Hunt.

Below are the questions running through my mind as you make your presentations.

Impromptu

How well do you balance the time you need to present with the time it takes to prepare your thoughts?

How clearly can you organize and synthesize your thoughts in a short period of time?

How well can you go with the flow once you start presenting?

Original Oratory

How much can you engage your audience, rather than with your notes and materials?

How clearly can you express your ideas and how they are organized?

How smoothly and confidently can you deliver your presentation?

I'm a new speech/debate judge, so please speak slowly and explain things fully! I'm always impressed when a complex idea is explained clearly.

I will be keeping it simple and will intend on looking in-depth in the rounds and to provide the information needed to explain why I gave a specific rank to each competitors.

Here's what I'm looking for:

Delivery: I wish to see you provide emotion and vocal variation in your speeches, after all these rounds can take up to 3 HOURS meaning as the round progresses it will be difficult to be heavily interested when someone is speaking in a monotone voice compared to someone who brings sadness, anger, and strength/impact to their speeches.

Fluency: I will be looking out for the competitors with the best fluency.

Interpret: This will be by far THE MOST IMPORTANT aspect I will be looking for. As a judge I inherently will not be researching the bills everyone is prepping for, so speakers who come up and provide an argument for a certain side of a bill on why their side is right without being confusing and overreaching and hard to catch up will get a big boost in how I rank. Essentially I wish to see speakers be clear and concise with their speeches because again, I will not have huge prior knowledge on the legislations at hand.

Legal Pad Dependence: Although it can be difficult to give speeches without a pad, I am looking for people who are not overtly dependent on their legal pad.

Uniqueness: If you make a common argument that is fine but if you go ahead and bring a whole new argument and make it unique and add new perspective, that will most definitely boost you in the ranks.

Late Round Speeches: As the round goes on and many arguments are used and it will obviously be difficult to make new argument that has not been overused. So for late round speeches I will not criticize you heavily if you cannot be special about it and instead focused more on refutation and delivery.