Hey y’all! I’m Noah Johnson, a current senior who competes in LD and USX as well as judges for O’Gorman. I’ve also done both for the last 3 years with moderate success, and I also have a little experience in Inform, Commentary, and Impromptu. If y’all like judge prefs, primarily for LD, here are mine:

TLDR: Be respectful and I prefer in LD: simple FW, moderate speed with excellent signposting, good links, and weighted voters. I don't flow a ton unless it is emphasized or is a tag. I hopefully never judge PF. Have fun!

Speed: like 6-7/10. Slower is better for me to hear everything, and faster is better for keeping me engaged. Try to Goldilocks it. When in doubt, slower is better than faster. Quality is always better than quantity in terms of arguments.

Flowing: When flowing, I will almost always take the contention level and subpoints. Past that? I’ll write down important keywords if they’re emphasized, but I’m not very adamant about writing down twenty different small notes. The best way for me to get something is to slow down and be super clear, especially regarding impacts. Related: I also don’t take card names/authors unless I’m in a stealing kind of mood. If requested, I’m more than willing to share my flow at the end of a round.

Framework: I’ve discovered I’m much more of a logistics LD judge over the framework, primarily because nearly every single round I’ve done or judged is a mess framework-wise. This isn't to say you shouldn't care about framework, as I do take the framework into account for deciding who wins, but you’ll have to link to it and use it in all speeches for me to give you credit for it. Also I'm not amazing with philosophical frameworks. In nearly all frameworks, I expect at least a little time devoted to defining it and its importance.

Weighing/Voters: I like voters at the end of a round, and I need you to give me a reason to care about them or why that voter is more important than the voters of your opponents. If you're not doing voters, you need to be sure that you are winning all over the flow and that your opponent has no ground. Voters make weighing and choosing a winner very useful, although they aren't necessary. Also link your framework here, because tying that together will make your case stronger. I assure you, even some of the most seemingly hopeless situations can be won if weighing and voters are done well.

Timing: Phones are fine for timing and off-the-clock roadmaps are encouraged. I time all speeches as well, but I figure most people do anyway. As for prep, I will do running prep. I'm good with people telling me when they're done, so long as they are actually done.

Respect: Be respectful to your opponent, judge, and room. There's no reason to be overly aggressive or make people dislike the activity. I think debate is the best when everyone can participate. Debate is a competitive event for a reason, but even in sports intentionally hurting someone is a bad move. A single round will not define your debate skills or future life endeavors, but disrespect will define how you are viewed in debate and in life.

Disclosure: I don’t disclose unless required. I typically take way too long making decisions for that.

Questions: Let me know if you have any questions about the paradigm, as I might have skipped something important. Let me know before a round, ideally, and do it respectfully, and I will do my best to give you an answer. I am also hesitant but typically willing to answer questions about past rounds if you ever encounter me, but I will never answer questions if they come off as hostile (especially about a round decision). I leave some rather lengthy comments most of the time, so I understand if you need those clarified.

Conclusion: Enjoy yourself! You deserve to be in the room as much as anybody. Debate helps a lot with future skills, and I’m excited to see them develop. Best of luck!

LD-

I am an LD-er and I think it’s pretty kool. So make sure it is LD and not PF. Unfortunately topics recently have been degrading into the PF side so as LD-ers we have a moral obligation to keep it within the realms of LD. Basically make sure you have a solid value and criterion and make sure it’s well connected to your case. I love a good Value and criterion debate so make sure to hit on that as in LD they are the entire backbone of all your contentions. Otherwise I’m pretty relaxed, I also wont flow drops or attacks that arent pulled through unless it gets really close, so just as a tip make sure to pull attacks and drops through.

PF-

I dont really know much about PF, but make sure to have strong connections. I think impacts should be stressed, but also the links so if you do not provide a plausible link I probably wont flow it.

About me-

I judge novices. My name is Elijah Shirley and I go by Ely. I’ve done a year of PF, currently debate LD, and have some very limited experience In the national circuit. I’m a gen z, so if for some reason you want to know that going into your round, there you go. If it looks like I’m not paying attention to your speech I’m probably multitasking (flowing or writing comments); just keep talking. And on an average Wednesday you can expect to find me pondering new responses to John Rawls conception of Justice.

In general-

I’m very flow oriented. If it’s not on the flow it won’t influence me. This also means that you must CONSISTENTLY MENTION ARGUMENTS IN EVERY SPEECH POSSIBLE, other wise I will not take it into account (unless it’s an extremely rare circumstance). During cross, ANSWER YOUR OPPONENTS QUESTIONS. If you are unable to explain your contention in cross when your opponents specifically ask about it, it is your fault when they can’t make an adequate attack on it. That being said, I don’t pay too much attention to cross. This time is mainly for the debaters to get/clarify information. I believe in QUALITY OVER PRESENTATION. If you’re not a great speaker that’s perfectly ok, just make sure you SIGNPOST (I should know which contention you are addressing) and TELL ME WHY YOUR ATTACKS MATTER. Similarly, I prefer it if you NUMBER YOUR RESPONSES. It makes it really easy for me if you say, “first response to contention 1: yada yada. Second response to contention 1: yada yada.” Finally, USE VOTERS. In the final speech, if you say “I should win because X, Y, and Z,” if it makes sense to me and the opponent fail to do the same, then I will just hand over the win to you (usually).

LD-

Value and criterion- this is usually the most important thing in the round. If you drop your value and criterion you will usually lose my ballot on the spot. I know some judges have a bias against deontological frameworks, but if you tell me something is inherently immoral regardless of the circumstances, I will hear you out.In fact, it will probably make me ten times more interested in your argument because I don’t see that sort of thing in novice rounds.

Pacing- Do what you do best. I’ll be following.

Philosophy- If you want to get into the details of philosophy and want to have a really abstract, philosophical round then I’m your guy. Your opponent will probably hate you, but as long as they’re at least somewhat following the round it’ll be okay. I don’t expect to see this in any of my rounds, but if you’re reading my paradigm this closely then maybe there’s hope: You could make my day by pulling up to a round with a case around supererogation or Kant or something.

Attacks- you should extend all of your attacks to the opponents value, criterion, or impacts. If the attack doesn’t relate to any of these, it’s probably not worth saying.

PF-

Be patient with me- I’m more accustomed to the LD format.

Pacing- The faster you are, the clearer you have to be. If you’re talking fast I can keep up as long as you number your responses and sign post. If you’re going crazy fast I’ll probably end up writing down the responses, but not really understanding them.

Complexity- I don’t debate these topics. If we’re farther into the topic this shouldn’t be a problem, but sometimes I get confused by the complexity. If you have leftover time in a speech just break something down for me.

First rebuttal- If you are giving the very first rebuttal of the round, don’t waste time going over your own case. I’ve already heard it. Spend four minutes on the opponents unless there’s some complicated stuff on your side that you really need to explain.

Impacts- If you want to say that debt forgiveness will cause nuclear fallout and destroy the entire world, go for it because I love far-fetched cases. Admittedly, they are hard to defend. If your opponent adequately attacks any of the links I won’t flow through your impacts, but at face value I’m all for a spicy link chain.

Other-

I am open to Ks, Ts, theory, etc. but I will probably vote it down. (If you’re confused, don’t worry about it). Considering I only judge novices, you would have to dumb down everything extremely well to the point where both I and the opponent understand what you’re proposing and how it relates to the round in length. Like I said, I will probably vote it down simply because I don’t expect a novice to be able to utilize any of these debate methods in a way that is clear and un-abusive.

Good luck!

Ann Tornberg has been a Debate coach for 35 years. She has coached Policy, Lincoln Douglas, and Public Forum in addition to coaching Speech and Oral Interp.

"I want to be persuaded in LD. I want to be able to evaluate the evidence based on a strong, reasonably paced delivery. Do not speed read in LD if you want high speaker points. As you summarize make sure that you are referring to evidence that has been read in the round. I do my best to take a careful flow. Give direction to your argument and always signpost. Let me know where I should put your argument on my flow. Finally, give me your estimate of the primary VOTERS in the round, but don't be surprised if I find other issues that are just as important to my decision." Ann Tornberg