******EXTEND FULL ARGUMENTS******DO COMPARATIVE WEIGHING******HAVE FUN******

^the holy trinity

Hey! My name is Seb and I love debate.

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My pf debate judging preferences

• I flow, but above all else I want to be persuaded
• I like when speeches are filled with jokes, analogies, and metaphors
• I dislike roadmaps, you can just tell me where you are starting and signpost the rest
• I like when rounds move quickly and debaters speak slowly
• I think the simplest strategy is usually the best strategy
• I dislike card dumping strategies, and more broadly prefer depth to breadth

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My pf debate philosophies

I think that:

• Paraphrasing is good
• Disclosure is a bad norm
• Theory should only be used when necessary
• Non topical k’s are unfair
• I should only flow what I hear

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My pf debate advice

1. Collapse on your most important argument. If you are winning your entire case, you have no reason to go for all of your offense in Final Focus- extend the best offense you have, because it'll outweigh the rest of your case anyways. If you're getting up in FF and telling me that there are four voters in the round, you are doing it wrong.

2. Have a consistent narrative throughout the round. Everything that you go for in your Final Focus needs to have been in your Summary, and you cannot introduce new arguments after Rebuttal. I should be able to flow your arguments from Constructive all the way to FF.

3. Treat your opponents with respect. Debate has a tendency to get heated, which is perfectly fine. However, being in the zone is not an excuse to be rude in CX or any other part of the round. Please be courteous and chill when speaking to one another, even if it means that you wont have time to get to that one GaMe ChAnGiNg crossfire question you have.

4. Debate in the style that you are the most comfortable with. I am familiar with everything from very traditional to very technical pf. While my judging philosophy is on the technical side, every round can be won with smart debating, no matter what style that is. Don't feel the need to go fast or use more debate jargon just to win my ballot.

5. Signpost Signpost Signpost. I should be told exactly where the arguments you are making need to be flowed. If there was an argument that you thought won you the round but I don't have it on my flow, you probably didn't signpost it well and I had no idea where to put it. Bad signposting is the #1 cause of debate judge migraines.

6. Do comparative and meta-weighing. Claiming that you "win on magnitude because your impact is 3 million lives" or that you "win on probability because it's gonna happen" is bad weighing. Comparative weighing is making a weighing analysis directly between your impact and your opponents' impact. Meta weighing is comparing two different weighing mechanisms against each other (like saying why probability is more important than scope, etc.). Using these methods to weigh your impacts properly will go a long way.

7. Be Personable! At its core, debate is a game of persuasion. To me, the best debaters are always smiling, engaged, friendly, and working to simplify the round the best they can. Charisma and critical thinking are the most portable skills that you develop in this activity, and they are the fundamental to both your performance in round and interactions outside of debate.

12th grader doing PF for the past 4 years! (updated Jan 2024)

email: swara.anurag@gmail.com

PSA

• Remember that debate is a fun activity but often very applicable to the real world-- racism/classism/sexism/homophobia/etc. won't be tolerated
• Trigger warnings and consent through a google form/text message/etc. is required for sensitive topics
• Be civil during cross

Paradigm

• Only what is extended will be considered. Impact calc is very important, and please quickly restate the link chain before weighing the impact in FF.
• Track your own prep time, and start the next speech immediately if prep is not being taken. If you call for a card, finding the card is on their prep, reading it is on yours.
• You may speak fast but don't spread.
• Anything important from cross needs to be brought up in speeches.
• TECH > TRUTH. If you debate it well enough and it goes unrefuted, I will give it to you.
• No new arguments can be brought up after constructive. (New evidence and analytics can be introduced if in response to the opponents.)
• Signpost.
• Feel free to ask follow up questions after RFDs.

Speaks

- awarded based on clarity, signposting, ethos/pathos/logos, and audibility

Overview

Don't be rude to your opponents. You might win the round but I'll tank your speaks. Tech>truth. Weigh, metaweigh, implicate + weigh turns on the lbl. Defense is NOT sticky.

Spreading

I know this is lame but I can't follow it. Talk as fast as you want but don't sacrifice clarity. If it's not on my flow because I couldn't understand you, that's on you.

Signposting

Do it

Extensions

You can't just say "extend (card name)" and call it an extension. I'll flow card names but you need to extend claim + warrant.

2nd Rebuttal

Frontline everything ESPECIALLY turns + terminal defense.

Summary

Extend every part of the arguments you want evaluated. You should probably collapse here if not earlier.

FF

Nothing new in first final except weighing; second final can respond to new weighing in first final.

Dropped Arguments

If you drop anything and your opponent implicates and weighs it, you're probably screwed.

Speech Timing

You get 10 seconds grace. After that I stop flowing no matter how important what you said is.

Framework Debate

I default util if no framework is read. Pls read a carded framework or at least warrant why I should prefer your framework. Also no random framework dropping in summary or final. You can't randomly tell me not to evaluate half your opponent's impacts mid-round. It should've been in constructive or rebuttal.

Evidence

Cut cards. Jesus. Just do it. IF YOU MISCONSTRUE EVIDENCE, AND THE OTHER TEAM CALLS IT OUT, you will lose. IF YOU MISCONSTRUE EVIDENCE, AND THE OTHER TEAM DOESN'T CALL IT BUT I FIND OUT, I'm not sure what I'll do but it'll be bad. So don't do it.

For sharing, add me to the email chain: leilasbfdg@gmail.com. If you take forever to send evidence I'll drop your speaks.

Know your cards. Don't say "our evidence says/indicates..." Instead, say "(card name) says/indicates..."

Cross

I won't flow cross so bring it up in speech if something important happened.

If y'all are friends let me know before the round so I don't think you're being mean when you make fun of each other.

Feel free to joke around lol

If I'm the only judge, both teams can agree to not do GCX and get 1 min prep.

Collapsing

You should probably collapse as early as possible. Make it clean.

Weighing

Taken from Willie Tsai's paradigm:

"Weigh please. Weigh EVERY point of clash. Broadly, I need to know whose impacts are more important. I love a good link-in but they aren't enough unless you weigh your link-in against the original link. I love good pre-reqs and they will boost your odds of winning the impact calculus. Also weigh contrasting claims. If one team argues that a plan causes wages to go up and another team argues that a plan causes wages to go down. I need to know how to break the clash. Does one team have a warrant that specifically applies to the status quo? Does one team's wage impact go global as opposed to domestic? I also love when teams use evidence to compare clash. Tell me a flaw with your opponents evidence and tell me why that matters as well as why such evidence flaws win you the clash."

That's a great summary of how I feel.

THAT SAID, the weighing doesn't matter if you're not winning the arg to begin with. Link weighing > impact weighing; you need to win your links into the impact in order to win the impact weighing but if you prove their links fail then you'll be winning the arg even if they do a great job of impact weighing.

Disclosing

I always disclose unless I'll get in trouble for it. Ask anything you want.

Theory

I will evaluate any theory argument.

Competing interps + no RVIs default. Paraphrasing is probably bad. Disclosing is probably good. But you can argue anything.

I think the best arg against competing interps is that if you read a counter interp, you use reasonability to decide which shell is better anyway so judge intervention is present regardless.

Respond to the shell in the next speech or you basically lose the round.

If your opponent doesn't respond to the shell in the next speech, call it and you'll basically auto-win as long as you extend it.

The only reason you won't need a shell to prove is if there is evidence misconstruction. If it's sufficiently bad, an IVI will suffice.

Theory USUALLY up-layers the K; but I think it would be easy to warrant otherwise.

Kritiks/Ks

If you're gonna read these, dumb them down for me unless its cap. I'm not the best at flowing these but if you read them I'll try to evaluate regardless. Don't read a non-t k.

Tricks + Friv T

These are hilarious. Feel free to read 5 tricks and collapse on the one they dropped. Threshold for responses will be low, but you can absolutely win on a cool strat even if its BS.

Be careful with Friv tho bc if someone tells me your useless shell is crowding out substance that is a real impact I can vote on.

TW Shells

I won't punish a team for reading a TW, I also won't punish them for NOT reading a TW. Please try to be safe and respectful -- but also, to some extent, debate should be a safe space for ideas, not people.

It's probably safest not to read this in front of me. But if you want to go for it, feel free. Just know that I do believe that limiting speech is broadly bad; I would only read it if your opponent does something egregious e.g. graphic descriptions of sexual violence, violence in general, etc.

Speaks

Speaks are fake, and probably racist/sexist. You'll do well trust. If your round is past 10pm or before 8am you'll get auto-30s.

Other

I'm probably hungry so if you bring me a snack, +0.5 speaks.

Auto-30s if you read exclusively impact turns in 2nd constructive.

Min 29 if you read climate change good, nuke war good, etc impact turn at any point in the round.

Auto-30s for EVERYONE if both teams agree to no prep.

Hello, my name is Suzanna Sinapyan. I graduated from Woodbury University with a Masters in Business Administration.

I've judged several PF rounds and have some preferences when it comes to rounds.

1. Please be respectful towards your teammates and judges - I do not and will not tolerate disrespect towards anyone in a round. Please have manners when speaking to opponents and refrain from acting aggressively or rudely.
2. Please make sure you're speaking at a volume that is audible for both your opponents and judges. Try not to mumble, especially if you're spreading. Do not purposefully speak low to hurt your opponents. If I cannot understand you, speaker points might be docked. If you choose to spread, keep it at an understandable pace and if you know you're going to go very fast, offer to share cases.
3. I judge based on your ability to defend your points. Being able to successfully make me believe that your points are stronger and better than your opponents will lead to you winning my ballot.