I am a parent judge and this is my first tournament.

I do not like spreading and I prefer you make your points clear.

I look forward to a fair round.

General: I am an 'old-school' former LDer so I judge rounds based on the values and substance of the arguments. Evidence is important but I am not going to be swayed if all you can say regarding an opponent's contention is "they only presented two cards of evidence but i clearly have three" or "my evidence is clearly better because it came from this scientific journal as opposed to this one." Unless the source of the evidence is clearly unreliable, I expect debaters to address the substance of the underlying arguments. At the end of the day, LD is about value propositions not plans or statistics and that is what I will base my decisions on. In other words, LD should prioritize the WHY not necessarily the HOW.

Pacing: You may speak as fast as you need to but please be understandable. If you go so fast that I cannot understand what you are saying, I will not flow it and if I do not flow it, I will not be able to judge you for it.

Roadmaps: I do allow off-time roadmaps - just be clear you are offering one before you start so I don't trigger my speech timer. Once that timer begins, I do not stop it. Similar to my comment about pacing, it's important that you are clear about where on the flow your comments/arguments/rebuttals are being directed. If I have to guess at what you are responding to, I may put in the wrong spot on my flow. This can lead to situations where arguments appear dropped or don't appear to truly rebut what it was flowed with. Providing clear signposts during your speech can save everyone a lot of headaches here.

End of Speech Cut-offs: When I tell you time, you may finish your sentence quickly. If you attempt to abuse this by stretching out your sentence or quickly fitting in more than the end of your sentence, I will suspend this privilege and, depending on how egregious the attempt, dock speaker points.

Who to Address in Speeches: Remember that you should be addressing me (ie the judge) during your speeches, NOT your opponent. At the end of the day, your arguments are being presented to me for judging so avoid things like "You said..." during your speeches.

This is my first year as a judge, but I love it.

Here are a few things I have learned I prefer over this past year.

1. Focus on your clarity both of your argument and your speech over the speed of which you are speaking. If I cannot understand you, I cannot judge what you are saying. I am not a fan of spreading.
2. Show me you understand your argument and use evidence to support it.
3. Be confident and have fun.
4. Be respectful of your opponent.
5. If you have any questions of me please ask.

As a judge for PF I am looking for participants to work as a team and to be respectful of other teams. I appreciate teams that can use cross to their advantage. I expect you to back up arguments with evidence. I appreciate teams that address each of their opponents' contentions, extend their arguments and weigh.

Speed of speech is inconsequential as long as you are speaking clearly.

I would prefer everybody to be respectful, and enjoy information driven arguments over being fast and overly persuasive

I prefer debaters to have a clear value and criterion that they uphold throughout the round. I also believe that debaters should have a clear framework that they use to evaluate the round. No spreading please. I place a greater emphasis on rhetoric and logic. I have not seen the K used well so prefer debates that do not use that tactic.I prefer debaters to be respectful and civil throughout the round, and I will not tolerate any form of discrimination or hate speech.

I am now an experienced parent judge. You may debate any way that you prefer. I am impressed with debaters who really understand their research and can organize their positions in a coherent way. I am less impressed with debaters who use words they don't understand or appear to be reading off the page something that someone else wrote. However, I applaud the efforts of all debaters and think this activity is an admirable use of your time.

Amy Love Klett

Good luck with your rounds. I look forward to a fair and friendly debate. Keep the following in mind:

-Avoid technical terms -provide guidance through your points and explain your case clearly.

-Please expand acronyms at least once

-No spreading and make sure to sign post

-Avoid running Theory or Ks. If you chose to, be as clear as possible or just explain

-I will vote for the side that provides the best logical arguments with warrants to back it up!

Please be polite during the rounds. Any inappropriate arguments (racist, sexist) will get you dropped.’

Email is den.85085@gmail.com

I am new to judging. This will be my second debate. I really enjoyed my first judging experience and was really impressed by all the students.

Hello Debaters,

My name is Yogesh Patil, I'm from Charlotte and I work in Information Tech. This is my second time judging Lincoln Douglas debate. I am from Ardrey Kell High school. Im very much of what you guys may call a "lay judge" and i prefer if you explain link chains thoroughly and slowly. In general, the easier you make it to understand, the more i can make sense. Please speak slowly and don't use rude or offensive language.

Thanks!

Hi debaters! My name is Jason Petrin and I am a software architect by trade. I am a parent judge and typically judge LD. Here are a few dos and don’t for rounds that I judge…

1. Do not spread. This may seem obvious but unfortunately some still struggle with making points clear. If I do not hear it it does not get flowed.
2. I judge SOLELY off the flow.
3. I do not judge during cross and I will not even flow it.
4. (For LD) Values are heavily considered during my final decision. That being said please understand the difference between a value and a value criterion.
5. Do not use ad hominem attacks, it is lazy and insulting to your opponent.

Good luck!

Hi debaters. Please do not spread. It’s important that I clearly understand your points so that I can flow them. I’m open to any argument provided it’s well-structured, supported and relevant.

Good luck!

Background

I'm a 3 time NSDA/NCFL qualifier and now coach LD. I like this stuff - fun, isn't it?

General Preferences

If you won this round, you probably 1. gave me a coherent lens through which I can gauge what is important and 2. weaved a story of the round using that lens. LD is about creative weighing, much like how we interact with complicated ideas in the real world - we don't just do an in-depth cost-benefit analysis each time we make a decision, we apply multiple standards and evaluative measures to reach a conclusion (often totally subconsciously).

Basically - I should be doing as little work as possible. I don't want to intervene or even really think when judging an LD round. If you make the story clear to me, I'll vote for you.

Speed

I can handle any speed, but nobody can handle you being incoherent - I'll give you a good ol' fashioned "clear" if you're attempting to go faster than you're capable of going. Good rule of thumb: if you feel like it's necessary that I read along to understand you, it's probably because you're unintelligible, not because I'm too old and slow.

Rounds being competitive really matters to me. This means that stylistic alignment between the two debaters is necessary to create good LD. Seeing as traditional LD is by far the more common and accessible style, if your opponent is only capable of traditional LD, that is the style I expect to see in the round. I will never punish a locally active debater for not being competitive against the increasingly inaccessible and abstract style found at national circuit tournaments.

Theory

Point out the abuse (assuming it's real) and move on. Do not make it the crux of the round. Win on substance.

I will never vote for time skew theory or anything that accuses your opponent of some form of prejudice (unless they've openly and intentionally said something prejudiced).

Kritiks

I'm actually stealing this directly from one of my all-time favorite NC LDer's paradigms because it was so perfectly written - thanks to Derek Brown of Durham Academy.

"Kritiks, like theory or topicality, are a way of questioning the pre-fiat implications of your opponents' position. As a result, Kritiks must link to a practice your opponent performed, and there must exist a relatively predictable/reasonable way your opponent could have anticipated or predicted that this practice was bad. For example, I will not vote on an argument saying "the aff doesn't address black feminism", because it is unreasonable to expect the aff to read black feminism every round."

I will add that I generally do not enjoy Kritiks that you read every single tournament (and yes, I'll know if you do) - think Cap Ks, Colonialism, etc. - they aren't competitive and generally rely on tenuous links back to the topic. If you didn't have to write it specifically for the current resolution, don't run it. I have to listen to like...6 LD rounds every weekend. I don't want to hear the same stuff every Saturday.

Bonus

Make this fun for me. Be entertaining. Be funny.I get so excited when I see good LD - if you've got a distinct style, good coverage, and I leave the round feeling like I did very little work...I'm a happy camper.

After the first aff, It's important to refute speakers that have spoken before, contextualize the debate, and weigh in. All speakers should question as much as possible and questioning is almost as important as speeches for me.

Call out bad arguments, if an argument does not have strong logical reasoning behind it or you don’t explain the argument or an argument that doesn't make sense will get dropped. Substance trumps style flourish for me.

However I rhetoric which I believe is the underpinning of a good debater. Supporting arguments with good examples goes a long way in persuading me.

I believe debate is about reasoning and convincing others and therefore constructing your case logically and then articulating it well is what I expect to see.

I have been judging for a while and its interest to listen to students helping us learn many perspectives

You should be polite, but you should also know that being obsequious will not gain you extra points.

Please don’t use debate-world jargon. The people judging are not debate team members, so using words that mean something totally different in their world (the real world) is not effective.

Don’t be overly pedantic. If your argument is premised on a word game (e.g. "It depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is.") it just seems silly.

Hyperbole (e.g. "Half the human population will die if you don't vote for AFF!") can be viewed as insulting to a judge’s intelligence.

As a judge I can't see your cards, so getting into an argument with your opponent about cards is kind of meaningless to me.

The best debates are about articulating ideas and presenting evidence to back up those ideas. Focus on persuading your audience—in this case, the judge—not each other.

Make it a debate that would impress Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas.

Mostly a LD judge, have judged PF . Not a fan of spread debate, will not discredit anyone who does though.. No biased in my judging, who ever holds there value & case with the resolution wins the round.

This is my third year of Judging.

I judge PF and LD debates. I prefer you speak slower. If you speak too fast I won't keep track of what you say on my flow.

Being polite is important to me. Don't bring up new evidence during final focus.