Run a K and get an automatic win, if you have to settle for theory that will doc you speaker points.

couple of quick notes

• I have already decided the round before you walk in
• I weigh only on cross fire
• having less than 3 contention is really weak in my mind, so please read 4+

Work in progress :)

I've been in varsity debate for 2 years, and I am also the president of Washington's Chemistry Club.

Constructive: I'm ok with speed

Cross x: I like a heated crossfire, but be nice

Rebuttal: Try to use up all your time, use evidence, and be organized

Summary: Same thing as rebuttal AND don't bring up new evidence/points

Final Focus: Don't bring up new evidence, focus on the main topics debated

Debate is supposed to be fun, make it fun!

LD effectuve communication

I do LD.

You'll do great!

I am a senior at Washington High School, this is my 3rd year doing debate. I Compete in Public Forum. I love clashing rounds, but make sure you are respectful!! My main focus for the round is showing your major impact plus why your opponent's impact does not matter to the extent of yours. I like seeing cross-applying and will flow that. Pointing out dropped points is really helpful and will flow ONLY IF IT'S TRUE tho. Do your best and do not be nervous!!

Hi!! I'm a varsity PF debater at Washington, and this is my 3rd year doing public forum! With that being said, I love giving feedback in my RFD because that's exactly what I wanted in my novice year. Check your results if that is something you are interested in!

Feedback for your rounds with me as your judge-

-Speed: I'm okay with it as long as your opponent can understand you, and I can too. If you have to speak a little fast to fit your case into 4 minutes thats fine, but you wouldn't be gasping for air because of your speed.

-I am a "flow judge", my vote will be based on who carried their points and effectively argued them. Dropped points will be dropped off of my flow only if you comment on the fact they are dropped. If the fact a point was dropped isn't brought up, consider yourself lucky and bring it back up. Please label whichever contention you are commenting on, such as "pro's 1st contention" or "my 3rd contention". This helps me flow effectively so I can best judge the round.

WEIGH YOUR IMPACTS!! You should be telling me WHY you win and WHY the pro/con world serves more benefits/harms. Your final focus is the perfect place to do this! I recommend bring up very few cards in your FF, and focusing on voters (main points of the round that were heavily debated) and why you won them.

I am a 1st speaker, and I realize how hard summary can be. I hear you guys! As long as you bring up every point and card you want to carry into the FF, that is good with me. I also strongly advise you to use voters, it makes it a lot easier to format your speech.

-You can be assertive, but be respectful. Disrespect will lead to a drop in speaker points.

-If you are calling a card, your prep time will start when the card is pulled up and you begin reading.

Homophobia, transphobia, sexism, racism, ect are an immediate lose with me. This is an inclusive activity, and discrimination hurts the nature of debate.

I'm a huge swiftie... bring up Taylor Swift in any speech and I'll give you an extra 0.5 speaker point :)

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!

DEBATE EXPERIENCE:

• 4 years PF (half trad local circuit, half TOC circuit where I did much better)
• 4x NSDA national qualifier in events that had nobody else competing for the slot (2x congress eliminated session 1, 1x worlds with almost breaking, 1x policy lol)
• 1x TOC PF gold competitor where I got obliterated

PF: Most likely format I'll be judging. Most of this paradigm is geared towards it.

CX: I'm doing college policy but am completely new to the format so treat me like a tech judge who doesn't understand anything format specific. Simple topical K's are the only type I might consider. Your alt must be very specific for me to vote for it. If your alt is doing nothing until socialism appears then I'm not voting for. I get the strategy of going for nonsense CP's or Topicalities but it's so mind numbing so please don't do it unless it's actually an interesting difference that you could fill a whole two hour debate with. Please do not make me judge a clash of worlds round, it's gonna be substance every time.

LD/speech/whatever else: lol

I hate evidence misuse. Don’t miscut or misconstrue your evidence. Paraphrasing is fine but the bar for a violation gets much lower - it’s harder to verify proper evidence use if you’re not reading it from the source. If you’re a novice / JV I won’t apply most of this to you, but I might dock your speaks if evidence isn’t complete, so DW if it isn’t perfect - otherwise, I MIGHT BE THE MOST STRICT JUDGE ON EVIDENCE YOU WILL EVER HAVE!

Because of everything above, I’m sympathetic to disclosure at TOC BID TOURNAMENTS. Even then, you still have to win the shell, I’m not an auto vote on it.

I’ll expand this more later, but just know I’ll flow and vote based on the arguments. Weigh your impacts for me or you might not like how I vote. Collapsing is good the vast majority of times! Unless you’re confident you can only outweigh if you access everything, you should narrow it down in the second rebuttal or first summary to a contention (if they have turns answer those, then concede delinks) Speed is ok up to the point that I need a speech doc to keep up (I still want speech doc to scan your evidence as you read)- I know that’s vague so ask for clarification before round if you need. If your opponents say slow down, then you slow down.

My Email for chains (this will be useful in every varsity round) - Vaughn.research@outlook.com

Feel free to email me for whatever else - I was in your position too, I’m not some god. Postrounding is good for education or whatever so don’t hesitate if you think I made the wrong decision. I didn’t, but if you disagree we can talk about it.

experience:

-former pf debater from sf roosevelt in south dakota

-1x qualifier to nietoc (oo and drama)

-2x qualifier to gold toc (won most the toc bids in the state my junior year)

-3x qualifier to nats (worlds, pf, and oo)

general:

-flow judge (tech over truth) also i try to be tabula rasa as best as i can.

-2nd rebuttal has to frontline

-2nd rebuttal/1st summary should collapse on one argument (collapsing does not mean dropping)

-off the clock roadmaps before speeches are really helpful and so is signposting

-weighing is super important for me; tell me why i should prefer your argument over your opponents argument

-pre-reqs, short-circuits, and link-ins are gasssss

-EMPIRICS WIN, OFFENSE WINS, WEIGHING WINS

prog:

theory:

-for context ive debated 9 theory rounds in my 3 years of debating pf and ive won 6 of them (all of them have been disclosure related)

-thus, im really only familiar with disclosure theory so if you want to run any other kinds you will need to explain it very thoroughly

kritiks:

-i have zero experience with ks so you will really have to dumb it down for me (i'm not against you running ks)

cps, plans, trix:

-i have zero clues what these are so explain it again (again im not opposed)

other:

if u have any questions feel free to email me at im540@georgetown.edu

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!

I've been doing Public Forum debates for the past 3 years and I am currently a junior at Washington High School.

Road maps are off the clock.

Calling cards means you're using your prep time to look at a car

If you do not tell me something is dropped then I will not flow it

everything will flowed from constructive to crossfire to final focus.

Keep it light but don’t be afraid to be confrontational, still be respectful.

have fun with it all. Any reference to a good rapper will gain you .5 in speaker points