Joe Blasdel

McKendree University / Belleville East High School

Updated: 1/7/23

I competed in parliamentary debate and individual events from 1996 to 2000 for McKendree University. After three years studying political science at Syracuse University, I returned to coach at McKendree in 2003 (mostly NPDA, some LD and IEs) and have been doing so ever since. I have also coached debate at Belleville East (PF and LD) for the last two years.

This is broken into four sections: #1 PF Specifics, #2 HS LD specifics, #3 NFA LD specifics, #4 NPDA / general thoughts.

#1 PF Specifics

Here are some helpful things for you to know about me in terms of judging HS PF (in no particular order):

1. I will carefully flow the debate. This means it is important for you to carefully answer your opponents' arguments as well as extend arguments in rebuttals that you want me to evaluate. I will also flow the debate on three 'sheets' - the PRO case/answers, the CON case/answers, and the rebuttals (summaries/final foci).

2. I will not flow crossfire but I will still pay careful attention and view it as an important part of the debate.

3. I don't have any particular expectations about rate of delivery - faster, slower, etc. is fine.

4. If you have other questions, feel free to peruse my more extensive parli philosophy below or ask before the debate.

I look forward to judging you.

#2 HS LD Specifics

Here are some helpful things for you to know about me in terms of judging HS LD (in no particular order):

1. I have researched and coached students on the current NSDA topic and am broadly familiar with the issue.

2. I will carefully flow the debate. This means it is important for you to carefully answer your opponent's arguments as well as extend arguments in rebuttals that you want me to evaluate. I will flow the debate on three 'sheets' - framework, AFF case/answers, NEG case/answers.

3. I view the value/value criterion portion of the debate as framing the rest of the debate. When the framing part of the debate is not clear, I generally default to a cost/benefit analysis in evaluating the substance part of the debate.

4. I don't have any particular expectations about rate of delivery - faster, slower, etc. is fine.

5. If you have other questions, feel free to peruse my more extensive parli philosophy below or ask before the debate.

I look forward to judging you.

#3 NFA LD Specifics

Here are some helpful things for you to know about me in terms of judging NFA LD (in no particular order):

1. During the debate, I will flow what's being said rather than read the speech docs. I will review speech docs between speeches and after the round.

2. While carded evidence is obviously important in this format, I also appreciate warranted analytic arguments - probably more than the average NFA LD judge.

3. Having not judged a lot of LD of recent, I'm unsure if I can flow the fastest of debates. If I cannot flow due to clarity or speed, I will indicate that's the case.

4. If you have other questions, feel free to peruse my more extensive parli philosophy below or ask before the debate.

#4 NPDA / General thoughts

Section 1: General Information

In a typical policy debate, I tend to evaluate arguments in a comparative advantage framework (rather than stock issues). I am unlikely to vote on inherency or purely defensive arguments.

On trichotomy, I tend to think the affirmative has the right to run what type of case they want as long as they can defend that their interpretation is topical. While I don’t see a lot of good fact/value debates, I am open to people choosing to do so. I’m also okay with people turning fact or value resolutions into policy debates. For me, these sorts of arguments are always better handled as questions of topicality.

If there are new arguments in rebuttals, I will discount them, even if no point of order is raised. The rules permit you to raise POOs, but you should use them with discretion. If you’re calling multiple irrelevant POOs, I will probably not be pleased.

I’m not a fan of making warrantless assertions in the LOC/MG and then explaining/warranting them in the MO/PMR. I tend to give the PMR a good deal of latitude in answering these ‘new’ arguments and tend to protect the opposition from these ‘new’ PMR arguments.

Section 2: Specific Inquiries

Speaker points (what is your typical speaker point range or average speaker points given).

Typically, my range of speaker points is 27-29, unless something extraordinary happens (good or bad).

How do you approach critically framed arguments? Can affirmatives run critical arguments? Can critical arguments be “contradictory” with other negative positions?

I’m open to Ks but I probably have a higher threshold for voting for them than the average NPDA judge. I approach the K as a sort of ideological counterplan. As a result, it’s important to me that you have a clear, competitive, and solvent alternative. I think critical affirmatives are fine so long as they are topical. If they are not topical, it’s likely to be an uphill battle. As for whether Ks can contradict other arguments in the round, it depends on the context/nature of the K.

Performance based arguments…

Same as above.

Topicality. What do you require to vote on topicality? Is in-round abuse necessary? Do you require competing interpretations?

Having a specific abuse story is important to winning topicality, but not always necessary. A specific abuse story does not necessarily mean linking out of a position that’s run; it means identifying a particular argument that the affirmative excludes AND why that argument should be negative ground. I view topicality through a competing interpretations framework – I’m not sure what a reasonable interpretation is. On topicality, I have an ‘average’ threshold. I don’t vote on RVIs. On spec/non-T theory, I have a ‘high’ threshold. Unless it is seriously mishandled, I’m probably not going to vote on these types of arguments.

Counterplans -- PICs good or bad? Should opp identify the status of the counterplan? Perms -- textual competition ok? Functional competition?

All things being equal, I have tended to err negative in most CP theory debates (except for delay). I think CPs should be functionally competitive. Unless specified otherwise, I understand counterplans to be conditional. I don’t have a particularly strong position on the legitimacy of conditionality. I think advantage CPs are smart and underutilized.

In the absence of debaters' clearly won arguments to the contrary, what is the order of evaluation that you will use in coming to a decision (e.g. do procedural issues like topicality precede kritiks which in turn precede cost-benefit analysis of advantages/disadvantages, or do you use some other ordering?)?

All things being equal, I evaluate procedural issues first. After that, I evaluate everything through a comparative advantage framework.

How do you weight arguments when they are not explicitly weighed by the debaters or when weighing claims are diametrically opposed? How do you compare abstract impacts (i.e. "dehumanization") against concrete impacts (i.e. "one million deaths")?

I tend to prefer concrete impacts over abstract impacts absent a reason to do otherwise. If there are competing stories comparing impacts (and there probably should be), I accept the more warranted story. I also have a tendency to focus more heavily on probability than magnitude.

Experience: 2 years college policy, 5 years parli, 5 years NFA-LD, I've been coaching a combination of HS policy, CEDA/NDT, NFA-LD and Parli for 9 years.

Email for the chain: bowersd@moval.edu

Online Debate: A couple of things I think are important before starting. Please make sure that your computer is plugged in before starting, your mic is muted while the other person is speaking. Also, there will be tech problems throughout the year, please be cool about it. If there is a disconnect during a speech time will stop and the speaker will be responsible for picking up where they left off when they reconnect.

General: I very much believe that I am here for you, so whatever style of debate you enjoy doing you should do that. I think that I probably will hold the line on cheap shot arguments more often than not, typically one line arguments on a theory shell/solvency flow will not get my ballot. Generally the team that does the better link/impact analysis/comparison will win my ballot.

I'll talk about some things here to maybe clear some questions you may have but genuinely whatever you want to do. If you have questions please feel free to ask.

Impact framing: Sans an alternative I think that death is the worst impact in the debate, but I'm very willing and happy to listen to other impact framing arguments.

Theory: I think that absent another framing mechanism I would evaluate T via competing interps, that being said I'm open to whatever method you want in terms of evaluating the argument. I think that my threshold for voting on T is low IE it's just another argument that if you win I will vote on. I don't have a preference on whether or not condo is good or bad. Most if not all questions like that can be resolved in round. I do not need proven abuse to vote on Topicality.

CP: Awesome, fun, I don't think I've met a counterplan I wasn't in some way a fan of from a strategic standpoint. That being said I think that overly complicated texts need to be explained. If I don't know what the counterplan does or how it functionally solves the aff it is harder to win me.

K: I don't have a preference for any type of alternative, I will say that it would be easier for me to vote for a K if I understand what the alternative does. I won't vote against a K if I don't understand what the alt does it just definitely makes it an easier ballot for you.

Debate is a community, and I expect debaters to be cordial and polite to one another in round.

Debate is an activity based on persuasion, logic, and clear communication. As such, I am open to all hearing all forms of arguments in a debate, but arguments promoting racism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia, etc. will not do well on my ballot. Debate in the style you prefer and with the best strategy—over-adapting to judge preferences usually ends poorly.

I am a flow judge that prefers line-by-line argumentation. But if you do not go line-by-line, signposting is essential. Use language within the cases to signpost where you are in the flow.

Arguments:

Arguments should be well-researched and supported through logical links and evidence. Arguments that have the most weight in the round are the ones that have a clear claim, warrant, impact and data. Link stories are important and should be clearly identified.

Focus on impacts. Terminal impacts are important and get most of the focus, but low scale impacts are important too. Impact calc provides justification for why your arguments are important and outweigh your opponents. If you want to prove that your side is net beneficial, engage in comparable impac calc throughout the round and especially in your voters.

Arguments do not always have to have evidence, but the highest quality arguments usually have evidence. If you have evidence, but no analytical extension it defeats the purpose. Having too many cards is better than no cards. If you fabricate evidence, it is an ethical issue and voting issue on my ballot.

If an argument is dropped explain why that should impact my ballot. I’ll flow it through.

Clash:

Provide interpretations and counter interpretations. If you do not counter the interpretation provided, it is assumed you agree.

Clash with the opponent’s case and evidence is essential. Provide clash on the framework at the top of the flow and throughout the opponent’s case. It is a great strategy to counter the interpretation of the opponent’s evidence/card and explain why it is misinterpreted or turn it to your side.

Extend and cross-apply arguments. Go line by line and explain the clash and why your side is winning. Avoid shallow rebuttals.

Speed:

I am fine with spreading as long as you are clear. If you go too fast and do not clearly tag arguments making it difficult to follow your speech, I will not put it on the flow. Speed is only effective if it is also clear (enunciate, signpost, etc.). This is a dialogic activity and a solid debate is only as good as the clarity of the arguments presented.

I believe debate is a communication event. If I can't keep up with you, you lose.

Hello everyone!

When it comes to debate my philosophy is usually Tabula Rasa. I do not assume any particular paradigm but instead I want you to show me why your argument should be voted on. One thing that I personal enjoy the most with debate is that you are having fun! I think debate is such a fun sport/activity. Even though debate can be competitive, it should be a dreadful event. Instead it should be a time to have fun and share your knowledge and skills with others.

When it comes to platform speeches, I am very traditional in the sense that persuasive language should be avoided in the informative speeches and vice versa. Remember that your informative speech needs to be unbiased.

For limited prep events, I want to see clear organization with main points, subpoints, transitions, etc. The limited prep events should be interesting and provide a new/interesting perspective on the topic/quote.

The interpretive events (Duo, Prose, POI, POE, DI, etc.) I like to see solid character development. I want to see you embody the character/s both physically and mentally. It should not sound it should not sound like you are reading, but you are truly the character you a trying to portray. I do look into how well you are changing your tone, rate, and pitch of your voice.

Most important, you all should be very proud of all the hard work you put into these events. I know that this takes a lot of time a dedication. Even if you don’t win a round, keep your head up and learn from your experiences to do better. You are all brilliant students who are capable of doing amazing things. 

Love good speaking, strong argumentation, and a little humor here and there. Kindness is king in IPDA so being rude can cause you to lose my ballot. Don't run preponderance of the evidence in front of me; I care about actual argumentation, not just evidence. Also, I do not like spreading and speeding as I think they go against the accessibility of IPDA. If you want to win my ballot, don't get caught up in the technicalities or terminology; just make a better argument.

Background

First, I want to be up front with you about my forensics experience and debate background. I am currently the Director of Forensics at Truman State University (2022-present), primarily responsible for coaching the IE squad. My background is largely in IE; I competed in speech throughout all 4 years of high school (Richwoods High School - Peoria, IL, 2010), on the two-year circuit (Illinois Central College – East Peoria, IL), and transferred to the four-year circuit in 2012 (North Central College – Naperville, IL). I received the National Champion title in Dramatic Interp at NFA in 2013, and was National Champion in Informative Speaking at PKD in 2014. After college, I coached IEs while getting my MA from Northern Illinois University, then left the forensics community between 2016-2021 while working on my Ph.D. in Communication at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. I have been at Truman since fall 2021.

I have limited debate judging experience.

Preferences

When it comes to judging debate rounds, I come in pretty much as a blank slate. My IE experience leads me to prefer hearing more of the argumentation guiding the claims in the debate, rather than rushing through your speeches to get more information in. I love the performative and stylistic elements of this activity, but I have to understand the debate in order to judge it. I want you to spell out the connections of your evidence to your argument and understand the links you are making, then be able to explain those to me intelligibly. I want you to be respectful of your opponent, but I do enjoy a little competitive banter. I like when arguments are logically and validly critiqued and hearing competitors’ responses to their opponent’s questions/concerns.

On top of coherence, I will look towards other public speaking aspects to form my opinion about who is most persuasive in the round. This of course includes the argumentative elements that are said in the debate, but also the ways in which competitors engage their opponents, the judge(s), and other elements that factor into a speaker’s credibility (e.g., confidence, tone, nonverbal cues, etc.).

I enjoy hearing “weird” case arguments that analogize or extend the debate topic to other fields/concepts/issues, but will always prefer these arguments be within the scope or vicinity of the respective NFA-LD resolution for the year. As the opponent, if you think we shouldn’t adjust how we frame the debate, please argue why. I want you to persuade me on how I should judge the round. If you present an argument that needs further explanation or knowledge to understand, please provide it.

That being said, I do not particularly enjoy seeing documents specifically titled “lay case” or anything similar that denotes my potential for understanding you. Please don’t confuse my lack of debate experience with an incapacity to think critically about arguments. Use your regular case, then make arguments in the debate clearer if you think they are too complicated to understand for a particular judge, but you wouldn’t call your constituents dumb to their face if you were running for a public office.

I will not know right away what you are saying if you throw lots of technical jargon into the debate, but may be able to pick up what you mean by context clues. This is a risk you can take if you wish.

I will download case documents in the round and will judge the round based on what happens in the debate itself. I will not necessarily go back and look at evidence later, unless in cases of suspected or alleged rule violations. I try to provide clear reasons for my decision on the ballot, but if you ever have any concerns or questions, please reach out – bdavis@truman.edu.

ADOF for Washburn University

Please treat your opponent with kindness and respect. I get it sometimes this is hard to do—cx can get heated at times. Just know that keeping your cool in those situations goes a long way with me. Guaranteed if you’re rude speaks will suffer. If you’re really rude you will get the Loss!

Quality of evidence matters. Credential comparisons are important – example- Your opponent’s evidence is from a blog vs your evidence is from a specialist in the field of the debate---you should point that out! Currency comparisons are important – example- Your opponents impact card from 2014 is based off a very different world than what we exist in now---you should point that out. Last thing here—Over-tagged / under highlighted cards do not impress me. Good rule of thumb—if your card tag is longer than what you have highlighted I will consider that pretty shady.

Speed vs Delivery- What impresses me—debaters that can deliver their evidence efficiently & persuasively. Some can do this a little quicker than others and that is okay. On the flip side— for you slower debaters the great balancer is I prefer quality evidence / arguments and will always privilege 1 solid argument over 5 kind-of-arguments—you just have to point that out. Cross-applications / impact filter cards are your friend.

I prefer you embrace the resolution- What does this mean exactly? No plan text Affirmatives = 90% chance you will lose to T. If you could write an advocacy statement you probably could have written/found a TVA. What about the other 10%? Well, if your opponent does not run or collapse to T-USFG / does not put any offense on your performative method then you will probably get my ballot.

Theory/procedurals- Aff & Neg if you’re not making theory args offensive then don’t bother reading them. Negs that like to run 4 theory/procedural args in the 1NC and collapse to the one least covered—I will vote on RVI’s—This means when kicking out, if an RVI is on that theory sheet you better take the time to answer it. I view RVI’s as the great strategic balancer to this approach.

Case debate-Case debate is important. Key areas of case that should be addressed: Plan text (plan flaw), circumvention, direct solvency turns / defense, impact filters / framing, rolb claims.

Counterplan/disad combo - If I had to choose what debate island I would have to live on for the rest of my life-- I would choose this one. I like generic process cp/da combo’s just as much as hyper specific PICs/with a small net-benefit. CP text is important. Your CP text should be textually & functionally competitive. CP theory debates can be interesting. I will give all cp theory arguments consideration if framed as an offensive reason to do so. The only CP theory I will not listen to is PICs bad (never). Both aff/neg should be framing the rebuttal as “Judge we have the world of the cp vs the plan” here is why my world (the cp or plan) is better.

K debates - I am a great believer in topic specific critical lit – The more specific your link cards the better. If your only link is "you function through the state" – don’t run it or do some research and find some specific links. I expect K Alts to have the following: 1. Clear alt text 2. Carded alt solvency that isolates the method being used 3. Tell me what the post alt world looks like. If your K happens to be a floating PIC that is fine with me but I will consider theoretical argument in opposition as well—Yes, I will listen to a Floating PIC good/bad debate.

Last thought: Doing your own research + Cutting your own evidence = more knowledge gained by you.

“Chance favors a prepared mind” Louis Pasteur

Be a decent human in round. It’s educational, it’s fun, don’t demean your opponent or be rude for the sake of a performance. If it is clear that you are not following this, you have been warned.

What I vote on.

I will vote on a lot of things so long as you can argue it well. Not tag arguments and read them word for word, but actually argue them and weigh them against your opponent’s arguments in the debate. I will vote on K’s. I will vote on T. I will vote on theory. I will vote on impact calculus. Just argue your point well and make the debate a debate and not two sides talking at two separate walls.

General things.

I have experience both doing debate in a number of styles and in IEs, also a number of styles. Weigh your impacts for yourself. I think it’s far better for you to do the work and have me, as a judge, hear you advocate for it than for you to rely on my perspective going through the round. I will flow throughout the round. I am okay with speed but I am mindful of those who rely on spreading the other out of the round and focus too heavily on speed versus good arguments. Being fast does not mean you will win, but it doesn’t mean you will lose either. I like all kinds of arguments to be made so do what you are comfortable with whether that’s a case-heavy debate, DAs, CPs, Ks, FW, T, or anything else. Be a nice human and enjoy the experience.

If you have any other specific questions, don’t be afraid to ask. I am not intimidating and want you to enjoy what you do and what you present. Have a good round!

Darren Elliott "Chief" --Director of Debate and Forensics Kansas City KS Community College

delliott@kckcc.edu

Probably the least interventionist judge you will encounter. Will listen to and fairly consider any argument presented. (Avoid obvious racist and sexist arguments and ad Homs). For an argument to be a round winner you need to win the impact the argument has in relation to the impacts your opponent might be winning and how all of those affect/are afffected by the ballot or decision (think framework for the debate). No predispositions against any strategy be it a Disad/CP/Case or K or T/Framework on the Neg or a straight up policy or K Aff. Win what it is you do and win why that matters. I actually appreciate a good Disad/CP/Case Offense debate as much as anything (even though the arguments a number of recent KCKCC debaters might lead one to think otherwise). The beauty of debate is its innovation.

I appreciate in-depth arguments and hard work and reward that with speaker points. A debate that begins in the first couple of speeches at a depth that most debates aspire to be by the last two speeches is a work of art and shows dedication and foresight that should be rewarded. Cross-X as well, in this regard, that shows as good or better of an understanding of your opponents arguments as they do will also be rewarded. Cross-X is a lost art.

Most of all--Have Fun and Good Luck!!

My name is Ekow Kakra and I'm an international graduate student in the Missouri State University Communication Department. Prior to this season, my debate experience was limited to an audience member and subsequently a judge. I judged several NFA-LD (as well as parli and IE) rounds in the 2022 Derryberry Season Opener, and the 2022 Missouri Mule. I also judged rounds in this year’s MAFA tournament at Marshall.

I expect debaters will be respectful to all in the room. Given that, I will vote affirmative if the unique benefits of the affirmative plan (beyond what a CP could solve) outweigh the unique disadvantages of adopting that plan. If the negative wins that the plan doesn't meet the best (or reasonable) interpretation of the topic, or a kritik shifts the debate focus, then the ballot will reflect that instead.

Regarding counterplans, I'm comfortable with net benefits competition (CP avoids the DA and solves some of the case) - but with any other approach to competition or internal net benefits, you will need to be explained very clearly and directly why the CP alone is better than doing both.

Regarding DA's, I'm okay with any sort of DA. As an international student, I would prefer that debaters avoid jargons that are unfamiliar or peculiar to US politics. When they are used, I expect debators to offer brief explanation of the term. Explain links, internal links, impacts, and terms of art clearly and compare it assuming the aff wins a bunch of their impact.

Regarding topicality, I start with definitions/interpretation, and then move on to plan text and solvency evidence. Negative needs to clearly win the violation, but not necessarily unique abuse. Interpretation is based both on clarity of the line drawn and what it would do for both sides over a full season of debate.

Regarding kritiks, you need to clearly prove the affirmative is critically (not tangentally) dependent on the link that you critique. I'm open to the kritik framework changing the topic of the debate so long as you are clear about the alternative framework (including win conditions for both sides), starting in the constructives.

Considering my experience, I do not capture a lot of details in my flow sheet, as such I prefer that debaters avoid going top speed. I inform debaters to be attentive to my nonverbals (like raising my hand) which indicate my difficulty in hearing or speeding on their side.

A few likes and dislikes I have found over tournaments this season:

A few likes is debaters talking with confidence, being organized in terms of preparation, as well as in their delivery and argumentation, and courteousness in criticizing opponents.

A few dislikes include sarcastic and disrespectful gestures towards opponents, too much speed in delivery, and use of unfamiliar words or jargons without explaining.

Justin Kirk - Director of Debate at University of Nebraska-Lincoln

General philosophy – Debate is primarily a communications based activity, and if you are not communicating well, your arguments are probably incoherent, and you are probably not going to win many debates in front of me. It is your responsibility to make quality arguments. An argument consists of a claim, a warrant, and an impact. Evidence supports argumentation, it does not supplant it. However, analytic arguments and comparative claims about argument quality are essential to contextualizing your evidence and applying it to the issues developed throughout the debate. Quality arguments beat bad evidence every time.

I flow every debate and expect teams to answer arguments made by the other team. You should also flow every debate. That does not mean start flowing after the speech documents run out. Cross-examinations that consist mostly of "what cards did you read" or "what cards did you skip" are not cross examinations and do you little to no good in terms of winning the debate. If you have questions about whether or not the other team made an argument or answered a particular argument, consult your flow, not the other team. The biggest drawback to paperless debate is that people debate off speech docs and not their flows, this leads to shoddy debating and an overall decline in the quality of argumentation and refutation.

Each team has a burden of refutation, and arguing the entire debate from macro-level arguments without specifically refuting the other side's arguments will put you at a severe disadvantage in the debate. Burden of proof falls upon the team making an argument. Unwarranted, unsupported assertions are a non-starter for me. It is your responsibility is to make whole arguments and refute the arguments made by the other side. Evaluating the debate that occurred is mine. The role of my ballot is to report to the tab room who I believe won the debate.

Online Debate - everyone is adjusting to the new world of online debate and has plenty of burdens. I will be lenient when judging if you are having technical difficulties and provide ample time. You should record all of your speeches on a backup device in case of permanent technical failures. Speech drop is the norm for sharing files. If there are bandwidth problems, I will ask everyone to mute their mics and videos unless they are talking.

Paperless Debate – You should make every attempt to provide a copy of the speech documents to me and the other team before the speech. The easiest way to resolve this is through speech drop. I suspect that paperless debate has also led to a substantial decrease in clarity and corresponding increases in cross-reading and clipping. I have zero tolerance for cheating in debate, and will have no qualms about voting against you, assigning zero speaker points, and speaking to your coaches about it. Clarity is a must. You will provide me speech documents to read during the debate so I may better understand the debate that is occurring in front of me. I will ask you to be clearer if you are not and if you continue to be unclear, I will stop flowing your arguments.

Topicality – Is good for debate, it helps to generate clash, prevents abusive affirmatives, and generally wins against affirmatives that have little to no instrumental relation to the topic. Topicality definitions should be precise, and the reasons to prefer your topicality violation should be clear and have direct relation to your interpretation. Topicality debates are about the scope of and competition generated by the resolution. I usually default to competing interpretations, as long as both sides have clear, contextual, and well warranted interpretations. If your interpretation is missing one of these three elements, go for another argument. Reasonability is a winnable argument in front of me as long as you offer specific and warranted reasons why your interpretation is reasonable vis-à-vis the negative. I vote on potential abuse and proven abuse.

Kritiks – Should be based in the resolution and be well researched with specific links to the affirmative. Reading generic links to the topic is insufficient to establish a link to the affirmative. Alternatives should be well explained and evidenced with specific warrants as to the question of link solvency. A majority of kritik debates that are lost by negative teams where they have failed to explain the link debate or alternative adequately. A majority of kritik debates that are lost by affirmative teams when I am judging are ones where the affirmative failed to sufficiently argue for a permutation argument or compare the impacts of the affirmative to the impacts of the criticism sufficiently. I firmly believe that the affirmative gets to weigh the advantages of the plan against the impacts of the criticism unless the link to the criticism directly stems from the framing of the Affirmative impacts. I also believe that the affirmative can usually win solvency deficits to the alternative based upon deficits in implementation and/or instrumentalization of the alternative. Arguments that these solvency deficits do not apply because of framework, or that the affirmative has no right to solving the affirmative, are non-starters for me.

Counterplans – Yes. The more strategic, the better. Should be textually and functionally competitive. Texts should be written out fully and provided to the other team before cross examination begins. The negative should have a solvency card or net benefit to generate competition. PICs, conditional, topical counterplans, international fiat, states counterplans are all acceptable forms of counterplans. NR counterplans are an effective means of answering new 1AR arguments and add-ons and are fair to the affirmative team if they are responses to new 1AR developments. I believe that counterplans are the most effective means of testing the affirmative's plan via competitive policy options and are an effective means of solving for large portions of the affirmative. Counterplans are usually a fair check against new affirmatives, non-intrinsic advantages, and affirmatives with bad or no solvency evidence. If you have a theoretical objection to the counterplan, make it compelling, have an interpretation, and win offense. Theoretical objections to the counterplan are fine, but I have a high threshold for these arguments unless there is a specific violation and interpretation that makes sense in the context of competitive demands in debate.

Disads – Yes and yes. A likely winning strategy in front of me usually involves going for a disadvantage to the affirmative and burying the case with quality arguments and evidence. Disadvantages should have specific links to the case and a coherent internal link story. It is your job to explain the causal chain of events that leads to the disadvantage. A disadvantage with no internal links is no disad.

Case Debate - Is a lost art. Most affirmatives are a hodgepodge of thrown together internal links and old impact evidence. Affirmatives are particularly bad at extending their affirmative and answering negative arguments. Especially new affirmatives. Negative teams should spend a substantial portion of the debate arguing why the affirmative case is problematic. Fewer and fewer teams invest any time in arguing the case, at the cost of a criticism or disadvantage that usually isn't worth reading in the first place. Time trade-offs are not nearly as valuable as quality indictments of the 1AC. Spend those three minutes answering the advantages and solvency and don't read that third criticism or fourth disadvantage, it usually doesn't help you anyway. Inidict the 1AC evidence, make comparative claims about their evidence and your evidence, challenge the specificity or quality of the internal links.

Evidence - Qualifications, context, and data matter. You should answer the evidence read in the debate because I will read evidence at the end. One of the largest problems with paperless debate is the persistence of reading cards to answer cards when a simple argument about the context or quality of the evidence will do. It takes less time to answer a piece of terrible evidence with an analytic argument than it does to read a card against it. It is useless to throw good cards after bad.

Speaker Points - Are a reflection of the quality of speaking, arguments, and strategic choice made by debaters in the debate – no more, no less.

Disclosure (12/2/23 update) - I lifted this from Parker Hopkins at his blessing who borrowed from Chris Roberds.

TLDR - disclosure is an essential element to small-school competitiveness, the educational functions of the activity, and should be practiced by all teams.

I took this from Chris Roberds who said it much more elegantly than myself.

I have a VERY low threshold on this argument. Having schools disclose their arguments pre-round is important if the activity is going to grow/sustain itself. Having coached almost exclusively at small, underfunded, or new schools, I can say that disclosure (specifically disclosure on the wiki if you are a paperless debater) is a game changer. It allows small schools to compete and makes the activity more inclusive. There are a few specific ways that this influences how ballots will be given from me:

1) I will err negative on the impact level of "disclosure theory" arguments in the debate. If you're reading an aff that was broken at a previous tournament, on a previous day, or by another debater on your team, and it is not on the wiki (assuming you have access to a laptop and the tournament provides wifi), you will likely lose if this theory is read. There are two ways for the aff to "we meet" this in the 2ac - either disclose on the wiki ahead of time or post the full copy of the 1ac in the wiki as a part of your speech. Obviously, some grace will be extended when wifi isn't available or due to other extenuating circumstances. However, arguments like "it's just too much work," "I don't like disclosure," etc. won't get you a ballot.

2) The neg still needs to engage in the rest of the debate. Read other off-case positions and use their "no link" argument as a reason that disclosure is important. Read case cards and when they say they don't apply or they aren't specific enough, use that as a reason for me to see in-round problems. This is not a "cheap shot" win. You are not going to "out-tech" your opponent on disclosure theory. To me, this is a question of truth. Along that line, I probably won't vote on this argument in novice, especially if the aff is reading something that a varsity debater also reads.

3) If you realize your opponent's aff is not on the wiki, you should make every possible attempt before the round to ask them about the aff, see if they will put it on the wiki, etc. Emailing them so you have timestamped evidence of this is a good choice. I understand that, sometimes, one teammate puts all the cases for a squad on the wiki and they may have just put it under a different name. To me, that's a sufficient example of transparency (at least the first time it happens). If the aff says it's a new aff, that means (to me) that the plan text and/ or advantages are different enough that a previous strategy cut against the aff would be irrelevant. This would mean that if you completely change the agent of the plan text or have them do a different action it is new; adding a word like "substantially" or "enforcement through normal means" is not. Likewise, adding a new "econ collapse causes war" card is not different enough; changing from a Russia advantage to a China, kritikal, climate change, etc. type of advantage is. Even if it is new, if you are still reading some of the same solvency cards, I think it is better to disclose your previous versions of the aff at a minimum.

4) At tournaments that don't have wifi, this should be handled by the affirmative handing over a copy of their plan text and relevant 1AC advantages etc. before the round. If thats a local tournament, that means as soon as you get to the room and find your opponent.

5) If you or your opponent honestly comes from a circuit that does not use the wiki (e.g. some UDLs, some local circuits, etc.), I will likely give some leeway. However, a great use of post-round time while I am making a decision is to talk to the opponent about how to upload on the wiki. If the argument is in the round due to a lack of disclosure and the teams make honest efforts to get things on the wiki while I'm finishing up my decision, I'm likely to bump speaks for all 4 speakers by .2 or .5 depending on how the tournament speaks go.

6) There are obviously different "levels" of disclosure that can occur. Many of them are described above as exceptions to a rule. Zero disclosure is always a low-threshold argument for me in nearly every case other than the exceptions above.

That said, I am also willing to vote on "insufficient disclosure" in a few circumstances.

A. If you are in the open/varsity division of NDT-CEDA, NFA-LD, or TOC Policy your wiki should look like this or something very close to it. Full disclosure of information and availability of arguments means everyone is tested at the highest level. Arguments about why the other team does not sufficiently disclose will be welcomed. Your wiki should also look like this if making this argument.

B. If you are in the open/varsity division of NDT-CEDA, NFA-LD, or TOC Policy. Debaters should go to the room immediately after pairings are released to disclose what the aff will be. With obvious exceptions for a short time to consult coaches or if tech problems prevent it. Nothing is worse than being in a high-stress/high-level round and the other team waiting until right before the debate to come to disclose. This is not a cool move. If you are unable to come to the room, you should be checking the wiki for your opponent's email and sending them a message to disclose the aff/past 2NR's or sending your coach/a different debater to do so on your behalf.

C. When an affirmative team discloses what the aff is, they get a few minutes to change minor details (tagline changes, impact card swaps, maybe even an impact scenario). This is double true if there is a judge change. This amount of time varies by how much prep the tournament actually gives. With only 10 minutes between pairings and start time, the aff probably only get 30 seconds to say "ope, actually...." This probably expands to a few minutes when given 30 minutes of prep. Teams certainly shouldn't be given the opportunity to make drastic changes to the aff plan text, advantages etc. a long while after disclosing.

(Justin's final thought on disclosure) - JV and Novice divisions need disclosure the most. There is a reason that CARD and ADA Novice divisions use a packet. There is a reason that the Nothern Tier used a packet when it was still a thing. Disclosure on the wiki serves a similar if not a congruent function for the community. Give those coaches some time to prepare their young debaters to engage their opponents and have a productive debate!

Initially, I expect students to be well-prepared, thorough, and articulate. I expect students to utilize reliable, recent, and relevant sources to the arguments that they are presenting.

Second, I encourage students to provide clash by directly responding to their opponent's case. Clash is extremely important. Clash on the framework/criterion debate is absolutely essential! Put yourself in the best position to succeed by including a framework. If not, I will weigh the debate using my own discretion rather than a judging mechanism provided by your side. Please explicitly state this criterion at the start of the debate AND continue to discuss it throughout the course of the debate.

Thirdly, impacts truly matter. Explain why the arguments that you're making are important. Why should economic stability be preferred over foreign aid? Give good justification for why your impacts have more weight than your opposition. This is absolutely essential to get my vote.

Fourth, this community is centered around inclusivity and providing each student with an opportunity to speak. Please do not speed. This can be EXTREMELY exclusive and prevent your judges/opponents from hearing your arguments. This can disproportionately impact certain individuals. This activity prides itself on dialogue, but spreading/speeding reduces the chance of having a solid debate. If you do speed, I will listen, however, if I miss something, that is on you. I will not evaluate arguments that are not on the flow. Finally, if your opponent says clear and you do not slow down, I will put my pen down until you slow down.

Lastly, I am good with tech. You can run any argument with me. I love hearing K's, topicalities, or any unique arguments, but I need you to explain why it is important. Make all arguments accessible to your judges AND your opponents.

My competitive background is mainly in parli, but I judged LD throughout the 17/18 season and have been head coach of an NFA-LD program since 2018.

Debate is ultimately a communication endeavor, and as such, it should be civil and accessible. I don't like speed/spreading. I can handle a moderate amount especially as I follow along with your doc (I want to be included on speechdrop, email chains, etc.), but there are two good ways to know when it's too much: 1) the point at which you’re gasping for air/doing big double breaths or 2) if you have to raise your voice an octave higher to maintain the pace. I will call speed if necessary, ignore it at your own risk. If your opponent asks you not to speed and you spread them out of the round, I will drop you -- even if you won the flow. Same with being rude or disrespectful. Debate is already scary and no one wants to be spoken to like they're stupid. Being a jerk in-round will lose my ballot.

I will vote on anything* (with one exception below). Topicality debates are fine. I don't like when it's used solely as a time skew, but when it is necessary, I want you to engage in the standards debate and make it specific to the round. Warrant your claims, give examples. I don't need proven abuse, but I do need a vision of why your interpretation is better for debate.

I will vote on Ks. I enjoy a good critical argument, but don’t assume I’m familiar with all of your literature. Make the link story clear and specific to the round in the 1NC. I want to hear a well-developed alternative, one that's not super vague. If your alt is essentially just to reject the aff, tell me what that's going to accomplish, impact it out. The role of the ballot is really important for Ks.

My favorite types of rounds are ones that engage in direct clash and cover the flow.

* I will not listen to an 'extinction good' argument. I will submit the ballot for your opponent and leave the room immediately. In addition to just being a bad idea, I find the argument to be violent and inappropriate for the debate space. Enough people (including myself) deal with suicidal ideation on a regular basis and no one should be subjected to that idea for a competitive win. It's gross.

***UPDATED AS OF JANUARY 30, 2024***

The Short Version

I’ve been involved with LD on and off since 1991. I am a traditionalist when it comes to LD and hold to the principles behind its founding. I evaluate rounds primarily on stock issues. I believe the annual resolution is the object of the round and that ballot’s sole role is to make a decision on that topic. I don’t like speed. I evaluate based on what I can perceive orally in the round, and while I will download your “Speechdoc” I won’t go hunting to validate your arguments after the debate. I take a good and detailed flow, based on what I hear, but I am a critical listener who won’t check his expertise at the door. Be ethical. Follow the rules. Don’t be mean to each other and don’t treat your judge like they are your opponent after the round.

The More Nuanced Version

The Background Stuff

I was Truman State’s Director of Forensics from 1999-2009 and again, on an interim basis, from 2014-2015. I'm currently the interim LD coach for the 2023-2024 season. During that time I coached IE, LD, and NPDA. Since then I’ve been working in administration. Prior to that I was at the University of Kansas working with a NDT/CEDA program, and before that at Wayne State working with both IE and LD. As an undergrad I did primarily IE and LD. It is important to underscore that I have been out of active coaching for most of the last decade, though I usually come back for a tournament or two each year. This means it is important to be careful about assumptions that you might make with a long-term contemporary judge and their knowledge base about contemporary jargon, newer theories, etc.

Me as a Judge vs. Me as a Coach

I am currently serving as a debate coach for Truman on an interim basis. Out of respect for my students who have worked so hard to be where they are, and out of respect for the person who will eventually be their permanent coach, I am meeting them where they are on the kinds of positions they run and the style of debate they employ. This may differ significantly from my paradigm here and as a judge. This is where my paradigm has changed significantly in the last month. I had adapted my paradigm at the beginning of the year to show greater flexibility to align with my team’s competitive preferences. This is a stance I don’t feel I can take as we head into the late and post-season. They know that, and we respect each other’s views.

My Orientation Toward NFA-LD in General

I have been involved with LD since its inception in 1990-1991. I was on the original committee that made the first permanent rules in 1992. I am not a fan of what NFA-LD has become in recent years. I try as best I can to adhere to the original goals of the event while respecting the rules as they have been amended since. I have a strong negative disposition toward speed. I believe the object of the debate is the NFA resolution, which is a proposition of policy, and I will evaluate the debate using the stock issues and the effective weighing of advantages and disadvantages. I also overlay my participation in the round using the “Critical Listener Perspective” (see Minch, K. and Borchers, T. (1996) “A philosophy for judging Lincoln-Douglas debate.” National Forensic Journal, pp. 19-36). This perspective aims to view NFA-LD as an individual event and to balance the aspirational objective standards of the flow with some of the critical subjectivity found in individual events judging. The essence of this perspective is this statement:

“A critical listener perspective for Lincoln-Douglas debate presumes that the audience members (most importantly the judge) are the locus of the round. They are critical listeners who are capable of evaluating the debate based upon their experience, specialized knowledge, and use of standards for what is educationally valuable and who permit subjective standards to influence how the decision is reached. This view assumes that the judge will consider both objective and subjective standards in evaluating a Lincoln-Douglas round and will not shy away from correcting perceived inadequacies in the presentation through the pedagogically beneficial act of critiquing the speech act and ranking it according to all of its merits.”

Rules

While I have expressed some opinions in public and in writing about the natural evolution of rules in events, I am probably not the person you want to argue with about ignoring the rules outright, or why the rules are evil. I don’t have problems with the rules being changed, but I do believe those changes need to be legislated by the organization and not by my ballot. If you plan to invoke the rules for some purpose, be sure you are following them as well. If you raise an objection based on the rules, be sure you know the rule and the basis for your claim is crystal clear. Norms and rules are not the same thing. There is no rule, for example, requiring pre-round disclosure. You might like it and it might make the world a wonderful place, but it’s not a rule. I'm not going to vote on violations of norms. So don’t make an argument that treats it like a rule. If the alleged rule violation is going to require the involvement of the tournament staff (a violation of the Code of Ethics), please make sure that is clearly stated and in line with the tournament rules and policies so I know what your intentions are.

Framework

As the rules apply to the framework for judging the debate, I will operate within the recommended paradigm of stock issues. You should be filtering your analysis of the round through that lens as much as you can. This means I will vote on inherency or solvency IF you make them an issue and persuade me that your arguments are sufficient to do so. I will vote on topicality, but my distinct preference is that you go for that issue exclusively, or almost exclusively, in the NR if that’s what you want to hang your hat on. I don’t necessarily need to see evidence of in-round abuse to vote on T. As this season has unfolded, I have come to an even firmer position on “Kritik Affirmatives,” which I find incompatible with the stock issues framework. If you run one in front of me, you do so at your own peril. You are here to debate the resolution that the community has selected and that is a shared expectation when the parties enter the round. My job is to adjudicate a debate on that topic and render a decision as to the relative persuasiveness of your positions on the policy in question. To be absolutely clear, this should in no way be interpreted to suggest that I don’t see value in the forms of advocacy presented in critical or performative argumentation - just that I think the object of this activity is the national topic and positions that do not focus on that topic function to exclude participants in the activity who enter the exchange expecting to learn about that topic.

Speed and Space

I think one of the benefits of having LD situated in an organization that also sponsors IE is the potential for cross-application of skills developed in debate and IE. I like a debate that is persuasive, that tells a good story, and that even leaves me a little entertained. At the same time, I like good clash, robust use of evidence, and lots of analysis. I also believe in efficiency and word economy, not speed. Foundationally, I believe in the "orality" of NFA-LD. While the text of cards is often the proof in our argumentation, debate exists in a live space and not in the exchange of documents. If we didn't care about the verbal communication, we wouldn't have tournaments, we'd just have an electronic exchange of dueling briefs and counter-briefs. The debate happens in the speeches, not in a post-round attempt to reconstruct the narrative. I believe the debate happens within the timed speeches. It does not happen after the round with me pulling and re-reading your evidence. If I can’t understand your cards, I’m not going to sort it out for you later unless a rules or ethical violation has been alleged. It’s your job to tell me how I should evaluate the round, so leave yourself time to do it and don’t leave me picking-up the pieces for you. I do download your speech doc in the round for general understanding and in case of appeals, but I expect you to make the evidence clear orally. You need to be thinking about what a universal auditor of your debate can cognitively process and reasonably make meaning from within the time constraints of the debate.

If your speed exceeds my level for what feels appropriate, I will give you a verbal warning – “speed” – and will follow the NFA rules and drop you if you do not slow down. If your opponent asks you for a slower round, I expect you to comply.

If you make eye contact with me from time to time during the debate, you will know when I’m frustrated.

Do You Like X? Will You Vote on Y?

I will accept any positions that function within a policy framework and/or utilize the stock issues. I have no inherent biases one way or another as to topicality, counterplans, spec positions, etc. I am open to kritikal arguments on the negative, so long as they can be filtered through a policy frame of reference (i.e.: a kritik that stems directly from the rhetoric of, or rhetorical implications of, a particular policy action on perspective) and qualitatively weighed. In short, the kritik functions for me like a disadvantage wherein I am weighing the implications of the kritik as a factor in the broader cost-benefit analysis.

Don’t Worry

I flow on my laptop and am sometimes moving documents between your speech docs and the flow. I also write comments on the ballot during the round in an attempt to be thorough about feedback on particular speeches. Do not worry that either of these things means that I’m not flowing or a judgment is already in progress.

“Post Rounding”

I will give an oral critique, within the constraints set by NFA for completing rounds on time. I will disclose the decision unless NFA says not to in a particular round. I will answer reasonable and polite questions asked about my decision or the evaluation of different issues. I do not, however, wish to have a debate about the debate with you. If you don’t like my decision, that’s your prerogative. Feel free to go vent to your teammates or your judge. If I feel I am being harassed, I will stop the critique.

Eric Morris, DoF - Missouri State – 29th Year Judging

++++ NDT Version ++++ (Updated 10-22-2019)

(NFALD version: https://forensicstournament.net/MissouriMule/18/judgephil)

Add me to the email - my Gmail is ermocito

I flow CX because it is binding. I stopped recording rounds but would appreciate a recording if clipping was accused.

Be nice to others, whether or not they deserve it.

I prefer line by line debate. People who extend a DA by by grouping the links, impacts, UQ sometimes miss arguments and get lower points. Use opponent's words to signpost.

Assuming aff defends a plan:

Strong presumption T is a voting issue. Aff should win you meet neg's interp or a better one. Neg should say your arguments make the aff interp unreasonable. Topic wording or lit base might or might not justify extra or effects T, particularly with a detailed plan advocate.

High threshold for anything except T/condo as voting issues*. More willing than some to reject the CP, K alts, or even DA links on theory. Theory is better when narrowly tailored to what happened in a specific debate. I have voted every possible way on condo/dispo, but 3x Condo feels reasonable. Under dispo, would conceding "no link" make more sense than conceding "perm do both" to prove a CP did not compete?

Zero link, zero internal link, and zero solvency are possible. Zero impact is rare.

Large-scale terminal impacts are presumed comparable in magnitude unless you prove otherwise. Lower scale impacts also matter, particularly as net benefits.

Evidence is important, but not always essential to initiate an argument. Respect high-quality opponent evidence when making strategic decisions.

If the plan/CP is vague, the opponent gets more input into interpreting it. CX answers, topic definitions, and the literature base helps interpret vague plans, advocacy statements, etc. If you advocate something different from your cards, clarity up front is recommended.

I am open to explicit interps of normal means (who votes for and against plan and how it goes down), even if they differ from community norms, provided they give both teams a chance to win.

Kritiks are similar to DA/CP strategies but if the aff drops some of the "greatest hits" they are in bad shape. Affs should consider what offense they have inside the neg's framework interp in case neg wins their interp. K impacts, aff or neg, can outweigh or tiebreak.

Assuming aff doesn't defend a plan:

Many planless debates incentivize exploring important literature bases, but afer decades, we should be farther along creating a paradigm that can account for most debates. Eager to hear your contributions to that! Here is a good example of detailed counter-interps (models of debate). http://www.cedadebate.org/forum/index.php/topic,2345.0.html

Impact turns are presumed relevant to kritikal args. "Not my pomo" is weak until I hear a warranted distinction. I prefer the negative to attempt direct engagement (even if they end up going for T). It can be easier to win the ballot this way if the aff overcovers T. Affs which dodge case specific offense are particularly vulnerable on T (or other theory arguments).

Topicality is always a decent option for the neg. I would be open to having the negative go for either resolution good (topicality) or resolution bad (we negate it). Topicality arguments not framed in USFG/framework may avoid some aff offense.

In framework rounds, the aff usually wins offense but impact comparison should account for mitigators like TVA's and creative counter-interps. An explicit counter-interp (or model of debate) which greatly mitigates the limits DA is recommended - see example below. Accounting for topic words is helpful. TVA's are like CP's because they mitigate whether topics are really precluded by the T interp.

If I were asked to design a format to facilitate K/performance debate, I would be surprised. After that wore off, I would propose a season-long list of concepts with deep literature bases and expect the aff to tie most into an explicit 1AC thesis. Such an approach could be done outside of CEDA if publicized.

This was too short?

* Some ethical issues, like fabrication, are voting issues, regardless of line by line.

I debated in CEDA for Kansas State in the early 1990s. Debate was fast, but the topics were non-policy, and topicality was far more common than counterplans or kritiks. I've judged a handful of high school and college rounds since then, including the 2019 Gorlok.

Since I'm out of practice, you should not go TOP speed, but some debaters at the Gorlok slowed down far more than was necessary. The important thing is clear signposting.

Affirmatives should read a topical plan.

I will vote negative on topicality if the negative wins that the plan violates the best interpretation.

Disad + Case debating is a great choice, and impacts are good.

I generally find CP's more persuasive than kritiks. I wasn't impressed with the Death K read in front of me at the Gorlok. If you read a kritik, I will flow it and think about it, but specific links that make it fundamentally refute the aff are important and its hard to persuade me to ignore the aff for impact comparison.

Feel free to ask more specific questions before any debate, and have a good time!

I am a Debate Coach at McKendree University. We compete primarily in the NPDA and NFA-LD formats of debate. We also host and assist with local high school teams, who focus on NSDA-LD and PF.

Email: banicholsonATmckendreeDOTedu

I have sections dedicated to each format of debate I typically judge and you should read those if you have time. If you don’t have time, read the TLDR and ask your specific questions before the round. If you do a format of debate I don’t have a section for, read as much as you can and ask as many questions as you want before the round.

TLDR

My goal as a judge is to adapt to the round that debaters have. I do not expect debaters to adapt to me. Instead, I want you to do what you want to do. I try to be a judge that debaters can use as a sounding board for new arguments or different arguments. I feel capable judging pretty much any kind of debate and I’ll always do my best to render a fair decision that is representative of the arguments I’ve seen in the round. If I am on a panel, feel free to adapt to other judges. I understand that you need to win the majority, not just me, and I’m never going to punish you for that. Do what wins the panel and I’ll come along for the ride.

I view debate as a game. But I believe games are an important part of our lives and they have real impacts on the people who play them and the contexts they are played in. Games also reflect our world and relationships to it. Debate is not a pro sport. It is not all about winning. Your round should be fun, educational, and equitable for everyone involved. My favorite thing to see in a debate round is people who are passionate about their positions. If you play hard and do your best, I'm going to appreciate you for that.

The quick hits of things I believe that you might want to know before the round:

1. Specificity wins. Most of the time, the debater with the more well-articulated position wins the debate. Get into the details and make comparisons.

2. I like debaters who seek out clash instead of trying to avoid it. Do the hard work and you will be rewarded.

3. I assume negative advocacies are conditional unless stated otherwise. I think conditionally is good. Anything more than two advocacies is probably too much. Two is almost always fine. One conditional advocacy is not at all objectionable to me. Format specific notes below.

4. I love topicality debates. I tend to dislike 1NC theory other than topicality and framework. 2AC theory doesn’t appeal to me most of the time, but it is an important check against negative flex, so use it as needed.

5. I don’t exclude impact weighing based on sequencing. Sequencing arguments are often a good reason to preference a type of impact, but not to exclude other impacts, so make sure to account for the impacts you attempt to frame out.

6. I will vote on presumption. Debate is an asymmetrical game, and the negative does not have to win offense to win the round. However, I want negative debaters to articulate their presumption triggers for me, not assume I will do the work for them.

7. I think timeframe and probability are more important than magnitude, but no one ever does the work, so I end up voting for extinction impacts because that feels least interventionist.

8. Give your opponents’ arguments the benefit of the doubt. They’re probably better than you give them credit for and underestimating them will hurt your own chances of winning.

9. Debates should be accessible. If your opponent (or a judge) asks you to slow down, slow down. Be able to explain your arguments. Be kind. Debate should be a fun learning experience for everyone.

10. In evidence formats, you should be prepared to share that evidence with everyone during the round via speechdrop, email chain, or flash drive.

11. All debate is performative. How you choose to perform matters and is part of the arguments you make. That often doesn’t come up, but it can. Don’t say hateful things or be rude. I will dock speaker points accordingly.

General

This philosophy is very expansive. That is because I want you to be able to adapt to me as much as you want to adapt. To be totally honest, you can probably just debate how you want and it will be fine – I really do want you to do you in rounds. But I also want you to know who I am and how I think about debate so that you can convince me.

Everything is up for debate. For every position I hold about debate, it seems someone has found a corner case. I try to be clear and to stick to my philosophy’s guidelines as much as possible as a judge. Sometimes, a debater changes how I see debate. Those debaters get very good speaker points. (Speaking of which, my speaker points center around a 28.1 as the average, using tenth points whenever possible).

I flow on a laptop most of the time now. Flowing on paper hurts my hand in faster rounds. If I’m flowing on paper for some reason, I might ask you to slow down so that I can flow the debate more accurately. If I don’t ask you to slow down, you’re fine – don’t worry about it. I don’t number arguments as I flow, so don’t expect me to know what your 2b point was without briefly referencing the argument. You should be doing this as part of your extensions anyway.

One specific note about my flowing that I have found impacts my decisions compared to other judges on panels is that I do not believe the “pages” of a debate are separate. I view rounds holistically and the flow as a representation of the whole. If arguments on separate pages interact with each other, I do not need explicit cross-applications to understand that. For instance, “MAD checks” on one page of the debate answers generic nuke war on every page of the debate. That work should ideally be done by debaters, but it has come up in RFDs in the past, so I feel required to mention it.

In theory debates, I’ve noticed some judges want a counter-interpretation regardless of the rest of the answers. If the strategy in answering theory is impact turns, I do not see a need for a counter-interp most of the time. In a pure, condo bad v condo good debate, for instance, my presumption is condo, so the negative can just read impact turns and impact defense and win against a “no condo” interp. Basically, if the aff says “you can’t do that because it is bad” and the neg says “it is not bad and, in fact, is good” I do not think the neg should have to say “yes, I can do that” (because they already did it). The counter-interp can still help in these debates, as you can use it to frame out some offense, by creating a lower threshold that you still meet (think “some condo” interps instead of “all condo”).

I look to texts of interps over spirit of interps. I have rarely seen spirit of the interp clarified in the 1NC and it is often used to pivot the interp away from aff answers or to cover for a bad text. If you contextualize your interp early and then stick to that, that is fine. But don’t use spirit of the interp to dodge the 2AC answers.

I start the round with the assumption that theory is a prior question to other evaluations. I will weigh theory then substance unless someone wins an argument to the contrary. Critical affs do not preclude theory in my mind unless a debater wins a compelling reason that it should. I default to evaluating critical arguments in the same layer as the rest of the substantive debate. I am compelled by arguments that procedural issues are a question of judging process (that non-topical affs skew my evaluation of the substance debate or multi-condo skews the speech that answers it, for instance). I am unlikely to let affirmative teams weigh their aff against theory objections to that aff without some good justifications for that.

A topicality interpretation should allow some aff ground. If there is not a topical aff and the aff team points that out, I'm unlikely to vote neg on T. That means you should read a TVA if you’re neg (do this anyway). I am open to sketchier T interps if they make sense. For instance, if you say that a phrase in the res means the aff must be effectually topical, I can see myself voting for this argument. Keep in mind, however, that these arguments run the risk of your opponent answering them well and you gaining nothing.

NPDA

I’m going to start with the biggest change in my NPDA philosophy. Debates need to slow down. I still think speed is good. If all the debaters are fine with speed, I still like fast debate and want to see throwdowns at top speed. However, analytics with no speech docs are brutal to flow. Too many warrants get dropped. While we have laundry lists of arguments, they are often not dealt with in depth because they’re just hard to keep track of and account for. Our best NPDA debaters could debate at about 80% of their top speeds and maintain argumentative depth through improved efficiency and increased focus on the core issues of rounds, while still making the complex and nuanced arguments we want and getting more of them on each other’s flows and into each other’s speeches. Seek out clash!

NPDA is a strange beast. Without carded evidence, uniqueness debates and author says X/no they say Y can be messy. That just means you need to explain a way you want me to evaluate them and, ultimately, why I should believe your interpretation of that author’s position or the argument you’ve made. In yes/no uniqueness questions, explain why you believe yes, not just that someone else does. That means explaining the study or the article reasoning that you’re leaning on and applying it to the specifics of the debate. Sometimes it just means you need an “even if” argument to hedge your bets if you lose those issues. I try to let these things be resolved in round, but sometimes I have to make a judgment call and I’ll do my best to refer only to my flow when that happens. But remember, the evidence alone doesn’t win evidence debates – the warrants and reasoning do the heavy lifting.

Arguments in parliamentary debate require more reasoning and support because there is no printed evidence available to rely on. That means you should not just yoink the taglines out of a file someone open-sourced. You should explain the arguments as they are explained in the texts those files are cut from. Use your own words to make the novel connections to the rounds we’re in and the topics we discuss. This is a beautiful thing when it happens, and those rounds show the promise that parli has as a productive academic endeavor. We don’t just rely on someone else saying it – we can make our own arguments and apply what others have said to new scenarios. So, let’s do that!

Affirmative teams must affirm the resolution. How you do that is up to you. The resolution should be a springboard for many conversations, but criticizing the res is not a reason to vote affirmative. You can read policy affs, value affs, performance affs, critical affs, and any other aff you can think of as long as it affirms the res. Affs should include an interpretation of the resolution and a weighing mechanism to determine if you’ve met this burden. That is not often necessary in policy affs (because it happens contextually), but sometimes it helps to clarify. I am not asking the aff to roleplay as oppressors or to abdicate their power to pose questions. Instead, I want the aff team to reframe questions if necessary and to contextualize their offense to the resolution.

Negative teams must answer the affirmative. How you do that is up to you. You should make sure I know what your objections to the aff strategy are and why they are voting issues. That can be T, DAs, Ks, performances, whatever (except spec*). I vote on presumption more than most judges in NPDA. The aff must win offense and affs don’t always do that. I think “risk of solvency” only applies if I know what I’m risking. I must be able to understand and explain what an aff does on my ballot to run that “risk” on their behalf. With all that said, articulate presumption triggers for me. When you extend defense in the MO, explain “that’s a presumption trigger because…”.

I can buy arguments that presumption flips aff in counter-advocacy debates, but I don’t see that contextualized well and is often just a “risk of solvency” type claim in the PMR. This argument is most compelling to me in PIC debates, since the aff often gets less (or none) of their 1AC offense to leverage. Absent a specific contextualization about why presumption flips aff in this round (bigger change, PIC, etc.), I tend to err neg on this question, though it rarely comes up.

*On spec: Spec shells must include a clear brightline for a ‘we meet’ – so ‘aff must specify the branch (judicial, legislative, executive)’ is fine. Spec shells often only serve to protect weak link arguments (which should be improved, rather than shielded by spec) or to create time tradeoffs. They are sometimes useful and good arguments, but that scenario is rare. In the few cases where spec is necessary, ask a question in flex. If that doesn’t work, read spec.

Condo: 1 K, 1 CP, and the squo is fine to me. Two Ks is a mess. Two CPs just muddles the case debate and is worse in NPDA because we lack backside rebuttals. Contradictory positions are fine with me (procedurally, at least). MGs should think ahead more and force bad collapses in these debates. Kicking the alt doesn’t necessarily make offense on the link/impact of a K go away (though it often does). I am open to judge kicking if the neg describes and justifies an exact set of parameters under which I judge kick. I reserve the right to not judge kick based on my own perception of these arguments. So probably don’t try to get me to judge kick, honestly.

I don't think reasonability (as it is frequently explained) is a good weighing mechanism for parli debates. It seems absurd that I should be concerned about the outcomes of future debates with this topic when there will be none or very few and far between. At topic area tournaments, I am more likely to vote on specific topicality. That does not mean that you can't be untopical, it just means you need good answers. Reasonability makes more sense to me at a tournament that repeats resolutions (like NPTE).

NFA-LD

I tend to think disclosure of affs (once you’ve read them) is good and almost necessary and that disclosure of negs is very kind, but not necessary. The more generic a neg position is, the more likely I am to want it disclosed, but I’ll never expect it to be disclosed. I won’t take a strong position on any of this – disclose what you want to disclose (or don’t disclose at all) and defend that practice if necessary.

Affirmatives should stake out specific ground in the 1AC and defend it throughout the round. I don’t care how you do this, whether it is a plan, an advocacy, a performance is up to you. I think that topical plan debate is often the easiest to access, but I don’t believe that makes it the only accessible form of debate or the only good form of debate. So, read the aff you want to read, but be prepared to defend it. Affirmative debaters can (and sometimes should) kick their advantage offense to go for offense on a neg position. I don’t see this enough and I really wish it was more common in plan debates, especially.

Negatives should answer the aff. How you answer the aff is your business, but I like specific links for negative arguments. On case, I love a good impact turn, but I’ll settle for any offense. In terms of DA choice, I think you benefit from reading high magnitude impacts most of the time, because the aff likely outweighs systemic DAs or has systemic impacts of its own.

For criticisms, I just want to understand what is happening. Most of the time that’s not a problem, but don’t assume I’ve read your lit or understand the jargon. I would prefer if you can articulate your criticism in accessible language in CX. I tend to prefer a K with a material impact, but I can vote for impacts that are less material if they’re explained well and interact with the aff impact in a meaningful way.

Negative procedurals should be limited to topicality if possible. T isn’t a voting issue because of “rules”. It’s a voting issue because of how it impacts debates. I default to competing interps and don’t usually hear a good justification (or even definition) for reasonability. I will still weigh based on reasonability if it is explained and won.

Spec, speed bad, and norm-setting arguments (like disclosure) generally don’t appeal to me. I understand their importance in some strategies and sometimes they are required. If someone refuses to slow down, I understand the need to say speed is bad. But I don’t care about rules, I care about how people are being treated – so make speed debates be about that. Spec and norm-setting arguments should be about the impact on research practices, education, and fairness in rounds.

2AC/1AR theory is not my favorite. I want debates to be about the aff case and when the affirmative debater decides to introduce additional issues, that often takes away from discussion of the aff itself. I know sometimes people go too far, and you have to read condo or delay bad or whatever. That’s fine. But use your best judgement to avoid reading theory in unnecessary situations and when you do have to read theory, keep the debate about the aff if possible.

I expect clear interpretations and voting issues for theory shells. I’ve noticed that this is not always the case in the NFA-LD theory debates I’ve seen, and teams would benefit from a specific statement of what should and/or should not be allowed.

Negative debaters should prioritize impact framing and delineate a path to the ballot for themselves. I have seen quite a few debates where the NR gets bogged down in the line-by-line and the aff wins by virtue of contextualizing arguments just a bit. In your NRs and 2ARs, I’d like to see more comparative analysis and focus on what my ballot should say, rather than exclusively line-by-line. You still need to answer and account for arguments in the line-by-line, but absent a clear “mission statement” for your speech paired with necessary analysis, it is hard to vote for you. Aff debaters can’t go all big picture in the 2AR. You have to deal with the line-by-line. I can’t ignore the NR and let you give a 3-minute overview. Get short and sweet with your overview. Clarify your path to ballot and then execute that strategy on the flow.

NSDA General

I’ve heard many things referred to as “cards” that are not cards. A card needs to be a direct quotation, read in part (marked by underlining and highlighting) with a citation and a tagline that explains that argument. Present it in this order: Tagline, Author/Year, Evidence. Referencing a study or article is not a “card.”

You should be reading cards in debates. And you should be prepared to share those cards with your opponents. If you’d like help learning how to cut evidence into cards and how to share those cards quickly with your opponents and judges, I’ll gladly walk you through the process – but there are many resources available to you outside of me so seek them out.

Seek out clash. Don’t say “my partner will present that later” or dodge questions. Find the debate and go to it. We’re here to answer each other’s arguments and learn from the process, so let’s do that.

Time yourselves and each other – you should keep track of your prep time and your opponent’s prep time and time every speech in the debate. This is a good habit that you need to build.

NSDA-LD

Values and value criterions are a weighing mechanism for evaluation of arguments. Winning the value debate matters because it changes how I view impacts in the round and prioritize them. I understand the idea of “upholding a value” as the end goal of an LD round, and I can buy into that as a way to win a round, too. However, if that’s what you do, I probably won’t vote for impacts outside of that framework. You should choose between (1) upholding a value as a virtue or good in itself or (2) winning impacts that you will frame using your value/criterion. Both are valid, but I am inclined toward the impact style (option 2) by default.

I tend to think of LD debates in four parts: Definitions, Value, Aff Contentions, and Neg Contentions. I think it makes sense to flow LD on three sheets: One for definitions and values, one for aff contentions, and one for neg contentions. That makes the clash in definitions and aff/neg value easier to isolate and prevents a lot of strange and usually unnecessary cross-applications. Thinking of negative values as “Counter Values” that answer the aff value makes a lot more sense to me. You don’t have to do this in your round or on your flow, but it should help you conceptualize how I think about these debates.

I have not judged many plan-focused rounds in NSDA-LD, but I’m open to that if that is your style or you want to experiment. If you do this, I’ll flow top of aff, advantages, and neg positions on separate sheets like I would in a policy debate, and you can ignore the stuff about values above.

I am open to the less traditional arguments available to you. I love to see the unique ways you can affirm or negate using different literature bases than just the core social contract and ethics grab-bag.

Public Forum

I don’t have a ton of specific notes for PF. Check out the general section for NSDA and feel free to ask questions.

I like when the aff team speaks first. It makes debates cleaner and encourages negative responsiveness to the aff. You don’t have to choose first if you’re aff and like speaking second. But keep it in mind and do what you will with that information.

I don’t flow crossfires. I pay attention, but you need to bring up relevant crossfire moments in your speech and explain why they matter for me vote for them or include them in my decisions.

I have 8 years of debate experience; I participated in Public Forum Debate in High School, and then in college participated in PF, NPDA, and IPDA. I have been judging and coaching for two years.

I am a flow judge. I will flow everything you say (and nothing you don’t say). Don’t bring new arguments up in your last speeches, I will not flow them. I will utilize the flow to help finalize my RFDs.

I will not tolerate spreading or speeding. The purpose of debate is to persuade the judge, if I cannot understand what you are saying, I will not flow it and you will not persuade me. I will give one chance to slow down, if the competitor continues spreading or speeding, I will put my pen down and they will lose my ballot.

I want to see good clash between opponents, I want opponents to be respectful of each other, and I want to hear some good persuasion!

Speech Docs: MoStateDebate@gmail.com
Asst Coach at MoState.
2x NDT Qualifier for MoState, Graduated in 23'.
3rd at NFA Nationals 2021, 4x NFA Nationals Qualifier

Random Thoughts:
- "I'm going to flow your speech. There is nothing you can possibly do to stop this short of concede. What's worse, I'm even going to decide the debate based on said flow and said flow alone."

- I do not care what you do, Everything is up for debate (besides objectively wrong things).

- Please keep track of your time, I want to keep track of your speech and the docs, not the time.

- You will often do better if you debate how you feel rather than adjusting to this paradigm.

- Pen time is GREAT, make it easy to flow your speech and you will be rewarded.

- I'll probably take a long time to decide as I try to be respectful of the time and energy that we put into this game. I really try to invest in debate as much as everyone else does, and love to reward bold strategic choices (no, not spark).

- My decisions are going to be what's exactly on my paper, and speaker points will be how well you articulated the thing from the flow to being understood + clarity.

- Evidence Quality is under rated. I'll 1000% read your evidence during, and after the round. You should probably tell me HOW to read it. If it does not say the thing that you think it does, things will not go well for you.

Specific ?'s:

Policy v. K ideological divide (the stuff that matters for prefs).

- I tend to like both for different reasons. I think that being strategic is the best thing that you can do in front of me, be bold and embrace your decisions whole-heartedly. My first 2 years of college debate, I debated exclusively the K (pomo, cybernetics, queerness, etc.), and the last 2 1/2 years, I debated mainly policy. With that in mind, that means I don't have ideological underpinnings that assist either side.

- I think that the strongest part of the K is the Link, and weakest part is the Alt. Policy AFF's tend to have more warrants for how they solve things, than why they actually do. I think that it behoves both teams to play to the others weakness. K's are better at why, and Policy stuff is better at how, explain to me which is better.

Policy:

- I tend to think that offense is where I always start, and the place that teams should always spend the most time on. Impacts tend to be the things that decide debates, and make everything else important as they leak out of that.

- Case debating is a lost and dead art, please bring it back. Hyper specific case negs or good impact D debating is the best stuff to watch.

CP's:

- CP Texts for Perms >>>>

- Fine with Judge Kick, if it makes sense. Should be more than a 10 second blurb.

- PICs are cool, and often strategic.

DA:

- Turns Case is ESSENTIAL, and is usually the difference between a Win that can be easily sought out, and a Win that I scratch my head for a while at.

Topicality:

- T should have a case list, of what is and isn't T.

- Reasonability is probably bad, unless you have a good argument about why your AFF is essential to the topic thus -> Competing Interps !

- Quals are better than no Quals

Theory:

- I think there is a sharp divide between the neg being strategic, and just trying to make the 2AC's life hard by not really debating stuff. I think hard debate should be rewarded, and cowards shouldn't. The best strategies that we always remember were never the 12 off with the 9 plank CP, but the 4-5 off with the impact turns etc. With that said, I think 3 condo is probably my limit (each plank counts as 1 unless stated otherwise by the neg), and contradictions are fine until the block.

K's:

- Telling me why your links mean that I should weigh the AFF and how that implicates their research is probably much better than just stating why your model of debate is better. Vice Versa for AFF, telling me why your research praxis is good, and should be debated is better than telling me why it's a pain you can't weigh the AFF. I think that fairness is an impact, but we have been on the fairness spiel for like 20+ years.

- More impact analysis > no impact analysis.

K AFF's/FW:

- I think that teams should probably read a plan text, and talk about the resolution. But if you want to read a AFF without a plan text, go for it as long as you do it well. Usually, negative teams going for framework do so poorly.

- I usually prefer fairness as an externalization of education, and how it impacts the game of debate in terms of making us better people and/or better educators.

- Definitions are under-used, and I think that the best AFF's make us really ponder how we should collectively view the topic.

Help your judge vote for you:

I really dislike competitiors who are arrogant and are rude about it to their opposition. I do not care how much experience you have or how many awards you have won. Everyone has an equal opportunity at winning the round. And when you are rude it just makes your judge not want to vote for you.

Look I debated in CEDA back in the day. But I am old now so I do not flow as fast as I used to. So speed at your own risk. I will try and catch it all. But it is your job to make sure it is on my flow. And if it is not on my flow then it is not in the round and I can not vote on it. Also being clear helps when you are trying to get something on my flow.

You should sign-post and give me the road map at the beginning of your speech. But you MUST also tell me where you want me to flow arguments in your speech. For example when you are finished with answering the topicality and you want me to start flowing on the Disadvantage then tell me you are moving on to the DISAD!!!

So for debates that involve carded evidence - I flow tag lines. I do not flow authors ever. Its your opponents job to PIMP the card if needed. That means if you tell me to cross apply or pull the smith card, I will have no idea what I am pulling. Additionally, since I only flow the tag line a good rule of thumb is to slow down on the tag line and then you can speed as fast as you want through the card.

Line by Line is just better debate strategy for you. If the negative runs a Disad with 7 arguments and you answer each one directly that is line by line. What is not line by line is just running 20 answers on the Disad and having me guess what arguments they apply to. That is not line by line and since you did not specifically tell me it was against a particular argument I may not apply it how you want to. And most importanatly, those arguments you did not specifically answer are dropped and can be pulled in the last rebuttal by your opposition for the win.

One major mistake that good debaters make is that they assume that I understand the theory argument, disad, or critique they just ran. I am not a computer. I do not know everything. Chances are I do not understand what you just ran. So explain it to me because it is hard to vote on what I do not understand. Never assume.

The one thing that I am given as a judge is the resolution. Do not forget that I am voting affirmative or negative on that resolution. If you wish me to do something different then you must clearly point that out and have justification for that. The resolution is always my default as to what I am voting on.

I do not vote on new arguments in last rebuttals. New answers to what your opposition just said are still new, they are just permissable new arguments. But I still do not vote on those by themselves. Which means you need to pull the original arguments from the Case, Disad or Topicality if you want me to vote on it. Just answering some things is not enough. Never abandon the line by line in the last rebuttal. We did all this work on the flow for a reason. You must pull the arguments into the last rebuttal in order to win it. If it is not in the last rebuttal I will assume you have dropped it or kicked it.

Debate is Debate - I do not judge any style different than the other. Telling me that a style does not require the burden of rejoinder is nonsence. The very core of debate is that one side makes an argument and the other side should make an argument against it. Without it an absurd result is created where a debater could fail to respond to an argument and expect that I was prohibited from evaluating it at all because they "don't have to respond". The burden of rejoinder is inherent in debate. If you do not want to lose that argument then you do have to respond to it or the otherside can pull it in the last rebuttal and ask me to vote on it. Without the burden of rejoinder you no longer have debate. SMH!!!

I am an Assistant Professor and Assistant Director of Debate at Missouri State University. I have 8 years of experience as a competitor: 4 years of experience in high school policy debate (@ Oak Park River Forest High School, in Oak Park, Illinois), and 4 years of experience in college policy debate (@ Trinity University, in San Antonio, Texas). After graduating, I’ve coached college teams for the past 7 years including 4 years @ the University of Georgia, and 3 years @ Trinity University.

The Judging Process:

I see myself as a technical* judge with an important caveat that I prefer debates, and my decisions, to be simple and explainable. What do I mean by this? The short version is that I put a lot of value on explicit refutation and clash. If one side advances an argument and the other team does not answer it, the other team will be forced to deal with the consequences of not answering it. The argument that is won (either through clash or the absence of it) will be given its full weight as introduced and explained by the team that has won it. But if I cannot explain the argument either to myself, or the losing team, or if I think you have done a poor job of explaining it then its relative weight or consequence may vary. I have said in the past that I am “tech over truth,” but also think that good tech needs to look true from afar. I stand by this.

Because I see myself as a technical judge, I will do my best to rid myself of my preconceived biases and presumptions about what is true, just, and moral and attempt to evaluate the debate based on the substance of what it is said. This is, of course, impossible. I often like to “put on hats” and pretend to be a coach of the teams I am judging, asking questions of myself like, “Ooooh, that was a good argument, I wonder what would be a persuasive/intelligent/challenging response to it?”, and if debaters make those arguments (or surprise me with arguments I had not yet considered) I find myself siding with them in the exchange over their opponents. The end result is that while I begin judging by aiming to rid myself of my biases I often judge the round in a kind of back-and-forth involving a certain amount of baton tossing that—if the debate would go on forever—would inevitably end up with me voting on and making decisions reflective of those biases I aimed to disabuse myself of previously. Thankfully, for you, debate rounds are limited—and that provides you the opportunity to win my favor provided your opponents don’t “one up you” with regard to whatever my biases are.

I will look at evidence if instructed, or if I need to use it to clarify something in the debate (usually this isn’t a good thing as it signifies you didn’t do the debating that your evidence was there to support). If possible, however, I try to make my decisions based on what was said in the debate rather than what was referenced.

I often write RFDs for both teams in the process of judging, and I spend most of my decision time pondering which RFD seems more defensible. I have yet to judge a round where I couldn’t see myself voting the other way. This means that even if you won my ballot you should know I spent quite a bit of time rationalizing to myself why you should lose it. I sometimes write an RFD, deliver it, and have some remorse about it (shout out to Wake Semis, Harvard vs Kentucky). In the end, I’d like us both to be happy about my decision so do your best to crush your opponent and remove any shadow of a doubt I might have about it.

What I Expect of You, The Debater: At the level of substance, I want you to read and advance whatever arguments you like. I will do my best to judge them in the manner so described above.

At the level of form, I want you to:

1) Speak when it is your turn to speak. Prompting is fine, but I will not flow your partner speaking during your speech. It is a team activity and we must live and die as a team.

2) Be kind and respectful to your opponents. I love trash talking, and I love a competitive debate. If you do too, however, make sure your opponents and you agree about the tone/intensity of the debate! You should approach your opponents as friends engaged in a spirited discussion, rather than bad apples/bad actors who need to be vanquished. Some of your friends are probably ok with reciprocal name-calling, others might not be. If you choose to engage in behavior that is “on the line,” make sure that your opponents are ok with that. The more personal the debate comes, the more replete with character attacks, name calling, or otherwise vicious and callous behavior, the more frustrated I will be.

Thoughts on Counterplans:

I often approach counterplans centered around the question of opportunity cost because, outside of debate, that is where I see the “real world relevance” for counterplans. As a consequence, I often feel that counterplans must present themselves as an opportunity cost for the actor to whom the initial plan was offered.

Let’s consider a real-life example. You and your friend Jolean have purchased tickets for a concert a few months in advance. You are both excited to go. Unfortunately, Jolean has failed their math test and now their parental figures have decided to punish them by not letting them go to the concert. Jolean proposes to you: “I’m going to go anyway, I’m going to sneak out of the house!” there are a number of advantages and disadvantages to this proposal, but there are, also, a number of counterplans available should you both wish to pursue something other than sneaking out.

Some of them might be PICs in terms of how Jolean has specified their policy proposal (e.g. Don’t sneak out of the house, tell your parents that it’s a study night instead and we can leave from my house), others might be more optimistic trying to solve the root cause of the problem (e.g. Don’t sneak out, try and convince your parents to let you go; OR don’t sneak out, work with your teacher and try to make up the grade for the test), and others still might cut losses and try to solve the advantage area in another way (e.g. Well, let’s go to another concert for a different band the following month instead). All of these counterplans are attempting to solve the aff’s harms, and whether or not they are competitive depends on them avoiding certain disadvantages to Jolean’s initial proposal. There is a debate to be had on this question (as well as the solvency of the counterplans), but I have no theoretical objections about the nature of the counterplan.

There are, however, another set of proposals you can pitch to Jolean. Perhaps, instead of sneaking out, the band should simply reschedule their concert date to be a month later. Or, instead of sneaking out, Jolean’s parents should rescind their punishment and drive the both of you to the concert. Or, maybe, Jolean’s teacher should drop the test and send an email to all the students clarifying that the test was written incorrectly, and all grades were wrong. All these proposals do seem to solve the problem! One way of decrying these proposals is to say they are “utopian”, but the real root of the problem is that they are outside the purview of the actors engaged in the initial policy discussion. If you told your friend Jolean that instead of sneaking out, that any of the above proposals should take place they would look at you confused and say, “Ok but I’m not them?” In policy debate we often see a number of counterplans that are theoretically illegitimate for these reasons.

Aside from this rant about actors, I have few problems with negative counterplans. The only final caveat I will make is that there is often a very ironic disconnect when the negative explains how important their CP is for education, all the while to establish competition they then force the aff to be (using self-serving definitions of words in the resolution) the most blunt-forced, un-nuanced kind of policy proposal. Education for me, and not for thee, I suppose.

Thoughts on Advantages and Disadvantages:

The link to most politics DAs rests upon a number of contradictory assumptions about fiat. Supposedly, the plan happens immediately (the negative says this so they can claim that it interrupts the agenda), and yet apparently the debate on the plan is a multi-week fight involving a significant expenditure of political capital and good will? Ok. Another one: plan is passed through normal means of sorts—but they completely reshuffle the agenda in the process? Ok. The only time I’ve ever seen these make sense is at the cusp of a new administration who are bright-and-bushy-eyed with a number of policies as their priority (then, I believe, the case can be made persuasively that the plan sucks all the air out of the room). Aside from these time-sensitive politics DA, most versions of this DA are absurd. Last quibble: the quality of evidence in this debate is generally D+.

Claims about UQ determines the direction of…. Or Link determines the direction of….. rarely ever makes sense to me. In fact, they seem to show the hand teams who make them revealing they have strong arguments/evidence in column A and weak arguments/evidence in column B.

Terminal defense is possible, but most defense is far from terminal. Even the most sympathetic read of most arguments only offer a small amount of mitigation rather than outright mitigation. I think the best case defense is the type that says, ‘X is fine now’ or ‘X is being taken care of now’. These arguments are UQ and I/L defense all wrapped up into one.

If evidence is introduced in a debate that is contradictory to what the tag claims it to be, I think it is sufficient to talk to your judge about what the evidence says rather than re-highlighting the Frankenstein monster to make it accurately depict what it actually says. I am probably going to look at the card after the debate either way, so you’ll save some time if you just debate what was said/the un-underlined portions of the card rather than introducing it into the debate.

Thoughts on Kritiks:

I have more than a passing familiarity with most critical literatures. In addition to my own academic interests (I hold a PhD in Rhetorical Studies and have a MA in the same content area), I greatly enjoy reading philosophy in both the continental and analytic tradition in my own free time.

That being said, I often have a bone to pick with theory and its uses/abuses in policy debate. I believe you can and should lean on theory and concepts that are a step-beyond mainstream political discourse, but you also must translate and explain that theory and those concepts so that they can become a short-hand aid for you. With this means is that jargon filled speeches assuming I speak a common-critical language with you is likely going to be a road-to-nowhere. Not because I don’t understand what you are saying (although I might not), but because I need to be sure you understand what you are saying and can explain it to me in its most persuasive form.

As long as the debate is about the hypothetical enactment of the plan vs. a competitive policy option, I think that most kritiks are very hard to win absent some brutal drops by the affirmative (root cause, serial policy failure, floating PICs, etc.). On the flip side, if the negative wins their frameworks most affs become reduced to basically nothing. This is quite a conundrum that a number of judges and teams solve through some nonsensical statement like, “They get their K we get our aff.” What exactly is either side getting? These ‘permutations’ between mutually exclusive frameworks end up being a shitty deal for one of the parties involved (e.g. Ok you get to weigh your aff but we get mindset shift and you can’t perm or make alt solvency arguments). My only advice to both teams is to recognize the olive branch as the trojan horse that it is—otherwise, someone is going to get their feelings hurt.

Final thought: the perm is a defacto loser 9/10 for precisely this disconnect between frameworks. Since debate prioritizes offense over defense, for the perm to ever be a viable offense you will already need a significant amount of compelling offense against the kritik and I usually find that if you are at that point the offense is enough to win you the round anyway.

Thoughts on Topicality/Framework

Fairness is, of course, an impact. Anyone that enters into a game agrees to be bound by rules. If a player departs from those rules, they will obtain some competitive advantage at the expense of another. Preserving that competitive balance is often essential to extracting any of the other myriad benefits one may gain from playing a game.

That being said, it is important to be honest and acknowledge that very rarely (VERY RARELY, I cannot stress enough) do claims about fairness actually come into play in a debate round. This is because appeals to fairness truly only emerge when a player violates rules, not norms. When players introduced dunking into basketball a number of players cried afoul but such complaints rang hollow. Unless rules are modified to ban a practice, appeals to norms alone are not persuasive because your own "meta" strategy in a game can change as your opponent did.

One of the best parts about debate (I believe) is that the activity is so light on rules and so heavy on norms. Its what makes the game so dynamic. In few other games do you get to imagine and defend what sorts of norms players ought to be bound by. In my own debate career, while I would find myself often reading Framework against kritikal affs, I never did so with malice. In fact, when I look back on my debate career these were some of the most meaningful, challenging, and thought provoking rounds I had. While I certainly find arguments like topicality or framework persuasive, in truth I have no sympathy for folks that wish to codify something like topicality or framework into a governing rule for the activity. I always found these approaches to be a noxious combination of hubris and cowardice. If your model of debate is so good, surely it can/should win in the marketplace of ideas? And if those ideas are so indefensible before judges, why run to an enclave and protect bad arguments with institutional support?

While fairness is overused by the negative often in these debates, I think the constitutive features of the debate game are substantially underutilized. Most critical affs do not have a defense of the debate game as such, or a theory of how the gamified elements of debate (win/loss, speaker points, etc.) match up/interface with their kritiks. Another way to put this is to ask: what does your aff gain/lose being placed in a competitive arena, where opponents must disprove it to win the favor of judges? Most K affs are a defense of a good idea, not a defense of a model of debate that puts that good idea in front of opponents and asks them to prove why its a bad idea. This is a huge problem that negative teams do not focus on.

I think if K affs counter-defined words in the resolution on T and defended the educational/ethical benefits of that model of debate most neg teams (given the way they currently debate framework) would be in a really, really, really, rough spot.

Kelsey Schott (BA, MA, JD candidate) kelseyrschott@gmail.com; kelsey.schott@simpson.edu

US Director, Debate Camp (www.debatecamp.com)

Drake University Law School, JD Candidate '25

Communication Graduate Student, Assistant Debate Coach, Ball State University ‘21

Eastbourne College Debater in Residence, British Parliamentary Coach ‘19

Simpson College, competed in Parliamentary & Public Forum Debate ‘18

PF / LD

I will flow the entire round and use my flow to determine the round. I can follow speed most of the time and if I’m not writing you should slow down. Please make sure your opponents are okay with speed before the round to ensure fairness and education for everyone.

I like framework arguments especially when they’re done well. Both sides should address framework arguments if they are presented and carry them through all speeches for me to fully consider them. Please present net-benefits and impacts in the round. I favor debaters who articulate why their argumentation matters. I often vote off impacts and impact calculus.

Please use your summary speech to clarify and actually summarize the round. I view additional line-by-line argumentation in summary speeches unnecessary. You should use this speech for any clarifications on the flow that need to be made to solidify areas of heavy clash. I favor summary speeches that lay the groundwork for the final focus and introduce voters. Your final focus should only be used to give me reasons to vote for you. Give me a couple reasons why you won the round not why your opponents lost the round. I like our world vs their world analysis of the round to show me who outweighs on voters.

I will give speaker points on a 24-30 scale. Unless I am totally offended or you insulted an opponent, I will not go below 24. I will only give a 30 if I think you were one of the best speakers at the tournament. [unless otherwise directed by TAB]

I like rounds that are fun and contribute to the educational value of the activity!

The first thing you should know is that I am a professor who teaches rhetoric and argument, but I am not a debate coach and I have not debated in a long, long time. I understand how debate works, but I am not familiar with the jargon, acronyms, or the culture.

I am probably pretty old school when it comes to what I prefer in a debate. I think public speaking skills matter. I think adapting to your audience matters. I understand the necessity for speed on occasion, but if I can't understand what you're saying, I can't flow your arguments. I look for direct clash during the debate. Good signposting is essential for this. I like it when debaters clearly identify what they see as the voting issues and why they have won them. Also, I am not a fan of kritiks.

i competed in individual events for six years (two in high school and four in college). i have coached individual events for four years, debate a few times over those four years, and have judged across multiple formats of collegiate debate

spent four years at a university with a heavy presence on the nfa-ld circuit, so i can follow policy debate to an extent. if you're going too fast for me to follow, you won't get quality feedback. i don't know all the debate terminology and if you're just dropping all these terms and speaking super fast, i am not going to be able to flow you and will get super overwhelmed. that's not fun for either of us <3

note: spreading is waaaaaay harder to follow online than it is in-person. if i'm judging you online be conscious of this

i study rhetoric so argumentation is a pleasure of mine. that is not to say i am an expert! most of the time, you will have a firmer grasp on what's going on in the round than i do. unfortunately (for both of us), i'm the one whose opinion has control over your competitive success. i take that role very seriously and will do my best to make the most informed decision i can. if you disagree with that decision, just know that i'm some random dude who was given a ballot and you're entitled to that feeling. above all else, please be kind to yourself

love critical arguments of all kind. treat other humans with respect. don't be a jackass

Missouri State Debater (NDT-CEDA) 2007-2011; Judged NDT - 2011-2014; 2023-present

Greenwood Lab School - Middle and high school coach - 2011- 2023

Crowder College Director of Forensics (NFA-LD and IPDA debate formats) - 2015-2023

Missouri State Tournament Update

I have spent the last decade being around basically every other kind of debate besides NDT. I have judged at primarily regional and end of year national policy tournaments (NSDA and NCFL) for middle/high school and a ton of NFA-LD at the college level.

I have been working with novices and the packet this past month so I have some exposure to the topic (I also debated nukes) but you should assume I need a bit more explanation than the average judge about your argument.

Things I know to be true about myself as a judge:

1) I have a higher threshold for explanation and explaining how arguments interact than others. That is likely supercharged by the fact I haven't been around NDT in a few years. There are arguments that are just understood to mean certain things and I might not know what that is. Defer to explaining WHY winning an argument matters and interacts with the rest of the debate, even if you think it is obvious.

2) I don't have a lot of tolerance for unnecessary hostility and yelling (I am not talking about you being a loud person. You do you. I am talking about this in the context of it being directed towards others) in debates. There are times you need to assert yourself or ask a targeted series of questions, but I would much prefer that not to escalate. There is very little that is made better or more persuasive to me by being overly aggressive, evasive, or hostile.

3) Debate is an educational activity first, competitive second. I will judge the debate that happens in front of me to the best of my ability. Full stop. However, I believe in the educational value of what we learn in debates and will likely defer to the education side of things when in conflict.

4) My debate knowledge base is primarily shaped by NDT norms circa 2007-2012. I know some of those norms have changed. I will do my best to adapt the way the community has.

5) Policy arguments are more comfortable to me and what I know best. I would not consider myself particularly well versed in the nuances of most "K" literature that is read these days. However, with proper explanation and connections, I think I can judge any debate that I am presented with.

There is a ton not covered here. Feel free to ask questions or clarify. As I judge more, I am sure I will have more specific thoughts about specific parts of these debates and will add more.

Background: Masters student at University Nebraska Lincoln studying Communication Rhetoric with an emphasis on critical theory and film. Former 2021 NFA-LD National Champion, 2019 Missouri State Policy Champion, 2018 NCFL LD Quarterfinalist.

While I will likely vote for almost anything if you have the proper framework to justify it. I am a former critical anti-blackness debater. I believe debate is more than a game and my experience in the activity has obviously informed my love for critical debate. Critical education is a cornerstone of this activity that I love to explore. However, you can read just about anything in front of me but you should know my strengths and weakness as a judge. Don't think reading critical stuff is a auto-win, far from it, I'll hold you to a somewhat higher standard because I know what good K debate looks like and I understand it.

I'm not super well versed in the intricacies of policy argumentation despite my 10 years in this activity. I just ask you to meet me where I'm at. I love a good policy debate whenever the story of the AC is CLEAR and EXTENDED throughout the entirety of the debate. Your AR's shouldn't just be extension and tech, I need overviews and clear articulations of what the AFF does, what it solves and why it matters. Run your heg/econ/war policy AFF, just do it well. If you do run policy, do it well. However, I draw the line at any death/extinction good arguments. It's weird and privileged asf. If you think your opp can be construed as accelerationist or fascist, call it out as so and you will likely win. I'm tired of hearing "all humans need to die". I won't auto-down vote but if your opp impacts out your genocidal rhetoric, you're cooked tbh.

Policy NC's: In order, I prefer K's, Case Turns, DA's, CP's, Topicality, and Theory. I expect the AFF to cover all negative positions unless AR theory says otherwise. I will vote for topicality on policy AFF's but it will be an uphill battle reading framework against a non-T critical AFF. If it feels exclusionary, and the aff wins that it is, good luck.

Test your critical sauce in front of me, I will vote for K's/Critical AFF's them or give in depth feedback on how to improve them. I have a moderate/deep knowledge of most identity/class based critical literature and surface level understanding of po-mo crit lit. Run your critical/non-T AFF if you can win the topicality/methods debate, run the K if you know the actual links to the AFF. Rebuttal articulation is EVERYTHING.

If you're reading a non-T critical AFF, I would like your evidence to be rooted in the topic through the lens of your critical theory . I will be more sympathetic to well-crafted (rare) framework against non-T AFF's that are filled with backfile cards that have been read ad-nauseam in nearly all debate communities since 2000-2010 or even worse, cards that aren't even about the topic or identity. I'm not asking for you to role play the state, that's whack asf, i'm just asking you to innovate. I don't wanna hear the same afropess, be gay do crime and cap K cards that have been circulating in the community for decades. I want you to apply contemporary critical theory to the specific resolution at hand, you don't have to affirm the resolution but please, have to 1/3 or 1/2 or 2/3 of your AFF cards use same language used in the topic. There are scholars of all identities writing about Nuclear War, find them and amplify their voice. Framework is always an uphill battle in front of me but it's much easier when the AFF is not engaging with critical lit rooted in the topic.

K's: You need to clearly articulate why and how the AFF specifically links, and clearly isolate these links in the rebuttals. Explain why the perm isn't possible. Do not read afropess if you're not black. If you read links of omission, you better hope your opponent does not have a good response to why links of omission aren't real because I find those arguments persuasive. Links should be predicated off AFF action, language, impacts, politics, advantages etc.

Theory: Sure, I guess. I don't know much about condo/dispo/presumption, etc., so just try to explain them a little more than you'd usually have to for judges like me. I am less hesitant to vote for theory if it comes from an affluent or white team running frivolous theory interps against marginalized debaters/small schools. I encourage smaller teams to run disclosure theory against their opponents. If you're in policy, I may not be familiar with certain theory arguments.

Speed: I'm comfortable with speed if you go slow on tags and share docs. I flow on my laptop for most debates. Since I flow on my laptop, flash all docs and if you can, analytics too. Extra speaks for flashing analytics.

How to Get My Ballot: Win thesis-level claims and tell me where to vote and why. Exploit concessions (with warrants).

Feel free to email me at andre.j.swai@gmail.com for additional thoughts after the round and questions about college debate.

I am George Torto, an international Missouri State University Communication, Media, Journalism and Film Department graduate student. As a former debater back in both middle and high schools in Ghana, I would say I am quite conversant with the field. Prior to this season however, my experience with anything debate has been outside of the United States.

One cardinal thing I look out for in debate is respect and civility. These is the bedrock of debate. I expect debaters to treat each other with courtesy regardless of the differing opinions they may hold at that material moment. Assuming they are, I will vote affirmative if the unique benefits of the affirmative plan (beyond what a CP could solve) outweigh the unique disadvantages of adopting that plan. Of course, if the negative wins that the plan doesn't meet the best (or reasonable) interpretation of the topic, or a kritik shifts the debate focus, then the ballot will reflect that instead.

Regarding topicality, I start with definitions/interpretation and then move on to plan text and solvency evidence. Negative needs to clearly win the violation, but not necessarily unique abuse. Interpretation is based both on clarity of the line drawn and what it would do for both sides over a full season of debate.

Regarding kritiks, you need to clearly prove the affirmative is critically (not tangentally) dependent on the link that you critique. I'm open to the kritik framework changing the topic of the debate so long as you are clear about the alternative framework (including win conditions for both sides), starting in the constructives.

My flow sheet isn't as detailed as someone who has been doing this for a decade, and I do not recommend going top speed. If you are speaking too quickly or have clarity problems, you should be able to notice my nonverbals and correct it.

N/A