Tech>truth in all circumstances.

I will try to keep my intervention to a minimum and judge the round based solely on the arguments presented by the debaters. My personal opinion on the arguments should not matter and should not affect my decision.

Please speak clearly so that I can follow your arguments. Please use verbal indicators at the end of a card and before the following tag. It would be helpful if you could use numbers or letters in early constructives to make signposting easier.

Please include me on the email chain and ensure your speech is clear and well-paced. Avoid using excessive jargon and short-hand as it may appear confusing. If I cannot understand your argument, I will not include it in the final decision. This is especially important for Kritiks. Try to explain your philosophy as though you are explaining it to a twelve-year-old.

Hello all,

First and foremost, remain civil within rounds, especially during CX. I will dock speaker points if you're being outright disrespectful.

On the topic of speaker points, one thing that bothers me is super fast talking to the point where you can't even make out the tag. Please go slower when reading the tags.

I'll vote on T regardless if it is a core file league. Other than that, any argument with me goes as long as you can prove/support it.

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE do not say that you'll be covering "line by line" during your roadmap. It annoys the judge when your arguments are not organized and I will dock speaker points if I have to flip back and forth between flows constantly.

An easy way to win is by explaining (thoroughly) why your arguments are better than your opponents. Don't just read a few sentences from each card. Also, extend your arguments throughout the round and SIGNPOST. Judges really like signposting it makes the round go so much easier.

IMPACT CALC IS SUPER IMPORTANT

Again this varies depending on the experience of the debate team.

Good luck!

- Josh (he/him)

I'm a former national circuit high school debater from the mid-1990's, but since that time I have not had much in-round debate experience until the 2020-2021 season.

My general approach is to assess the round based solely on the arguments presented by the debaters, with as little intervention by me as possible, and where tech dominates truth. The remainder of this paradigm should be viewed in that light -- that is, it's a heads up on my general perspectives on debate that may or may not be helpful to you, but if we're all doing our jobs well, my perspectives shouldn't really matter and shouldn't enter into the RFD.

The specifics below are really intended to highlight a handful of areas where my own views or capabilities may differ from other judges.

********

Flowing / speed / clarity: I flow on paper. Please don't start your speech until you've given a roadmap, and until it's clear that I'm ready.

If you're an experienced high school debater, please know that my ear for speed is not quite what it used to be. I would suggest going a little bit slower everywhere except the body of cards. (That said, I do pay attention to what is read in the body of cards, and only consider a card to be evidenced to the extent that it is actually read in the round.) You certainly don't need to be at normal-person conversational speed, but taking 20-30% of your speed off would probably be helpful to you.

Please include some sort of unambiguous verbal indicator at the end of a card and before the following tag. A very brief pause is a start. A simple and clear "Next" is better. While it may be old-school, and very slightly inefficient, I'm still partial to some sort of number or letter in early constructives, particularly because numbers and letters allow for easier signposting in the line-by-line in later speeches. (Though, I also tend to hate 1-a-b-c, 2-a-b-c, etc., unless the sub-structure is highly related to itself, e.g., CP theory.)

There's an extent to which line-by-line seems to be a lost art, as does flowing. To an extent, I'll try to do the work for you and see if a given argument has in fact been dropped, but the best way to ensure that my flow has you covering everything is to signpost everything, and respond / extend in the order of the original line-by-line, i.e., the 1NC on-case and the 2AC off-case.

Please include me on the email chain -- I'll provide my email address before the round. In middle school and high school novice, my standard policy is to *not* follow along in the file, and I won't read cards unless I need to do so at the end of the round in order to assess some question of evidence. At the high school JV and Varsity levels, I'm more willing to follow along in the speech doc in order to do my part to adapt to you. But, I still expect clarity, signposting, and modulating speed on tags and cites.

Also, particularly at the high school JV / Varsity levels, I would strongly advise against reeling off multiple blippy analytics in the course of several seconds. If you do so, then if you're lucky, I will get one out of every four arguments on my flow, and it may not be the one you want the most. If there's a round-winning argument that you need me to understand, best to explain it thoroughly rather than assume I will understand the argument based on just a handful of words. This is all the more true if your delivery relies excessively on debate jargon or short-hand, some of which I can guarantee I'm not yet familiar with. (As an example, in a recent round, it took me a minute to infer that "a-spec", which I hadn't previously heard of, was just short-hand for "agent specification", with which I'm fairly familiar.) Please trust that I'm doing my level best, and that I'll be able to follow you when you're explaining things reasonably well.

In the end, if it's not on my flow, I can't assess it as part of the round, even if it's in your doc.

Kritiks: I have no principled opposition to voting on kritiks. This includes kritiks on the Aff. I do think Aff has the burden of proof to win definitively that they do not or should not need to have a topical plan. That is a burden that I have seen overcome, though the more of these rounds I see, the tougher this sell becomes for me. Regardless, in the end this is a question that I'll resolve based on the flow.

I'm arguably not clever enough to understand many kritiks -- I dropped the philosophy major because I couldn't hack it, and became a physics/math major instead -- so persuading me to vote on the basis of a kritik may require a fair bit more explanation than you would typically offer. I will take no shame in telling you that I straight up didn't understand your argument and couldn't vote on it as a result. This most likely occurs if you overly rely on philosophical jargon. If anything, my lack of experience relative to other judges in this particular debate subspace probably provides a natural check on teams reading arguments that they don't understand themselves. I'll posit that if you can't explain your argument in reasonably simple terms, then you probably don't understand it, and shouldn't win on it.

I'll say as well that I've judged a number of K teams that seem to rely heavily on blocks that have been prepared fully in advance, or maybe very slightly tweaked from what's been prepared in advance, with little attempt to actually engage with the other side. First, I find these speeches pretty tough to flow, since they're often extremely dense in content with little attempt to engage with their audience. Second, I happen to think this over-reliance on advance-prepared speeches is rather horrible for the educational value of the activity. It pretty severely undermines the "K debates are better for education" argument, and it also acts as a fairly real-time demonstration of the "link" on "K debates are bad for clash". I'm likely to be highly sympathetic to an opposing side that has any reasonable degree of superior technical execution when K teams engage in this practice.

It might be worth you knowing that K's were not really a thing yet back when I was debating. Or rather, they were just in their infancy (particularly in high school), rarely run, and/or they were uniformly terrible arguments that I don't think are run much anymore (e.g., Normativity, Objectivism, Foucault, Heidegger). Teams argued the theoretical legitimacy of the Kritik, and whether or not they should be evaluated as part of the ballot, but these arguments weren't unified under a notion of "Framework". Alt's definitely weren't a thing, nor were Kritiks on the Aff at the high school level.

Disads: I've quickly grown wary of Neg's claiming that their disad "turns case". There's a crucial difference between a disad "turning case" (i.e., your disad somehow results in the Aff no longer accessing their own impact, and in fact, causing their own impact) and "outweighing case" (i.e., your disad simply has a shorter timeframe, higher probability, or greater magnitude than the case). I've become increasingly convinced that Neg's are simply asserting -- unwarranted both in fact and in claim -- that their disad "turns case" in the hopes of duping the judge into essentially making the disad a litmus test for the ballot. If your disad legitimately turns the case, then that's awesome -- make the argument. However I think bona fide claims of "turning case" occur far less often than Neg's want us to believe. In the end, this is not much more than a pet peeve, but a pet peeve nonetheless.

CP's: Counterplans need a solvency claim/warrant, but not necessarily a solvency advocate, per se. That is, if the CP's solvency is a logical extension of the Aff's solvency mechanism, no solvency evidence should be required.

Theory / Ethics / General Behavior: I tend to be more sympathetic to teams launching legitimate, well-reasoned, and thoroughly-explained theory arguments than it seems many more modern judges may be, up to and including "reject the team, not the argument".

When it comes to ethics and general in-round behavior, it seems that many paradigms contain a whole host of info on what judges think debate “should” be, how debaters “should” act, and/or the judge’s perceived level of fairness of certain tactics.

My own paradigm used to contain similar info, but I’ve since removed it. Why? Because I think including such info creates a moral hazard of sorts. Debaters that are predisposed to behave in certain ways or deploy certain tactics will simply not do those things in front of judges that call them out in their paradigms, and then go right back to engaging in those behaviors or deploying those tactics in front of judges that don’t. To the extent that judges view themselves at least in part as guardrails on acceptable behavior and/or tactics, it seems to me that a better approach to rooting out negativity might be to put the onus on debaters to be considerate, ethical, and reasonable in deployment of their strategies and tactics – and then, if they aren’t, to mete out appropriate consequences. I do not feel obligated to state ex-ante that “X behavior is an auto-loss” if reasonable judges would conclude similarly and respond accordingly.

Don't worry: I'm not looking to be arbitrary and unreasonable in exercising judicial discretion, nor am I looking to insert my own opinions when teams engage in behavior that's debatably unfair, but goes uncontested by the other side. Just be thoughtful. It’s great to play hard. But if your tactics are questionably fair or bad for debate, be prepared to defend them, or reconsider their use. If the other side is deploying tactics that are questionably fair or bad for debate, make the argument, up to and including “reject the team”. I will evaluate such arguments and their implications based on the flow.

******

With all of that said, I consider myself to be in the midst of getting back up to speed in the modern norms and conventions of our activity, particularly at the high school Varsity level. I'm more than willing to be convinced that I should rethink any and all of the above, whether as part of an in-round debate or out-of-round conversation.

Aaron Kim (He/They)

UChicago Lab '22

Emory '26

debate.ajk@gmail.com

Top Level:

• Follow the flow
• Include judge instruction
• Little to no topic knowledge
• I generally decide debates quickly---this is not a referendum on the quality of the debate
• You have to stake the round if you make an ethics violation

Specifics:

K Affs / FW: I’ve been on both sides and don’t have any strong opinions. Fairness is generally an impact but obviously needs an explanation for why it is such. Both teams should have explanations for how the ballot resolves offense. More persuaded by technical execution than grandstanding about why debate is bad. Probably won't vote on callouts.

T: Probably the area of the topic I've done the least research. Strongly tech over truth, will vote for any T interp or against any T interp given sufficient evidence comparison and impact calc. Fine for reasonability and PTIV.

K: I've read a lot of K's, from a slew of identity K's, post modernism, etc. The negative should commit to a 2NR that either is a fiat K or uses K tricks in order turn case and outweigh.

CP: No hot takes, probably more likely to vote for Process CP's than most. Affs should impact out each deficit and compare it to the net benefit. I don't judge kick unless told.

DA: No hot takes, I think turns case is underutilized when you don’t have case defense and will vote aff onanalytics against dumb DA's.

Misc:

I rarely read cards and probably care less about cards than the average judge.

I’m usually tired when judging, so the less time wasted, the higher the speaks.

Background-

somewhat not stupid

Avery Coonley '24, Bingus '18

Head Coach at School of Bingus

TL;DR:

tech>truth

1N/2A for most of my life

condo is probably bad

if i'm judging you're probably a novice, so i'd prefer if you did defend the resolution, but i'll listen to your k i guess

speaking of k's, i'm not opposed to k's but for your own sake it's probably best not to pref me very high

Things that will get you an automatic L and 0 speaks

• evidence violations
• being rude/ discriminatory to your opponents or anyone in the room

My inspirations are Christian Klein, Lane Lubell, and Ward Haj Darweesh.

Read fast, but the most important thing for me is enunciating. You have to get through the whole thing, but try not to sound like a mindless robot who doesn't know what they're talking about. Read with some emotion if you want good speaker points.

Also be sure to sign post, since that makes it a million times easier to flow and just will make me happy as a judge.

Give me an explanation of why I should vote for you in your rebuttals, otherwise there is no reason I should. You can give me a whole lot of reasoning on why the other team is wrong and how all your points make sense and all that, but if you don't explain why we need the real-world impacts of your plan, I'll have no motivation to vote for you. The best case option would be if you just pretty much laid out my ballot for me and I could almost just type the winner's rebuttal as my ballot, but being that purposeful about it is tough, so no worries if that's not quite what your 2nd rebuttals are.

Oh and also on the note of 2nd rebuttals, I know that a lot of judges want you to kick a bunch of off-case and just spend a bunch of time on one thing, or if you keep topicality just give an explanation of only that and drop everything else, but I honestly find that the more off-case there is, it makes for a more fun round and you can keep something in the debate with adequate responses without having to kick everything else, so in short I don't really care about kicking everything in your 2NR's, just read what you feel like reading and I'll honestly judge the round based on that.

Okay one more thing but talking about off-case made me think of this, if you're reading off-case make sure the link is EXTREMELY clear. I find that for a lot of off-case, the link can be very, very poorly explained, even non-existent in some cases, and that is the most important part of it in my opinion as otherwise it is irrelevant to the debate completely. With that being said, if you're missing any of the parts of a DA, impacts, uniqueness, links, any of that, I will completely disregard the DA and knock it off the flow. You NEED every single part to make a coherent off-case argument, and without just one of those, if it's not read or if the other team has a clear win on it or any of that, the DA will be disregarded from my decision and flow.

Other than that, I'm good with everything. Just make sure to speak clearly, use line by line, and know what you're saying.

Good luck!

Zayd(he/him)

Middle school debater at the Avery Coonley School with some high school experience.

My approach to asses the round is to rely on the arguments made by the debaters. I try to make as little intervention from my personal preferences as possible.

Flowing/Speed/Clarity

I flow on paper and am fine with any speed as long as you're clear. Please give a roadmap before your speech. You don't have to ask me if I want one, just do it. I can't stress enough on how important it is to be clear when speaking. If I can't hear the tags then it is not likely those cards will factor into my decisions. Please make an indicator of when you are moving on to the next card. A brief pause is fine.

Wrapping up

That's all I have to say about my preferences in debate. Please be kind and have fun.

Zayd

ACS '26, jv mmsdl policy

Aff:

1AC, enunciate the tags or indicate that you're moving on to the next card.

2AC, use line-by-line and RESPOND TO ALL ARGUMENTS

1AR, this is one of the most important speeches as the 1AR responds to all arguments made in the neg block, explain why your arguments are better than theirs. Do not just state "They say ... we say..."

2AR, this is your last chance to prove why I should do the plan, tell me how to evaluate the round

Neg:

1NC, same as 1AC

2NC, same as 2AC, 2NC should have on-case and maybe a few of the off, depending on how much you are running

1NR, I'd recommend splitting the block. Also, 1NR should have most of the off-case

2NR, explain why your impacts are worse than theirs, kick arguments, and try to focus on around 2 or 3 instead of all of them

In general:

Be respectful

Try not to cede time, it makes it seem like you don't have enough to say about why your arguments are good

if you don't flow or aren't using a timer, I will dock speaker points

Here for the middle schoolers in practice rounds (you aren't reading it I was just bored)

Tldr: impact calc, good roadmaps, signposting, and most importantly clash land you good speaks. Be strategic and argue well and I will vote for you.

Speaker points/flowing related:

1. GIVE ME IMPACT CALC

Please! Give me a reason as to why an impact with 100% probability outweighs an impact with a larger magnitude but 1% probability. Or a reason why an extinction impact outweighs another impact no matter the probability. You have to weigh the impacts and tell me why yours are larger. It makes voting for you much easier.

2. Please, good roadmaps

This includes: sticking to the roadmap you gave, no weird roadmaps like "off case 1, on case, off case 2", and not saying "impact calc" or "line by line" in your roadmaps. It isn't a voter, but I will give you much fewer speaker points if you give a bad roadmap. And it impacts my ability to flow. If I can't flow your argument, I won't evaluate it.

3. Good with spreading, but be understandable

There aren't any speech docs in middle school, so I expect all arguments to be understandable. I can understand if you talk fast, but PLEASE make sure you are enunciating everything so that I can hear it. If I don't understand what you are saying, I won't flow it.

4. SIGNPOST

I will be SO ANGRY if you don't signpost. This can be with numbers, letters, the word "next", or a change in pitch, but just make sure I can understand when you move from the end of evidence on a card to the tag of the next. I will often not be able to flow arguments that aren't signposted well as I will rarely understand them, and your speaker points will reflect this.

5. CLASH!!!

The best debate is one where both sides directly clash with each other's arguments. I want to see the affirmative clash directly with negative DAs, and a good case clash between the affirmative and the negative.

6. Speaks

The average is 28. You are a great speaker if you get a 29. This would involve good impact calc, clash, and convincing speeches. Exceptional gets 29.5+. This means you amazed me. If you aren't a great speaker, meaning little clash, little to no impact calc, and or unconvincing speeches, I will give you a 27.5. You have to be REALLY bad to get a 27. Anything below that and you did something seriously wrong.

Strategy related:

1. VERY reluctant to vote on T

Really? It's middle school, and core files are released at the start of the year. You have had their affirmative case since the beginning of the year, and there are only 3 cases to be run! There's a minimal issue with topicality, and I will almost ALWAYS vote affirmative unless it is just completely dropped.

2. Defaults to extinction outweighs

Unless said differently in the round through framing, or convinced otherwise through some form of impact calc, I WILL default to extinction impacts outweigh.

3. Put your offense first

Most of the time neg should be putting off case and counterplans first, and aff should be putting case first. There are few exceptions to this. If you don't put offense first, that's a loss of some speaker points (and it puts you at a strategic disadvantage).

4. Negative - try to get down to 1 strategy by the 2nr

I don't want to see 3 off in the 2nr. Pick the strongest DA, or a CP with a DA as a net benefit, and go for it in the 2nr. Often if there are many off in the 2nr then they aren't well explained, and it makes it much harder for me to vote on it. A single strong DA is very convincing, 3 weak DAs are not as convincing.

5. Kick things correctly

I won't point it out mid-round but speaks will reflect it and opponents can point it out. To kick a DA the negative should concede an argument that takes out the impact, internal link, or link. You can concede a non-unique argument, but only if there weren't turns. If there is a non-unique conceded, and aff had a link turn, the turn was dropped and a non-unique + link turn turns the DA into an aff advantage. Similarly, watch out when you choose what to concede! If the aff ran an impact turn, you cannot concede that as it will turn into an aff advantage. Counterplans can be kicked simply by stating "We are now advocating for the status quo". T is kicked by not stating it in the roadmap. Aff: you can kick an advantage in the same way - just like the negative, watch out for turns!

6. Don't run states with econ as a net benefit...

You WILL lose speaks as econ clearly links to states. However, there is no impact on the round until the aff points it out. When the aff does point it out, you lose the net benefit of econ, and if it was the only net benefit you just lose the counterplan. This is NOT A GOOD STRATEGY.

7. Aff on a counterplan

You should already know this, but if arguing for a perm you should argue why it is better than the counterplan. You could also argue no net benefit, because if the aff and counterplan have the same impacts and solvency I vote aff.

8. I will NOT do work for you

You are expected to flow and point out things like dropped arguments. If it isn't pointed out by someone, then it won't be evaluated in my decision. Dropped arguments, new arguments in rebuttals, arguments not extended that are brought back, and contradictions made by either side are expected to be pointed out to me in order for me to evaluate it.

9. Tech > truth

If an argument isn't true but dropped, it's true now! However, if two arguments are presented I am more inclined to believe the more truthful argument. If you are arguing something that wouldn't immediately appear to be true, you have to do a good job explaining it to make me vote for it. An example is UBI vs the econ DA. The 1nc will say that the UBI is inflationary or would take a lot of money. I am very inclined to believe this. The 2AC should do a good job explaining why the UBI would not be inflationary or cost as much as the negative said. If the 2ac does a better job than the 1nc does, then aff wins on the econ DA. If the 2ac doesn't explain well, then the negative easily wins on the economy DA.

I am not qualified to judge high school rounds. There has probably been a mistake in the Tabroom setup.

Jeremy Wilner (He/Him/His), ACS '24

FOR MIDDLE SCHOOL / CORE FILE DEBATERS; here are some of my debate-y preferences:

TECH OVER TRUTH

Exactly what the section title says. Arguments can be stupid. They can be ridiculous. But if you don't say anything in response, I have no choice but to accept it as fact. It won't make me happy. But I absolutely will. I try to bring no personal bias whatsoever into rounds. I have no emotional attachments to any arguments. The only thing that informs my vote is the round. If something absurd is brought up during the round and left unanswered, I am forced to treat it as truth. Please don't make me sad by dropping stupid arguments that would be easy to answer.

TOPICALITY

Some judges think it's weird to run topicality in a core file league. I think it's a perfectly fine argument - IF YOU EXPLAIN WHY I SHOULD VOTE ON IT. Neg, try to come up with something other than predictability - you can obviously predict everything they're running. Aff, if that's their only voting issue, then call them out on it. They aren't being blindsided by your case. They've already pored over it for hours at a time.

However, tech over truth. If the neg claims that they couldn't predict your case, that's obviously untrue. But if you don't say anything about it, you lose.

SPREADING / DELIVERY

You can speak quickly, as long as you're clear. "THUSTHEPLANTHEUNITEDSTATESFEDERALGOVERNMENT" is fine, but "THUSEDJKFHLKAHSFDJSLKFHKLDJAJMENT" is not. Running lots of things is fine in a core file league. There aren't that many things you can run, at least not to the point of being unreasonable.

PERSONAL

A lot of judges don't like being called "judge". Personally, I don't care if you refer to me as "Judge", "Jeremy", "Mr. Wilner", or something similar (as long as it's respectful. Not "dude". Not "bro").

CONDUCT

Be good people. Rounds and arguments can get heated. Some arguments can stray towards being personal. But ultimately, the round needs to be self-contained. Throwing insults, intentional (purposeless) disrespect, and other general rudeness is not acceptable, and I will nuke your speaker points. Swearing is absolutely unacceptable at this level. (Even at high school levels, I think swearing is completely unnecessary and ridiculous, but that's not my place to dictate guidelines.) Expletives are not emphasis, and you just come off either sounding silly or sloppy. I will take off speaker points.

EXTRA / I COULDN'T THINK OF A SECTION NAME FOR THESE

• Yes, I would like a roadmap. You don't have to ask.
• Overviews and impact calculus are both very appreciated.

You've made it to the end of the paradigm. Good for you! Probably feeling pretty good about yourself. That was a lot of reading. Now you know everything you need to win the round. I'm rooting for you!

Hi everyone who is reading my paradigm,

My email is eyoungquist@averycoonley.org for the email chains.

I’ve been coaching policy debate for six years at the Avery Coonley School in Downers Grove, IL (it's a middle school). I’ve also judged a few rounds of high school Public Forum. I kind of fell into the job as a debate coach- I didn’t have any debate experience in high school or college. I've taught Literacy for 16 years, and social studies for the last three.

That being said, please treat the debate room like a classroom in terms of behavior and decorum. If the way you are acting would not fly at your school, don't do it in front of me. Debate can get heated, the CX can get pointed, but outright rudeness, swearing, etc. will come with penalties.

In terns of judging-I always view debate through the lens of a solid analytical argument, just like I would in my classroom. I need a cohesive argument, solid support, analytics, and a breakdown of why your argument is superior to your opponents’ argument. An “A” debate should look like an “A” paper.

Two things I don’t like to hear are extremely fast talking and cards that don’t support their tags. It’s great that you got through a lot of evidence and tried to put a lot of things on the flow sheet, but if you are only reading a sentence or two from each card and it doesn’t add up, it’s not a real argument. I need depth. I need CLASH.

I am really against fast reading. If you words are jumbling together and I can't make it out, it's not going on my flow. If I can't make out what you are saying, I am going to give you a "clear." If it continues, I'll give you a second one. Beyond that, I will disregard it if I can't make it out.

The round is going to go to the group that clearly lays out their argument (love signposting) and advances their ideas clearly while pointing out the flaws in their opponents’ presentation.

I’ll take T’s and K attacks that are on topic and make a valid point, but don't try to shoehorn something in just because it's what you always do. If their case is barely hanging on to being topical, go for it. Can you make a legit critique with some SOLID links? Go for it. Just don't get too esoteric on me, and MAKE SURE THE LINK IS SOLID (yes, I said it again)!!! Blocks of jargon with no real tie to the case will not work.

Please don't run a "K" Aff on me.

Hi!

My name is William Zhong (You probably already know that)

I've done almost 3 years of middle school debate, plus a few high school debate tournaments.

I DO NOT like K's (They really annoy me)

I'm more on the technical side, I like linked arguments that the debaters can clearly make and explain to me.

I don't evaluate cross-ex as highly, so do what you will.

If you say Game Over in your last speech, +.25 speaks

My email is zhonwil@averycoonley.org

You are supposed to time yourselves, but I'll also time (But I might forget)

I'll also try to give you a 1 minute warning

Try not to argue with your partner (I'm not afraid to give low speaks)

That's it :)

(You can ask questions before the round starts.)