Hi everyone! My name is Layla Ali. I am currently a college sophomore participating in my first year of the El Camino College Speech and Debate Team. I compete in Impromptu, Extemporaneous, Parli and IPDA. I judge based on whoever demonstrates the most sufficient understanding and argumentation of the topic at hand. I ask that all of the debaters/speakers remain respectful to their competitors, judges, and spectators if applicable. I welcome the use of “parli” words and necessary argument. However though I favor the combative approach, I do not tolerate any discriminatory treatment or derogatory language. Please remain respectful AND constructive at all times. I love strong voice projection and extensive use of vocabulary if properly articulated. If debating, please place a higher emphasis to discussing impacts, weighing mechanisms, and integrity in your contentions(quality over quantity). If participating in IEs, please place a higher emphasis on making movements for the speaker triangle, clear discussion over major points, and the importance of its impact. I always appreciate jokes when appropriate, a decent speaking pace, and respectful communication. Anyways, long story short: Be respectful and efficient, and apply your knowledge when best available. I am excited to be judging today and look forward to seeing a different perspective from my own experience.

My name is Luis Artiz.

Here are the things that are important to me when I judge debates or speeches:

1. I want to see and hear both competitors talk to each other and truly debate. Speed reading cases in the hopes of your opponent not addressing one of the 6 contentions is not a debate to me. I do not like spreading.
2. I will listen to you. Do not send me your cases. I will not read them.
3. I want to hear and understand your contentions and arguments. If I can't hear/understand, I cannot flow.
4. I want to hear the passion in your arguments...but passion is not equal to volume of speaking.

Thank you and good luck!

E-mail kaareanna74@gmail.com

About me:

• I am a Judge for Peninsula High School. Admittedly, I am more in my element judging IE, but I also thoroughly enjoy judging debate. I may know some basic concepts, but I’m still learning and possibly am unfamiliar with more specific terminology.

• I try really hard to be fair and objective to both sides of an argument. I do not let my biases or background knowledge taint who or how I vote each round. I vote for which team did the better debating, not which team is closer to truth.

• Style: Please speak slowly and clearly. Flow your opponents, and answer their main arguments sequentially. I prefer the debate to have an organizational clash that makes reasoned judgement possible.

• Quality: I care about argument quality, not argument quantity. I vote for the team that did the better debating. Source quality matters to me - if you read qualified sources, tell me their qualifications and read exact quotes (not debater biased paraphrasing) and it is more likely I believe it.

• Note Taking: I will take notes during each speech, to keep a record to better organize the debate to help evaluate which side wins.

• Rebuttals matter: In your last speeches - be sure to summarize the main points you want me to vote on and offer impact why that outweighs your opponents main points. I will limit my decision to solely arguments extended in the last two speeches. Completely new arguments cannot be first brought up in the rebuttals, because both sides need a chance to develop the argument in earlier speeches first. If new arguments are brought up, I will ignore them.

• Have fun, do your thing! Please treat each other with respect. 

I am a more traditional or (as the circuit debaters like to say) "lay" judge. This is my first year judging, but I have judged different types of debate this year at local, regional and national tournaments. I have some experience judging this topic at the national qualifying tournament. I do not consider myself an expert on debate, philosophy or science, so I do not have strong biases or opinions. I will consider all arguments that are well-developed and non-offensive. That said, quality of presentation and delivery will have a strong influence on my decision. So to get my ballot, bring your "A" game in terms of public speaking and logical argumentation. Leave debate jargon and spreading at home. I look forward to judging your round.

I have judged Varsity Policy, Parli and LD debate rounds and IE rounds for 10 years at both the high school and college tournament level. I competed at San Francisco State University in debate and IEs and went to Nationals twice, and I also competed at North Hollywood High School.

Make it a clean debate. Keep the thinking as linear as possible.

Counterplans should be well thought out – and original. (Plan-Inclusive Counterplans are seriously problematic.)

Speed is not an issue with me as usually I can flow when someone spreads.

I do like theory arguments but not arguments that are way, way out there and have no basis in fact or applicability.

Going offcase with non-traditional arguments is fine as long as such arguments are explained.

Above all, have fun.

I am a LD coach who at one time was a policy debater, a public forum coach and a parli coach. My true love is oratory and extemp so I love to hear good rhetorical skills. I can follow some spreading but really prefer a debate that is at good speed with a focus on argumentation and delivery. I am (also?) old fashioned in that I flow on paper and love a nice polite round. As a history teacher whose specialty is politics and international relations, I love connections to current events and historical context. My Ph.D. is in world history and I have been living in China for the past eight years teaching and coaching there, though now live in southern California. Please wow me with your global examples! (Or at least refer to Canada since that is where I hail from originally!)

Email chain: joan.kim@alumni.harvard.edu

General:

• Speed: You do you but quality over quantity with clarity

• Voting issues are not necessary

• Jargon or technical language should be kept to a minimum

• I don’t count flashing as prep unless you are taking advantage

• You don’t have to constantly remind me that your opponent dropped such and such argument(s)--don’t rely on a win because they dropped x amount of arguments

Love:

• Framework

• Fantastic CX

• Clash

• Impact!!!

• Creativity

Yes:

• Evidence, analytical and empirical--state your source

• Logical Analysis

• Roadmaps and overviews

• Weigh your arguments

No:

• Card cutting- you will lose the round

• Rudeness

gordondkrauss@gmail.com

Generally, I accept any form of argumentation if presented correctly. I have been involved in this activity for the past 13 years of my life, as both a high school and college competitor, as well as a current middle+high school debate coach. Put simply, you don't need to worry about debate terminology, strategies, or anything else that some judges might not know. If you run it, I'll know about it. That said, please still treat me as a normal person that you're trying to persuade! I know that debate is perceived as a "game," but I think that the "game" is figuring out strategies to make your arguments as persuasive to as many people as possible, which often involves starting at a basic level of understanding and adding additional complexity and nuance as you go.

Beyond that, I tend to align more with "traditional" debate arguments (your classic claim, warrant, evidence, impact) structure with solid clash against your opponent's (hopefully) similarly structured arguments. The worst thing that can happen for me as a judge is a round where the teams are two ships passing in the night, because then it becomes my job to intervene and figure out how those two things actually interact with one another (and I think we can all agree that judge intervention is not good). Finally, while I am OPEN to technical debate (K's, Theory, etc.) the bar is higher for these things since you have essentially infinite time to prep them. You need to do work to explain to me how they clearly link back to THIS specific round and how they outweigh your opponent's SPECIFIC arguments. Please, please don't just treat them as a catch-all.

Otherwise, good luck! You got this!

If you'd like feedback from me regarding a verbal or written RFD I gave you, please feel free to reach out at hmalek@windwardschool.org and I'd be more than happy to help.

I am a new volunteer and this will be my first time judging a debate. To prepare, I have read over some information about judging various types of debates and watched a few instructional videos.

I have experience in collegiate level speech & debate. I debate in Parli, IPDA, & LD. I compete in extemporaneous and impromptu speaking. Here is my judging paradigm:

Keep things professional and respectful. Impact out your arguments, I weigh the issues that've been clearly presented to me. Highlight timeframe, magnitude, severity, probability, reversibility. Respect your competitors' requests for slow/clear and do not interrupt your competitors by speaking with your partner outside of flex. No flow is taken outside of when the timer is running. Most importantly, we are here to learn and have fun.

Add me to the email chain- katieraphaelson@gmail.com

Hello! I'm Katie! I use they/them pronouns. I debated LD at Brentwood School from 2015-2019. I was a quarterfinalist at state and 10th at NSDA nats my senior year. I also come from a circuit background so I flow very diligently.

I just graduated from Smith College with a B.A. in Government and French Studies. My gov major concentrated on international relations.

I've been coaching and judging for about 5 years and have experience judging every event, but I do come from an LD background. This paradigm used to be super long but at this point I really only have like a few important things:

1) provide content warnings if you are going to talk about SA and violence against queer ppl. Please don't read cases that are primarily about SA/r*pe. thank u!

2) Please don't read super circuity arguments at States/Nat quals/Nats. I'm good with jargon and such, and I am very comfortable judging circuit rounds, but like be reasonable.

3) time yourselves please! and keep track of your prep time.

4) Feel free to share your cases but I can keep up without a document.

5) Be nice to each other!!!!!!!

6) Debate the way you do best! Have fun!

fun fact for this PF topic-

Im a former student athlete! I played d3 softball at smith college (small historically womens college)!

I am a Debate coach at Loyola High School. I primarily coach LD debate.

I see debate as a game of strategy. The debaters are responsible to define the rules of the game during the debate.

This means that debaters can run any argument (i.e. frameworks, theory, kritiks, disadvantages). I will assess how well the debaters frame the arguments, weigh the impacts, and compare the worlds of the Aff and Neg.

However, I am not a blank slate judge. I do come into the round with the assumption of weighing the offense and defense and determining which world had the more comparatively better way of looking at the round.

As for Speakers' points, I assess those issues based upon:

1. How well the speakers spoke to the room including vocal intonation, eye contact, posture.

2. I also look for the creativity of the argument and strategy.

High Speaker Points will be awarded to students who excel in both of these areas.

Debaters are always welcome to ask me more questions about my paradigm before a round begins. The purpose of debate is educational as well as competition. So, debaters should feel comfortable to interact with me before and after the round about how to do well in the round and after.