Tanya Reni Galloway

I enjoy analyzing the quality of evidence, persuasive techniques, and presentation style of all debate categories. I have judged all debate categories over the past 10 plus years including Congress, FX, DX, CX, LD, PF, BQ, and WS. I am an old-school purist. I judge all categories so I prefer that each category stays in its own lane. Having said that, I realize many students love progressive argumentation, so I say tabula rasa. I will judge the style they are trained in and give feedback accordingly. It is always about the student. My feedback and comments, on my ballots, are designed to empower the student to take their game in debate and life to the next level. I believe our speech and debate students are developing themselves as leaders and can use their skills to make profound differences when applied to areas of life that matter to them.

I also judge all IE events. I love OO, when done well, it is like a mini TED talk. I love to see the WHY. Why did the student choose the topic or selection? What resonates for them? In the categories which require acting skills, I really look for a connection between the student and the selection, when the student embodies the selection and becomes the character. I believe acting skills can build empathy and connection to the human condition. These students can use these skills and apply them in an area of life that they are passionate about and make a difference in the world. They can be the voice for others, who do not have the courage or opportunity to speak or perform in front of others.

I competed in high school and college and won awards in acting, singing, and public speaking events. I was a professional actress and trained at the Film Actors Lab. I am a trained toastmasters judge. I currently lecture on art as therapy. I was also the manager of the Communications Programs for the Dallas branch of a global personal and professional develop company, Landmark Worldwide.

I am an enthusiastic supporter of academic sports. Speech and debate participation provides cognitive and behavioral enhancement. It improves reading, listening, speaking, critical thinking, and writing skills. It also improves motivation and increases curiosity and engagement. I enjoy empowering the future leaders of our community and world. I encourage the students to take the skills they are learning and to apply them to areas of life that are of concern to them now, so they can make a difference and learn the practical value of their skills. It increases engagement for both at-risk and gifted students. I also think coaches are rock stars! Thank you for the difference you make each day with your students. It takes heart, dedication, patience, and perseverance, You are the one they will always remember.

Email: Annaherrig2@gmail.com

General:

UTT 21-Present

Please send speech docs! (also if you say "mark the card here" please mark it)

Lets all learn something from each other. Debate is supposed to be fun, that being said, if you are having fun, I'll have a better time judging the round. The best judges will listen to any argument and style of debate. Do what you are best at. I try to leave predispositions out of decision-making as much as possible (it's not) and will work hard to adjudicate your round well. It's not my job to decide what you should debate, but to help you become better at how you choose to debate.

Signposting is important, please do this throughout your speeches and tell me the order beforehand.

Tech>truth.

If you say the words "for a brief off time roadmap," I am going to be sad.

Topicality

I will vote on T. I think you need to be explaining why you have the better internal link to either fairness or education. I think these debates have gotten increasingly shallow, and no one goes for it as a super compelling strategy in the block anymore. Explain why under your interpretation, debate is better and you method is better for debate at large. Arguing the spillover effects of your interp is an easy way to win this on the negative. Generics will not do it for me. I default to competing interpretations.

Disads

You should be cutting new uniqueness very often, and if you go for this strategy the quality of your evidence will have an impact on my decision. "If your link cards are generic and outdated and the aff is better in that department, then you need to have a good reason why your evidence is more qualified, etc. Make your scenario clear, DAs are great but some teams tend to go for a terminal impact without explanation of the scenario or the internal link args. Comparative analysis is important so I know how to evaluate the evidence that I am reading. Tell me why the link o/w the link turn etc. Impact analysis is very important, timeframe, probability, magnitude, etc., so I can know why the Da impacts are more important than the affs impacts. A good articulation of why the Da turns each advantage is extremely helpful because the 2ar will most likely be going for those impacts in the 2ar. Uniqueness controls the direction of the link, this goes for both sides. If you want to win a link turn, you must win that the disad is non-unique and if you want to win the link you must win that it is." -Kristiana Baez. There is such thing as 0% risk of a link.

Counterplans

Much more persuasive if they have a solvency advocate, just reading a line in the 1NC just to dump 6 minutes on it in the block means that I give the aff leniency in rebuttals to catch up, but that isn't an excuse for sloppy 2ACs. I really like counterplans, and I like process counterplans. I don't love super generic CP's with the same set of solvency cards each round. However, if the evidence is good then I am more likely to believe you when you claim aff solvency. There needs to be a good articulation for why the aff links to the net benefit and good answers to cp solvency deficits, assuming there are any. Permutation debate needs to be hashed out on both sides, with Da/net benefits to the permutations made clear.

Kritiks

Feel free to read them on affirmative or negative, but don't get lazy with them and engage with the arguments the other team is making. Just reading the blocks you wrote at the beginning of the season and not referencing specific authors, lines of evidence from either side and engaging with arguments without specificity is a good way to get really behind in these debates. You should have specific links to the aff. I am the best for cap. Anything else, especially anything pomo, you will need to explain to me like I am a 5 year old. If you're arguing that the k outweighs and turns case, you need a solid articulation as to why. You also need to be arguing specific impacts of the k, and how that compares to the claims made in the affirmative. I need a very clear explanation of framing here, and if you go for the K in the 2NR you should be writing my ballot for me. I also need a very clear picture of how the alternative functions, and why you solve the aff if you do.

K v K

I think that these debates can be really great because clash is kind of important. However, these debates tend to get really muddled, so you need to work extra hard to make things clear for me rather than just assuming I will lean one way or another. When it comes to K Affs v. FW, I think that you need to do a lot of work and don't just go for generic arguments like switch side without giving specific examples of things like in round abuse, etc. or interesting impact arguments. Ex: just saying roleplaying good/bad without a really good explanation is not going to be compelling.

Performance/Methodology debates

I am in no way biased in one way or another. I think that arguments need to be competitive. The things you may talk about in your performance/methodology may be true, but there needs to be a clear link articulated to the argument that you are debating. Many times competing methodologies start to sound really similar to each other, so teams need to establish a clear difference between the arguments.

Theory

Dumb theory or tricks won't do it for me. However, the less generic you are, the more I would be willing to vote on this. I believe theory that is done well and is well-articulated could be a compelling place for me to vote. I think proving in round abuse is important. Generally, I think condo is good.

Pref Stuff:

I am best for a policy v policy debate and or policy v k debate. Most familiar with running and judging cap&fem

I like the ptx da when done well