Debate Experience:I am a former CDL debater; previously, I was on the Kelly High school debate team in the south side of chicago. 

Usual ROB: I usually will flow whatever is presented in front of me in regards to the framework debate. 

Summary: I'm primarily a k debater My favourite ks are security or anything language based. Of course a clear link must be articulated in order for me to vote for any negative strategy. I'm also a fan of satire arguments, so show me what you got.

Da: No i don't believe in 100% type arguments; if they were 100% they would have already happened. With that in mind, I will most likely vote for the team that gives me the better link and or link story/ No-link. We live in an ambiguous world, so as long as you prove that it is possible ill give you leverage 

T: Topicality/ theory debates are probably one of the most important things that I will be most strict on. For me education and critical thinking are the biggest impacts in round. On T, IF there is a clear violation of the resolution within the plan text, as long as you extend the standards I'll probably vote for you. 

k:Depending on the k, if im judging you always go for the k. Enough said. Although if i would vote for the k or not is depended on your framework. Doing good line by line on framework is essential for my vote here.

cp: Counterplans to me are usually a waste of time. But again answer all theory debates/ flows and prove some solvency and ill have no problem voting for you

Speaks: Speaks for me isn't on how fast you can go because that's Bs. You need to be organized, articulative,and convincing. Do all these and i have no problem giving high speaks. But keep in mind, you can be all organized/articulative all you want, i have no problem giving a low point win.

prep: Tell me your taking prep, ill time, we are all happy. If i fail to take time, we are all human we all forget, then ill go with whatever time is given to me first. No I'm not one of those, "take prep for flashing" judges. I've had those and im not gonna be it. Take too long though and we will negotiate. 

Remember to me debates a game. Above all else its about education and critical thinking.

- 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.

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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 send speech docs. Ideally, we should be using share.tabroom.com or similar. If for some reason that is not possible, I will 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, the more modern forms of which I may not yet be 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 erroneously 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.

Rehighlightings: I am perfectly fine with you summarizing why the other side's evidence doesn't say what they say it says. I do not see a need for rehighlightings to be explicitly "read into the round". Why not? Well, if Side A is reading evidence that is mishighlighted, taken out of context, etc., Side B should have to do as little in-speech work as possible to make the argument. Side B shouldn't need to waste their speech time reading the correct parts of Side A's poorly highlighted evidence. Side B still needs to explain what Side A's evidence actually says, and tell me what I should be looking for in reading the card. In other words, it's insufficient to simply state "their card is mistagged". But, "their card is mistagged; the author is actually saying X,Y,Z; here's why that matters" is generally sufficient. Of course, if Side B is the one who's actually misunderstanding the evidence, or worse, intentionally mischaracterizing it, that's not a great look and is likely to result in lower speaks.

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.

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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.

Glenbrook South '19 | University of Michigan '23

kellymskoulikaris@gmail.com

General

Be organized. Do line-by-line, impact calc, judge instruction, and evidence comparison. Do not just read evidence in the 2AC/2NC/1NR. Smart analytics can overcome bad evidence.

Inserting rehighlightings is okay as long as the rehighlightings are short and the implication is explained in the speeches.

For everything below, I can be convinced otherwise through good debating. Feel free to ask clarification questions pre-round!

Case/DAs

I love good case debating. No, this does not just mean yes/no impact. Yes, this means debating the internal link to advantages (and disadvantages). Debates can easily be won or lost here, and internal link comparison in the final rebuttals is underutilized.

Case-specific DAs are preferable, but politics can be good with decent evidence and persuasive spin.

Rider DAs are not DAs.

CPs

Advantage CPs are preferable to Agent CPs/Process CPs. PDCP definitions (from both sides) should have specific standards/theoretical justifications.

Condo is (probably) good, kicking planks is (probably) good, and judge kick is the default unless debated otherwise.

2NC CPs are good against new affirmatives, but against non-new affirmatives, the 2NC should justify their new planks. The 1AR can convince me this is abusive (especially if the 2NC is adding new planks to get out of a straight-turned DA).

Most theory arguments are reasons to reject the argument, not the team unless debated otherwise.

T

It is important for both sides to map out what topics look like under their interpretations, especially at the beginning of the season. What affirmatives are included? What negative argument are guaranteed? What does each interpretation exclude? Examples help frame the round!

Evidence quality matters much more in these rounds!

T vs K Affs

Debate is a game, and competition/winning drives our participation in debate. The strongest impacts to T are fairness and clash (iterative testing, testing etc). Negative teams have had success in front of me when they utilize clash to link turn affirmative offense.

Specific TVAs are good. You do not need evidence as long as you have a plan text and explain what debate rounds would look like under the TVAs.

Ks

I am most familiar with Anti-Blackness, Capitalism, and Settler Colonialism literature, and not as familiar with Baudrillard, Bataille etc.

Please do not give extremely long overviews. Root cause claims, impact comparisons at the top are smart and strategic, but the rest of the "overview" can be incorporated into the line-by-line later on the flow.

Impact out each link!

Put me on the email chain (WayneTang@aol.com). (my debaters made me do this, I generally don't read evidence in round)

General Background:
Former HS debater in the stone ages (1980s) HS coach for over many years at Maine East (1992-2016) and now at Northside College Prep (2016 to present). I coach on the north shore of Chicago. I typically attend and judge around 15-18 tournaments a season and generally see a decent percentage of high level debates. However, I am not a professional teacher/debate coach, I am a patent attorney in my real (non-debate) life and thus do not learn anything about the topic (other than institutes are overpriced) over the summer. I like to think I make up for that by being a quick study and through coaching and judging past topics, knowing many recycled arguments.

DISADS AND ADVANTAGES
Intelligent story telling with good evidence and analysis is something I like to hear. I generally will vote for teams that have better comparative impact analysis (i.e. they take into account their opponents’ arguments in their analysis). It is a hard road, but I think it is possible to reduce risk to zero or close enough to it based on defensive arguments.

TOPICALITY
I vote on T relatively frequently over the years. I believe it is the negative burden to establish the plan is not topical. Case lists and arguments on what various interpretations would allow/not allow are very important. I have found that the limits/predictability/ground debate has been more persuasive to me, although I will consider other standards debates. Obviously, it is also important how such standards operate once a team convinces me of their standard. I will also look at why T should be voting issue. I will not automatically vote negative if there is no counter-interpretation extended, although usually this is a pretty deep hole for the aff. to dig out of. For example, if the aff. has no counter-interpretation but the neg interpretation is proven to be unworkable i.e. no cases are topical then I would probably vote aff. As with most issues, in depth analysis and explanation on a few arguments will outweigh many 3 word tag lines.

COUNTERPLANS
Case specific CPs are preferable that integrate well (i.e., do not flatly contradict) with other negative positions. Clever wording of CPs to solve the Aff and use Aff solvency sources are also something I give the neg. credit for. It is an uphill battle for the Aff on theory unless the CP/strategy centered around the CP does something really abusive. The aff has the burden of telling me how a permutation proves the CP non-competitive.

KRITIKS
Not a fan, but I have voted on them numerous times (despite what many in the high school community may believe). I will never be better than mediocre at evaluating these arguments because unlike law, politics, history and trashy novels, I don’t read philosophy for entertainment nor have any interest in it. Further (sorry to my past assistants who have chosen this as their academic career), I consider most of the writers in this field to be sorely needing a dose of the real world (I was an engineer in undergrad, I guess I have been brainwashed in techno-strategic discourse/liking solutions that actually accomplish something). In order to win, the negative must establish a clear story about 1) what the K is; 2) how it links; 3) what the impact is at either the policy level or: 4) pre-fiat (to the extent it exists) outweighs policy arguments or other affirmative impacts. Don’t just assume I will vote to reject their evil discourse, advocacy, lack of ontology, support of biopolitics, etc. Without an explanation I will assume a K is a very bad non-unique Disad in the policy realm. As such it will probably receive very little weight if challenged by the aff. You must be able to distill long boring philosophical cards read at hyperspeed to an explanation that I can comprehend. I have no fear of saying I don’t understand what the heck you are saying and I will absolutely not vote for issues I don’t understand. (I don’t have to impress anyone with my intelligence or lack thereof and in any case am probably incapable of it) If you make me read said cards with no explanation, I will almost guarantee that I will not understand the five syllable (often foreign) philosophical words in the card and you will go down in flames. I do appreciate, if not require specific analysis on the link and impact to either the aff. plan, rhetoric, evidence or assumptions depending on what floats your boat. In other words, if you can make specific applications (in contrast to they use the state vote negative), or better yet, read specific critical evidence to the substance of the affirmative, I will be much more likely to vote for you.

PERFORMANCE BASED ARGUMENTS
Also not a fan, but I have voted on these arguments in the past. I am generally not highly preferred by teams that run such arguments, so I don't see enough of these types of debates to be an expert. However, for whatever reason, I get to judge some high level performance teams each year and have some background in such arguments from these rounds. I will try to evaluate the arguments in such rounds and will not hesitate to vote against framework if the team advocating non-traditional debate wins sufficient warrants why I should reject the policy/topic framework. However, if a team engages the non-traditional positions, the team advocating such positions need to answer any such arguments in order to win. In other words, I will evaluate these debates like I try to evaluate any other issues, I will see what arguments clash and evaluate that clash, rewarding a team that can frame issues, compare and explain impacts. I have spent 20 plus years coaching a relatively resource deprived school trying to compete against very well resourced debate schools, so I am not unsympathetic to arguments based on inequities in policy debates. On the other hand I have also spent 20 plus years involved in non-debate activities and am not entirely convinced that the strategies urged by non-traditional debates work. Take both points for whatever you think they are worth in such debates.

POINTS

In varsity debate, I believe you have to minimally be able to clash with the other teams arguments, if you can’t do this, you won’t get over a 27.5. Anything between 28.8 and 29.2 means you are probably among the top 5% of debaters I have seen. I will check my points periodically against tournament averages and have adjusted upward in the past to stay within community norms. I think that if you are in the middle my points are pretty consistent. Unfortunately for those who are consistently in the top 5% of many tournaments, I have judged a lot of the best high school debaters over the years and it is difficult to impress me (e.g., above a 29). Michael Klinger, Stephen Weil, Ellis Allen, Matt Fisher and Stephanie Spies didn’t get 30s from me (and they were among my favorites of all time), so don’t feel bad if you don’t either.

OTHER STUFF
I dislike evaluating theory debates but if you make me I will do it and complain a lot about it later. No real predispositions on theory other than I would prefer to avoid dealing with it.

Tag team is fine as long as you don’t start taking over cross-ex.

I do not count general tech screw ups as prep time and quite frankly am not really a fascist about this kind of thing as some other judges, just don’t abuse my leniency on this.

Speed is fine (this is of course a danger sign because no one would admit that they can’t handle speed). If you are going too fast or are unclear, I will let you know. Ignore such warnings at your own peril, like with Kritiks, I am singularly unafraid to admit I didn’t get an answer and therefore will not vote on it.

I will read evidence if it is challenged by a team. Otherwise, if you say a piece of evidence says X and the other team doesn’t say anything, I probably won’t call for it and assume it says X. However, in the unfortunate (but fairly frequent) occurrence where both teams just read cards, I will call for cards and use my arbitrary and capricious analytical skills to piece together what I, in my paranoid delusional (and probably medicated) state, perceive is going on.

I generally will vote on anything that is set forth on the round. Don’t be deterred from going for an argument because I am laughing at it, reading the newspaper, checking espn.com on my laptop, throwing something at you etc. Debate is a game and judges must often vote for arguments they find ludicrous, however, I can and will still make fun of the argument. I will, and have, voted on many arguments I think are squarely in the realm of lunacy i.e. [INSERT LETTER] spec, rights malthus, Sun-Ra, the quotations and acronyms counterplan (OK I didn’t vote on either, even I have my limits), scaler collapse (twice), world government etc. (the likelihood of winning such arguments, however, is a separate matter). I will not hesitate to vote against teams for socially unacceptable behavior i.e. evidence fabrication, racist or sexist slurs etc., thankfully I have had to do that less than double digits time in my 35+ years of judging.

Email: ttate@glenbrook225.org

I had a much longer judging paradigm when it was on the old wiki but I will try to give you the highlights.

I was an active Director of Debate at GBS from 2003-2014. I would judge a significantly high number of rounds each year (both on the regional and national circuit). Since 2014, I have still been active in debate. I used to teach the Debate classes at South, teach at Institute, and watched practice debates. I don't judge many rounds at tournaments since I don't travel much anymore. I would say that my technical flowing abilities are at about 80% of what they were when I was judging 100+ rounds a year. I am not actively involved in the literature base in regards to research.

What does that mean to you?

1 - I don't have many preconceived notions entering the debates about which team is having a more successful season or what arguments are the cool/hip thing. That can be good and bad for you. :)

2- I would consider myself a moderate right judge in regards to policy vs. K debates. Here is the thing - I am very liberal in my beliefs and academia, especially in regards to issues of identity. My Masters' thesis was a black women's criticism of mainstream feminist discourse. I will often understand and believe many K arguments in front of me. The question is whether the arguments presented in front of me provides an opportunity for deliberative dialogue between two opposing teams. Convince me of that in round (and many have), you will find me to be more left-leaning in regards to K arguments than people perceive.

3 - I love a good Politics debate that has super recent evidence and an interesting spin to a typical politics story.

4 - I believe coming into the debate that uniqueness drives the direction of the link.

5 - I default Negative coming in to many debates in regards to CP theory and competition issues.

6 - I have a high standard for both evidence and what makes for a complete argument.