FTN - Judge Philosophies

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Judge Philosophies

Allison Bowman - Long Beach

Anasheh Gharabighi - CSUN

n/a

Angelica Grigsby - Concordia

Arlene Galarza - Azusa

Background: I competed in parliamentary debate and NFA-LD for three years in college. This is  my first year helping to coach in parliamentary debate and LD. I have judged around 70 or so rounds this year. Decision Making: I do not have a strict and set decision making philosophy. Stock-Issue is a very strong way to present a case in parliamentary debate, but for the most part I try to be very open and wait for you to tell me how you are going to run the round. Presentation/communication skills: Debaters should be dressed in business attire, if you’re not, I will-unconsciously- take you less seriously. In this past year, I have spent more time with the Speech side of Forensics and I do tend to pay more attention to the way you speak and overall presentation. Although the way you speck is not as important as what you say, it does hold some weight on my ballot.  In Round: Competitors should be polite and respectful of one another. Being condescending, rude, or laughing at your opponents- no matter how ridiculous their arguments may seem or are- is not okay! This semester, I have dropped a team for this kind of behavior.  If you are the second speaker, you need to extend across your partners responses and arguments or else they are dropped arguments. Arguments should all be impacted to a terminal impact. Please, always call points of order in the last speeches or I will flow them. Please time each other, just to make sure everyone stays honest. I like two world scenarios and 2-4 clear voting issues. I don’t time road maps. Organization and sign posting is key to winning. Tell me exactly where to flow your argument and responses, or else I will just quickly guess and put it anywhere, which is not good. Procedurals: I will vote on Topicality and other procedurals (tricot, vagueness press) but you need to show articulated abuse. You show articulate abuse by running your Disadvantages and then having the Aff de-link them. I do not like RV's, I think it is the neg’s ground to run theory arguments.   I tend not to vote for topical counterplans in parli, but I will listen to all arguments. If you are planning to run a counter plan don’t run it in the last 30 seconds of your speech. An effective strategy for running a counter plan is by first running a disadvantage that the Aff bites and that your plan doesn’t, and additionally, counter plan must solve for the entire Aff case. You should take any POI’s after the counter plantext is read. I also, tend to dislike K’s because, usually I hear K's that are just non -unique disadvantages, and they just do not offer any real world solvency.  Speed: Don't do it! Debate is a fundamentally an educational activity, therefore, everyone in the round should be able to understand all of your well-structured arguments.  Additionally, if your opponents “clear you” or ask you to “slow down” and you don’t – I will be upset and drop you! Time management is important, if it is a round with few arguments and you feel like you have effectively covered everything you don’t need to spend 5 minutes just repeating your arguments. But, if you need the time, please use it! Ultimately, I will try to keep my biases and prejudices away from the round and I will listen to any and all arguments. Lastly, have fun and actually being funny is always a good thing!

Ashley Furrell - CSUN

n/a

Brianna Quinterro - Palomar

Brianna Broady - CSUN

n/a

Jeff Samano - Long Beach

Jessica Kwack - CSUN

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Joe Sindicich - CSUF

n/a

Kevin Goodman - Long Beach

Koji Takahashi - BerkeleySpeech

The round is yours and it is your job to tell me what I should vote on and why. I’m down for any argument as long as you win on it and tell me exactly why it is important and how I should evaluate it. Good rebuttals make my job easier, so please use them wisely. I will vote first and foremost on the arguments that are brought up as voters in the rebuttals and prefer to only evaluate other things on the flow if the arguments are a wash. I’m fine with some speed, but my flow is not as fast as it used to be and I prefer to be a flow judge. If you want me to have all your argument on my flow, I would not recommend going full speed. Medium fast. I prefer systemic impacts to outlandishly big ones, but it really is up to you to explain to me why I should be voting for any impact and I will defer to you. If an argument is a wash, I’ll defer to me and I like systemic impacts better. Please understand perm theory and be able to explain it well. I’ve judged a lot of rounds that were lost because open teams didn’t understand how to make basic perm arguments, so don’t let that happen. Down for Ks, but make sure the alt is sound. I am a firm believer that the rhetoric in round is important and am super down for pre-fiat impacts, but please make the arguments good. Also, I’m super down with queer theory. PET PEEVES -Shallow dehum arguments I don’t particularly like most dehum arguments that are thrown around in debate and don’t consider it a terminalized impact on its own unless you explain exactly how your conception dehum functions. If you don’t, my default is to view it the way I’ve been trained to-- as a social process (i.e., poverty is not inherently dehumanizing—people who perceive or portray those in poverty as living or being subhuman are dehumanizing). If someone throws out dehum in an uncritical way, call them on it and I will be happy. -Root cause arguments that are just wrong I know how root cause arguments function strategically, but I don’t like the way most people run them. They are far too often either wrong or poorly articulated to the point of sounding wrong. Run them if you feel you have solid analysis to defend it, but be warned. -Teams that bite their own K Please don’t do this. If your opponents do it, please don’t let them get away with it. I’m down for good Ks, but I really don’t like people telling me what I have to do with my ballot if they won’t do it with the rest of their advocacy.

Liana Koeppel - Cypress

Yaw Kyeremateng - Concordia

robert e g black - CSULA

I competed in IEs and debate for four years and started coaching/judging last year. I like speeches to be clear--i.e. tell me where you're going at the beginning, tell me where you've been at the end, and you better have gone there in between. I competed in every event--interp more than platform or limited prep--at least once and have judged them all as well. So, do what you want to do within the usual guidelines and entertain and enlighten me and you will do well on my ballot. For interps specifically, I have been known to value performance over message, but that doesn't mean there shouldn't be a point to the piece you're doing and why you're doing it. As far as debate goes, I try my best to go by the flow which mean a) speeding is not in your best interest because if I cannot keep up and your argument doesn't get onto my flow it won't help you in the end, and b) I will accept most any position you present. Still, I don't like standard generic DAs; for example: politics--I think any Plan fiats away most, if not all, political capital arguments. Since I do try to go by the flow, I also will not usually dismiss automatically new arguments in rebuttals--I want you to catch them and call a point of order; if you can't catch it, I don't want to do the work for you. I prefer you have fun more than be technically perfect, that you make sense more than you fit the strict framework of debate. But, honestly, doing the latter can seriously help the former and, if you're doing it right, you should be able to do both.

2015 AFA-NIET District One Qualifier