O'Donnell,+Jeffrey

I judge for Thomas Jefferson High School. I attended Harvard Law School and Miami University (I am sure my high school is not represented at debate tournaments). I am a lay judge. This is the second year of judging, and I have judging local circuit and national circuit (both varsity and junior varsity). I approach judging as a judge at a trial where the debaters are two litigates. They have to convince me based upon their debate and presentation that their position should prevail. I do not insert my own views but will mark down a debater that fails to understand the most advantageous avenues of attack to their opponent's position. I prefer debaters that use every segment of the debate to their advantage (so not just arguments in chief or rebuttals, but also when they are either the questioner or questionee in CX). Given my judging preferences, arguments have to be well-warranted to use as a voting issue. As for styles of debate, speed is acceptable but you must be clear because I can only use that which I can hear to render a decision. If an opponent that is a non-speeder does not cover as many topic as the speeder, I will not penalize the non-speeder but will instead base the decision on what the content of the non-speeder's presentation. Nontraditional LD debate formats, if it is going to be attempted, it better be successful because it will be marked against them if not. I best understand conventional value-value criterion debates with actual warranted contentions.