Spain,+Sonja

Hi I’m Sonja Spain! I debated for Torrey Pines High school for 4 years, doing LD for the first 2 and Parli for the last 2, all throughout with the love of my life, Jay Park!

As much as I’d like to claim that I’m a tab judge, I do have preferences and I’ll lay them out here for you.

Speed: Please, please, PLEASE don't go that fast in front of me. I won't be able to flow. Like please... please... pleaseeeee.... I will say slow and clear if this becomes an issue but if I have to say it more than once, I don't care if you've won the damn TOC, I will dock .5 speaks, each time after that.

Extensions: Be clear in extensions, after you extend it tell me why it matters in terms of this round, rather than just speeding through all of them.

Philosophy: Explain, explain, explain. You can literally read anything you want as long as you can go slow an explain it. However, the less confusing it is, the less explanation I’ll need, but if you are reading continental phil or something really dense please slow down for a section and explain it to me. Also I won’t have knowledge of authors or anything, so don’t assume that you reading some common author means you can go full speed.

Theory: I’d prefer you read it as a check on abuse, but I’ll vote on it if it's a strategic tool just keep in mind, that’ll hurt your speaks somewhat. I default to reasonability, no RVI’s, and drop the argument, but my views can be changed.

Kritikal Arguments: Not your best strat in front of me, but if you are sincere I will lend a sympathetic ear. By that I mean you accusing your opponent who’s reading a straight up deont AC, that’s probably recycled of being racist I will want to hear more detailed explanation and will be very lenient with responses towards it. Overall, I never read or understood K’s as a debater, so you really don’t want to take this strat in front of me, as while I won’t be straight up biased against it, I will likely take a wrong decision because of my own lack of understanding. But once again, the same rules apply, EXPLAIN EXPLAIN EXPLAIN.

Plan’s, CP’s, and DA’s: Go ahead! I debated Parli for the second half of my career so I’ll be happy to judge these debates.

Speaks: You definitely don’t need to be a TOC level debater to get high speaks in front of me, I believe in inclusion in the activity, and will give a persuasive debater who makes coherent arguments that are well explained with good extensions and good weighing above a 29 easy. Things that will hurt your speaks: 1. Being rude, mean, or making the debate round an unsafe space. I will nuke your speaks if you're rude. 2. Reading or triggering Skep. 3. Reading tons of frivolous theory. 4. Using tough lingo to exclude a younger debater.