Freed,+Odette

I have been an attorney for 26 years, and I was on my law school’s honor society debate team for 2 years. I have been judging varsity LD for 2 years.

I am a classical type of judge. I can flow, and will vote off the flow, but I don’t buy a lot of progressive arguments like Kritiks and Theory. Almost everything else is a voter in my mind. Feel free to ask me questions before the round about a certain type of argument, and I’ll tell you my opinion on it.

Being prepared is crucial in my eyes. It’s important to me that your contentions are backed by research and that the research is cited. It’s also important that you’ve read the research and fully understand what its conclusions are. In other words, don’t straw-man. I have checked in the past to see if students are mistating their evidence. It won’t win or lose you the round unless your arguments depend on that evidence. If not, your speaker points will be docked. I will know that you have understood the evidence when you effectively defend it,with regards to its impact and relevance, during examination by your opponent. If you’re opponent can show that you have misinterpreted your research or are misquoting your researching to support a position that it doesn’t support (straw-manning), then you will lose that point, and your speaker points will drop.

I will call cards after a round for two reasons: First, if there is a dispute about straw-manning. Second, if I happened to read that article, and I’m sure you’re straw-manning. Two things will clearly happen. First, your speaker points will drop massively. Second, you will now be fighting an uphill battle to win this debate.

Please give me a clear value and value criterion.

I do not like speed. I can flow you if you are going a bit fast, but keep in mind that if I miss what you said, then I can't give it any weight. If you’re speaking so fast that I didn’t understand what you said, that is tantamount to you having said nothing. If you spread, I will have missed the entire speech, and I really don’t like playing catch-up in CX.

I do flow CX. I find it helpful to look back to when deciding the round.

I am not favorable to arguments or scenarios that lead to complete destruction theories (e.g. Nuke war, extinction, ontological damnation, or the like). I just won’t buy them. If you have an internal link story, stop it at the impact before nuke war. Don’t waste your time with that last step, because you will not only have wasted time, but I will regard that as the terminal impact, and I just won’t buy it. They have no grounds in debate in my eyes, they’re just far too unrealistic.

I do like good weighing. Write the ballot for me, tell me why you win, and why your opponent doesn’t.

Please be prepared to time yourself and your opponent. Be courteous and polite. Do not raise your voice at your opponent in CX.

For novices, I abhor rounds where it is apparent that the novice debater is reading their arguments for maybe the second time ever. Often times, I hear such novice debaters grossly mispronounce words that are key to the debate. That only shows that the debater is unaware of the definition of the word being used. Again, preparation is key and it will show in your demeanor and confidence level. One example in a recent debate was use of the word recidivism. Yes, it can be confusing to pronounce, but it was a word that was central to the debate. Another is the word regime. Please don’t tell me you have trouble pronouncing it. I am not sympathetic. Learn how to pronounce it, practice it and get it right. Speaking properly is a corner stone of debate.

In cross-examination, it’s important that you answer the question directly and not side step it or avoid it. I enjoy seeing a good chess game that can happen between two well prepared debaters where one tries to set up the other on parameters for winning the round. In cross-x, you can demonstrate to me that you truly understand the topic.

Good Luck!