Prieto,+Ricardo

I've been involved with the high school debate community for 14 years and have judged in every circuit in Texas this year. I recently started coaching debate in low-income areas along the texas borderlands and love it.

If you are using computers, you need to flash your stuff to the other team before your speech (at worst, immediately after)

The best debates meet my paradigm of Clash and Education. Whether it is traditional stock issue policy debate, "progressive" Lincoln Douglas, Topicality, CX debate with performance and K affs, whatever it is - the debaters need to engage with each other (not too hard since you spent time preparing/researching topic literature) and engage creatively/ with critical thinking the arguments and voters relevant to the round.

I vote on Theory but have also noticed, particularly in LD, that the use of theory spikes and silly RVIs are because the debaters prefer evasion rather than clash... Don't spread a bunch of theory sentences strung together for a minute and expect me to catch it all.

(Speed might not be a problem for me but for the other team it may be. Don't try and out-spread your opponents if you see they have a delivery significantly slower.. hoping they drop a bunch of arguments because that is NOT clash or educational. )

Otherwise, speed is not a problem but I have judged many rounds (especially in LD) where clarity is an issue. Collegiate policy debate is fast but can be flowed just fine because the top teams enunciate and articulate clearly.

Topicality is a voting issue. Reasonability and competing interps are arguments you need to make and can lead to some great clash and education. However, some affirmative cases are clearly central to topic literature and should be no surprise to the Neg.

On K's : Most teams do not run these arguments well but i love them in the rare events they do. Be well-read. Communicate how your framework functions and should be weighed against the other team's advocacy/the resolution/etc

Perm do both requires work. Work on the Link/Impact debate to give your Perm some strength.

I vote based on what is on the flow and what i understand clearly. I will not do the debating for you.

Finally, be kind to each other and have fun!