Scofield,+Blayne

I judge mostly PF, some Policy, and a little LD. Open cross-x, open prep, etc. are all fine. **LD** For circuit LD, I’m a lay judge.
 * General Background**

That said, you could do worse. My background is policy. I flow, I’ll listen, and I’m open-minded. Brave tournament directors put me in LD/PF bid rounds. Plus, I enjoy debate. It’s fun and the community is full of fantastic people.

Even so, let me emphasize: I AM A LAY JUDGE.

I say this because I want an awesome round. I want you to be awesome.

But, I’ll be frustrated if I don’t understand what’s going on. You’ll be frustrated if you get a weird decision. That’s definitely not awesome.

Keys to getting a good ballot:


 * Slow down. If you spread, I will get lost.
 * Talk about the resolution.
 * Go easy on theory. I’m the wrong judge for RVIs. I’m okay for T. There are better judges for condo/fiat/counterplan theory, but I can get through it.
 * Use plain language. I will not know your lit or your jargon. The more technical it is, the more you need to walk me through it.
 * Clash. You don’t need evidence. Just understand the argument and put some thoughtful analytics on the flow.
 * Talk about details. Is your framework utilitarianism? Tell me what’s good. Tell me how to figure out whether it really is for the greatest number. Is your T intep reasonability? That’s awesome! Give me a way to measure reasonableness.

In LD, I prefer to truth-test the resolution. Aff talks about why the res is true. Neg talks about why it isn’t. Frameworks matter some, case impacts don’t really matter, and the question at the end of the round is: who did the better job of proving the truth or non-truth of the resolution?

That said, you give me a plan, I become a traditional policy judge. You can move me off of this, but you’ll have to invest time to do so. I come from a traditional policy background – if you go for role-of-the-ballot stuff, walk me through it. **Policy** I am a traditional policymaker. I judge off the flow, but I can't handle very high speed. I like signposting and I want to hear your warrants and evidence. I'm weak on Ks, but open to them. For it to work, your K needs to be fact-based (identify the specific assumptions or language that generates the link) and you need to make the critical argument as simple as possible. I won't know the literature and I won't be familiar with the argument. T is great. I don't have a default view on counter-interp versus reasonability. The round will decide that. I'm also open-minded on impacts. Is the resolution a contract? Does debate need to be fair? What's the most educational part of debate? These are great questions. Teams don't have an obligation to disclose unless the tournament requires it. I'm skeptical of terminal impacts. It doesn't take much for me to discount them. I am not tab rasa. My job is to evaluate your arguments. If you make an unpersuasive argument or your evidence lacks warrants, I am not obligated to give it much weight even if it is uncontested.