Nick's+LD+Paradigm

__ **Experience** __ : I did four years of policy debate at CK McClatchy High School in Sacramento, California. My senior year I was our team's captain and competed at CHSSA, NCFL, and NFL. While I was decent locally and cleared at most tournaments, I did not have the opportunity to debate extensively on the national circuit. In college, I did four years of NPDA/NPTE parliamentary debate at UCLA, and I cleared at NPTE in both 2012 and 2013. In my current life, I am a graduate assistant and parliamentary debate coach at CSU Long Beach.

I have judged maybe six or seven rounds of LD in my life, and I have no LD-specific debate experience. As such, I am wholly unfamiliar with the norms and trends of the LD community. It would be wise to assume that i am unfamiliar with certain jargon/concepts you might take for granted. While I probably know what util is, things like deontology probably need to be explained to me. I'm not dumb, just honestly ignorant. Please keep that in mind and adapt accordingly.

__ **In General** __ : I suspect that I tend to be somewhat more holistic than other judges in my evaluation of debates. Yes, the line-by-line matters, but at the end of the day, your best shot is to identify the big picture issues in the round and milk 'em for all they're worth. I prefer rebuttals that collapse to a few key questions as opposed to spamming the flow and hoping something sticks. Your goal should be to write my ballot.

__**Paradigm**__: For the purposes of judging LD debate, I would classify myself as tabula rasa, but with a strong preference for policy-centric argumentation. I never did LD and I obviously have no preconceived notions about anything, but arguments framed/contextualized in terms of competing policy options or the status quo will be the easiest for me to understand. That said, there is nothing I will refuse to evaluate so long as it is compelling and well-warranted.

__**Speed:**__ I emphasize this section because I have a substantial hearing impairment. Please keep the following in mind:

**♫♪ The faster you go, the less I flow** **♫**♪

If you want me to catch and record 95% of your arguments, 3 to 3.5 words a second is fairly safe for the average debater. This is significantly slower than most national circuit debates. It is slightly faster than conversational speed. If you are speaking softly and not projecting your voice, or if you are double-clutching every few seconds and your words are not distinct from one another, you are probably unclear. I will inform you of this fact. If you choose to ignore this information, then I will simply flow what I can understand, which will be virtually nothing. This seldom works out to your advantage.

I do not think that slowing down for one round will permanently handicap your debate career, but feel free to strike me if you feel otherwise.


 * Addendum 1: ** If I am on a panel and you choose to go full speed for strategic reasons, I understand. Just don't complain about my decision afterwards.


 * Addendum 2 ** : Paperless debaters should provide me with the highlighted text of the blocks and cards that they plan to read prior to each speech, in sequential order. If you do this, I won't have a problem if you spread when reading evidence or shells, since I can just read what you are saying. I will provide my own viewing computer. I would think that the future of paperless is heading in this direction, anyhow—why waste time calling for cards after the round when judges could have them in real-time?

__**Theory**__ - I have a pretty high threshold for voting on theory, and that's largely because I think debaters generally tend to do a poor job of resolving competing theoretical assertions through responsive comparisons. Whoever initiates the theory debate has the burden of winning that I should reject the debate and not the argument. There had better be obvious in-round abuse if you want me to pull the trigger. Sob stories concerning potential abuse are thus // exceedingly // unlikely to sway me. Impacting your standards on two levels - both at the in-round level and the macro level of debate - is probably a good idea.

__**RVIs**__ - I would prefer to drench myself in gasoline and dance around the nearest Bic lighter rather than listen to these. If you run them, I won't vote on them, and I'll probably dock a speaker point or two.

__**Kritikal arguments**__ - I prefer relatively straight-up argumentation, but if you must, sure. My firsthand experience with running the the K is limited, and I do not make any effort to stay current on the latest literature. If you're running something weird or complicated and you don't hold me by the hand throughout the round, don't complain if the result is not satisfactory to you. Also, if assaulting me with a slew of enigmatical yet meaningless buzzwords is your idea of a good K debate (*cough* D&G *cough cough*), I suggest leaving that particular expando in the tub. Quality impact turns are probably fun.

__**Impact calculus**__ - a must. This may come as a surprise to many debaters, but without impact calculus, your chances of winning the round are drastically reduced. I need to have a clear weighing mechanism for evaluating competing claims if there are no meaningful concessions made by either debater. Absent such a weighing mechanism, I’m going to end up intervening somewhere.

__**Miscellaneous stuff:**__

- Speech organization. Slow down on tags. Please signpost your arguments. Chances are I will miss alpha-numeric labels, so referring to arguments by their content is the safest way to make sure I am putting things in the right place. When extending evidence, do not just tell me who the author was, tell me what the author said. Please do not erratically jump up and down the sheet of paper unless you want my flow to be unreadable. Transition your arguments - providing some sort of audible cue like a strongly emphasized NEXT would be very helpful. When switching to the next flow, pause momentarily - both so I can finish flowing on the previous flow and so I don't accidentally miss your transition and continue flowing on the wrong piece of paper.

- I don't care whether you sit or stand, but I want to see your face when you are speaking. Not your eyes and your hair. Your entire face from the chin on up. Do not obstruct my line of sight with your laptop screen, your tub, or your evidence. Nor should you hunch over your evidence and stare at your podium/reading surface. Doing any of these things will reduce the quality of the voice you are projecting towards me and make it harder to understand what you are saying.

- Speaker points: I will try my best to assign speaker points in a manner consistent with tournament norms. I base speaks off of a combination of speech clarity, smart arguments and analysis, evidence quality, and strategic decisions. If you do things that annoy me, your speaks are likely to be lower. I'm definitely not a points fairy. My scale usually looks like: poor = 25-26.5, below average = 26.5-27, average = 27-27.5, above average = 27.5-28, early elim caliber = 28-28.5, deep elim caliber = 28.5-29.5, anything above that, you are probably TOC elim caliber and slapping your opponents around with their own evidence. I have yet to give out a 30. I reserve 25s and under for 1) incomprehensible speakers, 2) blatant cheaters, 3) debaters who believe themselves to be master douches of the known galaxy. If you are a combination of all three, congratulations, you possess an exceedingly rare gift and will be rewarded with zero speaker points. You also might find that debaters who pay attention to my philosophy and adapt to my preferences tend to score better speaks. Usage of carefully-selected sports references and internet memes will likely garner bonus points.

Questions? Ask.