Garcia,Mariela

**IF YOU EVER NEED PRIVATE COACHING, I CAN HELP. CONTACT ME AT mga4edu@gmail.com FOR FURTHER DETAILS.** *PLEASE READ FOLLOWING NOTICE: I have specific judging philosophies for the different styles of debate (Policy, ld, pofo, parli) For a full record of my judging history, please look for my other account by searching my full name, Mariela Garcia. Any rounds that I judge after October 16, 2015, will be located on this judge's page. I apologize for the inconvenience.*

General Information About Me
**My Experience in Debate:** **My Educational Experience:** **My Debate Motto:** = My Judging Philosophy for Policy/LD = All types of debate prescribe to a game with rules that are ALWAYS debatable. Having said that, I encourage debaters to establish a role of the ballot and a role for the judge as a way for me to score the round. This is separate from framing the debate through framework arguments. Framework tells me how to evaluate and prioritize certain issues within the debate while giving me net benefits to preferring it over other framings. The roles you give to the ballot or judge are additional arguments that allow me to weigh the round given the interpretations you give to those roles and clarifying the necessity to accept these roles as opposed to upholding my own predisposition. Thus, I will do my best to keep my predispositions away from the round. We as judges merely evaluate the arguments presented to us given the strategies that are used to explain and spin the issues. I stay true to the flow and not my opinion. A debater’s job is to clearly communicate what your argument is and spin the debate by reverting back to the arguments you should have consistently presented throughout the debate to answer the opponents opposition. Thus, you have to warrant your explanations and create clear impact calculations to narrow down my vote in the last speeches.
 * I debated for about 4 years at CSU-Fullerton ranging from novice to varsity. I am currently the head coach and director of the policy and public forum teams at La Quinta High School. I have been coaching them for almost a year now.
 * I have judged policy, ld, pofo and parli, at all levels for 4 years now at various tournaments and have coached minimally in the past. My entire record is not on my judging history, given that many of these judging events occured when I was filling in for missing judges at our CSU-Fullerton tournaments.
 * I am graduating with majors in American Studies, Chicano Studies, and Philosophy and have had to follow our general requirements at CSU-Fullerton which provide a well-rounded background in many of the disciplines that are categorized as a-g in your curriculum. More than likely, I will know if you have made up evidence or if you took evidence out of context. I will automatically give you a 25 for your speaker points and you will lose the round.
 * EVERYTHING IS DEBATABLE BECAUSE THE WORLD IS INTERPRETED THROUGH DIFFERENT METHODOLOGIES AND PEDAGOGIES. I encourage you to be creative with your arguments, even if that means you must debate the resolution (Policy/LD). However, please note my requirements for these types of arguments to be valid in a round below.

I welcome metaframing debates and kritiks. However, kritik debate is hard work. This means that if during cross x you do not have a clear explanation of your alternative, metaframing, or links to clarify to the opposing team why your kritik exists in the debate, you have basically lost the round. You may be able to explain it in later speeches, but the cross x is your time to make sure I know what it means to vote for the k. The best k’s engage the topic or the affirmative to either turn the case or frame out the affirmatives impact. Topicality against these types of arguments are good but are not enough to win the debate. To win the debate against a k, you must set up a good framework and topicality argument and demonstrate why it is that we should preserve the norms of thinking in the direction you want us to go (lay out the harms, impacts, and voters). Net benefits for both k and fw/topicality are necessary.

** LD debaters ** must explain how their criterion is the correct moral choice to make. LD is not about solving an issue per say, it is a morality debate. So please make sure you emphasize how your case supports your criterion and why your criterion is the best moral position to take.

Therefore, specificity is key. This is how I know that no one else knows your argument better than you and I reward specificity with higher speaker points. You don’t need masses amount of evidence to win the debate. Quality over quantity.

<span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">**Note some other specifications about formalities in the debate that I judge on:** <span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">**Clarity & Speed:** <span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">I value clarity over speed. I am fine with any speed. I will give you three warnings for clarity, no exceptions. After that, do not hold me accountable for missing an argument on the flow since I clearly gave you a warning about not being able to understand what you were saying. <span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Do not spread the following items for your own benefit: Value, Value Criterion, Contentions, Tag Lines, Authors, Date". This avoids me having to call for evidence to make my decision. I want to be as fair as possible. It is your responsibility to help me make it a fair round. <span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">**Road Map & Sign Posts:** <span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">This helps me keep up with you on my flow. After the first constructives, I recommend the following structure: <span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">**Evidence:** <span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">As long as I can follow a clear, reasonable, and logical line of thought, I will always value that as evidence. This means that if you use your experience, poems, performance, or anything that can be seemingly categorized as "unorthodox" evidence, I will still count it as a warranted claim in the debate. I am graduating with majors in American Studies, Chicano Studies, and Philosophy and have had to follow our general requirements at CSU-Fullerton which provide a well-rounded background in many of the disciplines that are categorized as a-g in your curriculum. EVERYTHING IS DEBATABLE BECAUSE THE WORLD IS INTERPRETED THROUGH DIFFERENT METHODOLOGIES AND PEDAGOGIES. <span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">**Diplomacy:** <span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">***My normal range for speaker points is 26-29, but I have given rare 30s to truly deserving debaters. 25's are distributed only in special circumstances.*** <span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">**** = <span style="color: #fa0707; font-family: Arial Black,Gadget,sans-serif; font-size: 110%;">My Judging Philosophy for POFO and Parliamentary = <span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">**As A Team** <span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">I only judge on what you actually said in the round. I will stick to my flow and nothing else. So you have to make sure you are clearly defining terms and positions on issues that are raised in the round. The evidence is key in pofo and parli and the rules must be followed thoroughly as to set up fairness for every student in the tournament. The contention of the rules is reserved, in my opinion, only to policy and LD debaters. In making the decision, judges are expected to ask the following questions: <span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">1. Which team was more persuasive? <span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">2. If yes to number 1, did the debaters back up their claims with evidence? <span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">3. Based on my flow, were the ideas understandable enough that I can repeat (almost word for word) the argument that they made? <span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">4. Were the debaters polite and professional throughout the entire round? (speaker points) <span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">**As Individuals** <span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">A debate, in essence, should be the diplomatic exchange of ideas. We practice how to exchange ideas in this form so that we avoid yelling at one another. I will deduct speaker points if you are rude or disrespectful to your opponent in crossfires, no questions asked. There is an exception to this rule: if I see that another team is yelling, and the opposing team needs to speak up, I will allow the team being yelled at to get louder so that they can carve out space to talk. I will not take off speaker points to teams who merely decided to stand up for themselves. <span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">***My normal range for speaker points is 26-29, but I have given rare 30s to truly deserving debaters. 25's are distributed only in special circumstances.*** <span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">**General Notes about my judging preferences:** <span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">**I mimicked my judging philosophy from many of my past coaches and through my experience in debate, but I found a great breakdown of what most judges will judge like by looking at Mike Maier's judging philosophy. He has great tips on what you should be doing in almost every form of debate and recommendations for you as well. I highly recommend that you read it. I do hold different positions on some of his ideas, so please make sure to note those distinctions by reading my paradigm thoroughly. Do not expect me to give you a thorough breakdown of my judging philosophy before the round!** <span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">**Mike Maier's judging philosophy link: https://judgephilosophies.wikispaces.com/Maier,+Mike**
 * <span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">**AFF:** Overview, What you are winning on, Dispute Neg. claims by referencing evidence, Why you should win the debate (calculation of impacts, magnitude, timeframe, the risk of solving, etc.)
 * <span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">**NEG:** *BLOCK SHOULD ALWAYS BE SPLIT: I will take off speaker points for teams who fail to do so* Overview, Restate arguments (should be split in block), Why Aff isn't resolving your claims with clear warrants from your evidence, and why you should win the debate (calculation of actualization of impacts, magnitude, timeframe, etc.)
 * <span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">SPEECHES: If you need to yell, scream, or perform your speech in any way that is necessary to make an emphasis to your claims or give it performative interpretations (say that you are running an identity K or performance K), I will NOT deduct speaker points. Make sure that any claims you are making can be backed up reasonable, logical lines of thoughts. Try to be as respectful to the other team as you can.
 * <span style="font-family: Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">CROSS X: Debate, in essence, should be the diplomatic exchange of ideas. We practice how to exchange ideas in this form so that we avoid yelling at one another. I will deduct speaker points if you are rude or disrespectful to your opponent in cross x, no questions asked. There is an exception to this rule: if I see that another team is yelling, and the opposing team needs to speak up, I will allow the team being yelled at to get louder so that they can carve out space to talk. I will not take off speaker points to teams who merely decided to stand up for themselves.