Chen,+Grace

I debated 4 years of LD for Bridgewater-Raritan (NJ) 2011-2015. I'm now a student at Harvard College.

If you're reading this, your question is probably "how legit is this judge." So the honest answer is I was a decent debater but not stellar by any means. As a frame of reference, I generally dropped the bubble round/early outround on the national circuit. So if you're looking for a judge who can really understand and process your 7 off - 400 wpm - micropol strategy in a way that does justice to the work you've put in, I'm probably not your judge. But I can certainly judge - and enjoy judging - smart, strategic, nuanced debates. See below for more info that might affect your strategy and judge prefs.

I try to approach each round with an open mind/blank slate, so I'm looking for the debaters to dictate what happens on the ballot. Tell me a clear, convincing story.

My favorite kind of case is the nuanced, creative traditional case. That was the type of case I debated with most of my career. This is not just a stock case that anyone with a brief could write, but "stock with a twist." I appreciate creativity and originality in the framing of the case and the arguments/rebuttals within the round as well as they are well supported by logic/evidence.

That said, a few personal caveats:
 * JV LDers - I think some of the best traditional debate I've ever seen has been in JV rounds. I believe that the JV experience is key to educating and retaining people within the debate community, so if you're a JVer reading this I promise I give lots of constructive feedback, and I'm more interested in rewarding you for what you did right than penalizing what you did wrong. Don't be scared of debate, even if you're coming from a school without much training/support. You can do it :)
 * Disclosure theory: Please don't run this in front of me. While I think disclosure is great, the strategic justifications usually used in round are not the reasons why I think it's great. Plus this strays too far from substantive debate that I think is valuable within the round.
 * Affirmative framework choice: like 90% sure I won't vote off of this. but give it a shot if you really want.
 * Speed - I was never the fastest, so give me like 70% of your max. I'll give you three "clears" and also confused looks if I can't follow.
 * K's - I like thinking about these and I think they present a valuable way of reframing/approaching questions. But admittedly I'm not that well read so be very clear if you go this route
 * I am willing to call for a card if it is highly disputed/critical to the ballot, but would prefer if the debaters made the contents of the card clear within the round.
 * I have a lower than usual threshold for RVI's - if you give me even a short paragraph theory arg for RVI's I'll probably give it to you, especially for the Aff. But I'd strongly prefer not to have to vote of theory unless there is real abuse that needs to be rectified.
 * Plans/CP's are fine as long as there are convincing reasons a perm won't work
 * Give yourself multiple outs if you can. That increases the ways that I can give you the ballot and will probably also get brownie points for good strategy.
 * Flex prep/case sharing is fine by me, it's up to the debaters to consent.
 * Speaker points: I like confident body language, clarity (in spreading too), organization of arguments/roadmapping, crystallization. I don't like montone/inflection-less spreading, lack of eye contact with the judge, rudeness in rebuttals/cross ex, or unnecessarily crushing a clearly confused opponent.
 * Will reward smart humor and analogies.
 * My usual speaker point range is 27.5-29.5 - I think there's a lot of problems/inconsistencies with the speaker point system so I'll err on the high side to give you both a boost whenever I can.
 * Spikes: if I didn't flow it, I'll probably discount it.

(For all these caveats, I'm not saying I will never vote off of it, but I won't like it/will have a harder time following/have a higher threshold/will leave angry doodles on your ballot, all of which might affect how I think about speaker points):