McKay,Sheila

My Judging Philosophy

Background. I currently coach for Menlo- Atherton High School, Atherton ( Bay Area) Ca. I have been working with that team since 1999. The team emphasized LD until 2005- when policy was added. I am reasonably familiar with the mainstream policy cases on NDCA and mainstream LD cases, however I do not usually travel with my team and I encourage college debaters to judge for our team so I have not judged in the fall of 2010, but judged all local and some circuit invitational meets last spring. My debating experience (policy back in the ice age) was 4years of High school Speech and Debate at the Annie Wright School in Tacoma Washington, Mills College and 2 years on the Hastings Law School Moot Court Team. Overview. In both policy debate and ld debate I try to be tabula rasa. In policy I will default to policy making, but am familiar with the stock issue paradigm - especially at the novice level, if both teams are more comfortable with a stock issue paradigm I am fine with using it. Novices/jv should debate within their comfort zone. At the varsity level, I am willing to listen to any argument. I enjoy debate rounds- and try to bring my best energy to your round. I enjoy all aspects of argument K, counterplans- disads, conditionality and love intergrated strategy. Throughout the debate, please explain your reasoning and impact your arguments. Creative reasoning based on evidence is encouraged. Muddy reasoning and muddy impacts will lose speaker points and maybe the round. Evidence is important to me. If possible I prefer a longer card to a shorter card. If your interpretation is not what the evidence ( long card) is saying it will be held against you. The quality of your source may count for you or against you. As a coach I like hard work, reading the evidence, learning the topics, knowing what you are talking about etc etc. ( it is safe to assume I spend some of my spare time reading cards and assessing my teams evidence- so may have better than average radar - and less than average tolerance -for skewed interpretations- made up cards and evidence from random blogs-umm there was some question here last year- so I hope this clarifies the point.).

I try to keep my comments short and upbeat ( if you want more than that- see me after the ballot is turned in or ask me to keep my flows). As a debate grandmother, I hope you will continue to love the activity and enjoy the experience and see your wins and losses more as a batting average than a battle and I hope I can write or say at least one helpful thing to each debater. I am open to performance and will vote for a good one. The only thing that I won’t do for a debater is put down my pen – I feel naked without a flow. Even in the most performance- oriented debate, I will at least make notes. Speed. Clarity and volume – particularly if the room is crowded with several tables of debaters, is more important to me than speed. I can follow a brisk pace. I will say louder and clear if I have problems following you. Roadmaps, organization and tags are important tools and clarity is reflected in your speaker point score. Topicality. I enjoy a good T argument. I especially appreciate framework in the T. I will default to competing interpretations if you do not do enough work on the framework. Theory. I like good theory debate. Especially in LD- I like good theory debate. I evaluate these arguments as I would any other argument. So impacts and reasoning will be important. K- I will vote for a well reasoned and well argued Kritik. RE-LD: Value debate is interesting to me and I have voted on a well presented value case. Well grounded/carded- philosophical arguments or contentions that clearly link to a philosophical point of view are appreciated. Internal Warrants are appreciated. Weighing is rebuttal is important. Weighing in constructives will get you the extra speaker point or two.