Gellen,+Andrea

Background: I debated LD for Scarsdale from 2002-2006 and have primarily judged LD since then. In the past year, however, I have judged a handful of PF tournaments.

Things I want to see: weighing, responsive arguments, voters, polite debaters, a clash in arguments.

Things I don’t want to see: a handful of arguments without any meaningful explanation of how I should weigh them in the round or why they matter, students who are too loud or shouting or engine in behavior that is otherwise rude or innappropriate. I’m not saying you cannot be zealous in your advocacy or your attack of your opponents' case, but you should be able to do so without yelling at each other or me and without attacking your opponents or making a derogatory statement about their intelligence.

Speed is generally not an issue as long as you are articulate, and I find debaters are good at this. There are no arguments I won’t vote off of //a priori// unless they are obviously abusive or otherwise offensive.

In terms of voting, I will always avoid intervening in the round, unless I have no alternative (i.e., if both teams have offense at the end of the round, and one team explains to me why their offense matters more and they I should vote for them, and the other doesn’t, I’ll vote for the one who weighed the round for me). Obviously, I will intervene when neither side tells me how to weigh the round, but I think it makes the activity less meaningful and makes my decision somewhat arbitrary.

Questions? Feel free to ask.