DeFranco,+Tom

__LD Judge Philosophy__

I haven't written one of these before, so sorry in advance if it seems scatter-brained.

I was an LD debater for Chaminade High School in New York, and then a policy debater at Wake Forest University.

I strongly believe that debate is for debaters, you should do whatever you think you do best in front of me, whether that involves theory, critical arguments, or a standards debate.

That being said, my default approach is to resolve the standards/criteria debate, after determining which standard will be used, I figure out which debater most effectively fulfilled that standard, and that debater gets my ballot. If this is the way you want to win, you HAVE to weigh your impacts in relation to the standard. If you would rather take a different route to my ballot that's absolutely fine, but you need to make it clear from the beginning of the debate how it is that you want me to judge the round.

If you plan on using critical authors, I'd caution you that I'm not familiar with many (but I'm very comfortable with Nietzsche and neo-Marxists). That means that you have to take it slow, do NOT assume that I'll be okay with you reading a bunch of evidence which means nothing to me as fast as you can just so I can piece the puzzle together while calling for cards at the end of the round. If I don't understand your argument, that's your fault; you will lose and you won't get very good speaker points.

That brings me to the issue of speed, which is usually the only thing people actually care about when they ask "do you have any preferences" at the beginning of each debate. I can deal with it fine, but only if you can do it well; if I think you can't, I will let you know by yelling "CLEAR." Be warned that you will only receive this courtesy twice, if you fail to deliver your arguments in a manner that is comprehensible enough for me to flow, you will probably lose the debate. I will not fill in holes on the flow after the debate is over, you have an obligation to make your arguments clearly and effectively. This is especially true of theory/topicality arguments, you will have to make these at a rate that is even more comprehensible than your other arguments.

If you have any other questions for me please feel free to ask them before the debate starts, I'll also post a chart explaining how I award speaker points here.

30 - Perfect performance, I'll probably give at most a few of these a year. 29.5 - Almost perfect, one of the best if not the best I'll see a given tournament. 29 - Extremely excellent; a debater I expect to be in late elimination rounds at the tournament. 28.5 - Very good performance, all of the essentials are done right with a few errors; a debater I expect to be competing in a bid round. 28 - Good job, deserves to be in the elimination rounds, but some work to do. 27.5 - Commendable effort, maybe not quite ready for the elimination rounds. 27 - Has the right idea in regards to the basics, but definitely a lot of room for improvement. 26.5 - Struggling, but shows potential for a lot of growth, keep at it. 26 - You'll get this if you show up to the room breathing. 25.5 and below: I will use this part of speaker point scale creatively. You will get something down here only if you do something that's disrespectful to either me or your opponent. Depending on how bad your behavior is, it could also earn you a loss.