Smith,+Willow

I debated in high school for 3 years. I have debated a little bit of everything. I competed in Policy my first year, switched between Congressional and LD my second year and switched between Public Forum and Congressional my final year. I am a Tabula Rasa judge. I will flow to keep track of the round. My flow does not mean much, it is simply notes of what you say. When I judge debate I am just the neutral ballot you have to convince; if you don't convince me you deserve the ballot you won't earn it. I see your job as a debater to be to convince the judge that you are right and you have won the round-within reason, if you are blatantly spewing lies and factually incorrect statements I will account that, but everything else is just you trying to sway me to circle your name on the ballot. If you want to pull any odd or uncommon arguments I will listen, if it is really uncommon make sure to explain it well. As long as you convince me you could win on almost anything. I do not mind speed. Make sure to sign-post or accentuate tag-lines so that I catch the most important statements. Don't be an awful person to your opponent. Sometimes people get sassy, sometimes you get caught up in the debate, sometimes we make mistakes. But if you start making personal attacks on your opponents you clearly aren't winning and I won't try to justify how you could win. Personal attacks are a personal futile attempt to just make others feel worse since you are going to walk away feeling bad. We are all here to learn and better ourselves. I will not give you the time of day for doing that.