Chang,+Brian

3 years HS policy 2 years college policy 2 years college parli 9 years judging HS policy

After the debate, I will sign a ballot indicating which (one) team won the round. I'll also award some speaker points and enforce prep/speech times according to the tournament's wishes.

Everything else is up to you.

I am willing to decide the round based on whatever criteria the debaters convince me I should use - so please, at some point, tell me how I should vote and why. That file that your coach told you never to run? I think I'm more receptive to it than the average judge.

I try to approach the round with no prior beliefs, but I'm only human. Here are some of the biases I bring to the table.
 * I dislike spreading. Part of that is because of my own limitations - I only judge a tournament or two per year now, and I'm out of practice. It's more than that, though - I think there's a lot of value in being able to express ideas in a way that a lay (non-debate) audience can understand. And a lay audience cannot understand spreading. And they think we're weird because we do it. **That said, I believe the round belongs to you**, and I will do my best to follow you if you choose to spread - just know that I may not catch everything. (This is not an invitation for you to talk like a congressman from the south. I can easily follow you if you're going at a slightly-faster-than-conversational speed).
 * I won't consider arguments raised for the first time in the 2AR unless someone convinces me otherwise.
 * I think the in-round communication should be in a form that everyone in the room can understand (spoken English is a good default). I had this great (terrible?) idea once during a foreign relations topic: I would read all my speeches in Chinese, and my partner would explain why (English / European languages are tools of colonial oppression; rejecting their use when discussing foreign relations is key to [whatever]). We never did it, but I'd love to see it sometime. But at some point, somebody's going to have to explain what's going on.
 * I'm bringing some (basic) knowledge into the round. If you tell me that the US-Mexico border is absolutely secure and nobody can get into the US without going through a border station, I'll be pretty receptive when the other team says that that's false. Same thing if you tell me that only states, and not the USFG, are constitutionally empowered to engage in foreign relations.
 * I won't automatically drop a team unless the other team explains why I should - that's true even in the face of egregious conduct, including cheating, rudeness, etc. But I will automatically dock speaker points without the other team having to ask.

If you have any questions about any topic, please ask. Above all, enjoy yourselves. This is supposed to be fun.

EDIT 1: I will overreach to apply the framework that the debaters tell me I should apply. If nobody wins the framework debate, then my default is to vote neg on presumption, but anyone can convince me otherwise.

EDIT 2: I presume that the usual canon of impacts are bad / count as terminal impacts (death, dehum, genocide, slavery, extinction, etc.) until someone tells me otherwise