Magnuson,+Bill

I debated Policy in high school in Minnesota in the early 2000's, traveling nationally on a semi-regular basis. I also debated both American and British Parliamentary in college, competing globally on the MIT team. I have judged both Policy and Parliamentary tournaments over the years. This was written in October 2017, and I plan on judging at a handful of high school tournaments in the coming years.

In Policy, I'll be persuaded by and listen to arguments of all kinds. My default entering a round will be as a policy maker, caring a lot about soundness of the plan, weighing of arguments, analysis of evidence, and topicality. However, I'm happy to let my judging paradigm/criteria be a matter for debate in the round and for all normal structure to be argued away (leaving only speech time limits).

Speed and a technical debate are totally fine, but I won't consider trivial "voting issues" to be round winners (even if dropped) merely because they're labeled a voting issue, you'll still have to prove to me why that voting issue is more important than the others.

Synthesis and critical weighing of issues to close out a debate will get you a long way in rebuttals.