Alladi,+Ravi

I am a judge for Monta Vista high school.

I am something of what you would consider a "lay" judge, because I have a more traditional view on debate. However, I have judged rounds from Stanford, Berkeley, and VBT, and so I have an idea about how circuit debate functions.

Speed: Speed in constructive just means I will probably not get down all the arguments, because I am a poor flower, and view speed in general as something that should be used only when necessary. However, if it is apparent that the number of arguments made requires speed I will not hold it against you if it is clear.

Theory: theory debate is silly, and I often feel that if something is proven true or false, then by virtue of logic I would have to affirm/negate in that way. I don't approve of theory debates, but I will make exceptions if an argument seems to contradict a standard of clarity, or goes against the function of debate. I have voted before on arguments that entail that there are multiple arguments that contradict one another, leaving no way to resolve the round, but have not voted on an argument that says that arguments of that type are unfair.

Cases: I do NOT approve of cases outside of the value or value criterion structure specified, however if there is a clear reasoning as to why the standard given functions as a burden of proving the resolution true, I will agree to weigh the round in that sort of framework. That said, if the argument is clear, reasonable, and is logical, then I will likely to vote on it if arguments against it don't make sense. That should give you an idea on my view on "counterplans" or "critiques". I only have experience in LD, and for the most part I am a "parent judge", but silly emotional appeals will likely not work on me. However I am also a fan of arguments about the way that values work, and how they logically contradict or are indeterminable. I guess the rule of thumb here, is appealing to the claim, warrant, impact structure will work well.

Speaking: I feel this is largely disregarded in the activity as a whole, so this is my paradigm against it. If you aren't persuasive, then I might be in a way "interventionist" by doing some internal weighing with responses against it. At the same time, if you are persuasive, but don't understand the gist of responses to a certain arguments, then I might weigh the appeal of the argument with my own intuition about whether I like the argument. However, I won't vote directly against you if there is no argument present, if something is "dropped" (though I despise that terminology), then I will "extend" it to objectively determine the round.

Speaker points: I will give both debaters a standard 28, and they go down from there for rudeness/lack of formal presentation, or not being persuasive. They can go up depending on the arguments you make as well, if something is incredibly interesting, I will raise them.