Namazi,+Dan

Basic Background - I personally performed in LD, DX/FX, and OO. I was the president of the Speech and Debate team at Katy HS.

Judging LD - I have a lot of things I look for in a round but overall I go where you take me. The first thing I look for are extensions; I love extensions, show me where you extend on the flow and how it is important. I also love voters, whether aff or neg I want to see voters given to me in some way.

As far as what I find acceptable in an LD round; I couldn't really care less. I am strictly a flow judge so will only take what is on the flow into account. I am open to Ks, counterplans, disads, anything at all really. I am willing to vote up the "death good" or "women rights bad" arguments without a problem, BUT I want EVERY argument correctly warranted, impacted, weighed, etc. if you do that then I will fairly consider the argument without problem. So again, WHATEVER you give me I WILL flow and consider without issue. With that said I would like to note that I prefer a basic LD debate, where both sides decide to debate the resolution on face and provide for a lot of clash, I won't vote anyone down for not taking to that style but that is just what I find the most fun to judge(as well as easiest).

Apriori arguments - A lot of times debaters will throw in a bunch of these, or just give an observation or something that says "you auto negate/ auto affirm because". Usually I don't like these arguments, and a lot of times they don't do much for the debate, unless it is really insightful or warranted these arguments usually are, well blatantly wrong/idiotic. If you can run an autoaff/autoneg argument correctly then I'll definitely weigh it, but I very very rarely find an argument that is truly an auotaff/autoneg, even when dropped.

Speed - I can handle ANY speed. I CANNOT and WILL NOT follow low clarity! If you go fast that is fine, I will get your stuff on my flow. If you speak as if there is a small animal in your mouth I will not get your stuff on the flow. I will shout clear, get your attention, throw a shoe, whatever is necessary to let you know if there is a problem. I am upset however if you sit there are spread to a max for an AC and then end with 45 seconds left over. I will deduct speaks for that.

Speaks - I do not ever judge on speaking ability or presentation. I go off the flow and performance will NEVER affect the win/loss outcome. For the actual speaks I hold a similar view. I do not care whether you speed or not, whether you sit, stand, or handstand while you speak; I will give you speaks based on your organization more than anything else. Things that will cost you speaks include, but are not limited to - Bad clarity - Bad/No organization - Being an ass in CX Thats basically it.

Evidence - Analytics, emphirics, just a smart guy whose last name you read, I accept them all; however prefer all three. I do not require huge numbers of cards per argument, if you warrant it effectively then I will buy it, you can add more warrants if that comes into question. I ALMOST NEVER EVER accept "personal anecdotes" as evidence or fallacies of "it hasn't happened yet" or "that's just stupid". I do not care how ridiculous or stupid an argument is, give me a tangible reason to ignore it. If the argument is "It is cloudy thus vote me up" do not respond with "thats stupid" say instead "Argument wasn't impacted, it means nothing in round; further relevance, it being cloudy has no effect on our decision on the rights of accused terrorists."

Note for the round I will not tolerate the huge amounts of time wasted between each speech. I am not an idiot, and we are going to be under the assumption that your opponent is not an idiot: as such we do not need you asking "opponent rdy? judge rdy?" every speech. The round will be run in the following way After each speech / prep time usage / cx the next speech / prep time / cx will begin within 3 seconds. That means that 3 seconds after AC is done the NCX time will have started; 3 seconds after NCX is over NPrep has started; 3 seconds after that NC/NR has begun, and so on for the whole round. Getting water, shuffling papers, etc. will come out of your time. THIS INCLUDES ROAD MAPS! again I'm not an idiot, I will understand where you are when you start to speak! SO DO NOT BOTHER WITH ROADMAPS UNLESS YOU ARE OK WITH IT COMING OUT OF YOUR SPEECH TIME. However I would like to add that I'm not the kind of judge that will cut you off mid-sentence; if you wanna go 4 seconds over to finish the sentence fine, go ahead, I won't take it out of any speech time. Same thing with CX. If the question was asked before the 3 minutes ended answer it.

Flex Prep - I am fine with it

Theory/Abuse - Use it as you will, I honestly think that theory is misused at least 90% of the time but if the opponent does not respond at all to it I will look at it as a voting issue. If there is clearly no abuse and the opponent addresses that in the slightest I'll likely completely drop the theory argument unless you can effectively prove abuse. THEORY IS THERE FOR ABUSE; USE IT ONLY WHEN THERE ACTUALLY IS ABUSE!

How I weigh the round Unless one person is VERY CLEARLY DECIMATING the criteria debate then I will almost always judge off both criteria, weighing each argument through both sides to see the round. I look only at the last speech you give and work my way back from there. for example if you made an amazing argument in 1ar and the 2NR did not address it at all and then it is ot at all mentioned in 2ar it no longer exists. So again, i work my way back from the flow starting from last speeches deciding who won each argument and weighing it back to the criteria.

Judge Intervention I am a proponent of letting the debaters decide the round, I will almost never ever intervene with my own bias/ info. If you decide to bring up a study or a piece of evidence that is VERY CLEARLY flawed beyond reason, but the opponent does not address that problem with it then I will not take the flaws into account at all. Although this goes back to the apriori argument info I gave earlier. I will not interfere with the argument itself but, if needed, I will intervene in the importance. If you give an argument and call it the most important item in the round and that I should autoaff/autoneg on it and the opponent completely drops it I will weigh the argument but I won't necessarily autoaff/autoneg on it.

PF / CX - I have never done either of these but I understand the workings of both to a decent degree. For PF I have no problem judging and know what to look for; there should be no problem there, give me claim--> warrant--> impact, basic stuff. If I am judging CX then you can cross apply pretty much all of the above stuff minus the parts unique to LD (criteria, etc.) I weigh off net benefit unless told otherwise in CX.

FX/DX - I want to see a lot of sources and a lot of creativity in the speech. Something that makes me think or laugh while performing its duty as an extemp speech. KEEP YOUR HANDS STILL! I do not want CONSTANT, UNENDING, REPETITIVE hand motions.