Sheets,+Sarah

I am a student at UC Berkeley majoring in political science. I did speech and debate for 4 years at Carlsbad High School in Southern California. I was most competitive in public forum and oratorical interpretation/original prose and poetry. For a bit of a better feel of my background, I went to the state championship all 4 years, did both debate and speech events at 3 of those, and my records include 5th place in public forum, 5th place in OPP, and 4th place in OI. Though I never went, I did get 2 bids to the TOC (from the Winter Classic and ASU tournaments). Because of all this, as well as years of at various tournaments participating in LD and policy (though certainly not as intensely) I feel very comfortable in the circuit level competition. However, unless you are a very clear reader, I will most likely miss some key warrants if you spread (and this is fine as long as you remind me of them later in the round– your choice).

As far as an actual judging philosophy goes, I for the most part do not partake in 'judge intervention', and though I like to listen to various theory/kritiques, unless they are run very rationally, your best bet is probably to go with more standard, public forum style cost-benefit analysis/framework debate kind of thing. For example, I loved the K about the word 'terrorists' in a past LD topic having negative connotations, but I also just last week voted down a counter-visuality K at a league policy tournament. Basically, you have to really convince me that the pre-fiat impacts are legitimate enough that I should be voting on it, something I've found has been relatively hard for teams in the past.

And though much of my personal experience was also in speech, presentation in regards to literal speech patterns and confidence etc. will not in any way impact my decision (though I will vote you down if you are exceedingly rude/unnecessarily aggressive. Heated is fine, but please, don't be a douchebag.) I will say that presentation in regards to organization will probably greatly impact my decision. I LOVE LOVE LOVE when teams/debaters can lay out for me what they are weighing in the round. Direct comparisons really win me over, usually.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask me before the round. Best of luck!