Siegel,+Joshua

My background: I did four years of public forum debate at Phillipsburg High School. I am now in my sixth year of coaching and judging for Phillipsburg High School.

Determinants in Awarding Ballots:

I'm a traditionalist when it comes to Public Forum debate. I fully expect the presence of following in round if you want to successfully persuade me to your side.

1. FRAMEWORK: This is the foundation of any successfully debated case. I expect you to carefully consider the significance of the resolution and actually engage with it. This means takes the operative wording present in the resolution and using it to craft a compelling frame throughout the round. If the resolution says ought or on balance, I fully anticipate that you will utilize it as a means of shaping the pace and progression of the debate. Framework is key to preventing debates from being mired in uncoordinated evidence wars that result in no outcome. 2. WEIGHING: This is the second most important factor in shaping the outcome of the round and I value it highly. Debaters often make the mistake of assuming that evidence or contentions win on face value. A skilled debater must tell me why their contention or approach should matter more in the world we are considering. It's not what you say, it's how you say it to me. There are any number of acceptable weighing mechanism that range from long vs short term to frequency vs magnitude. I will entertain any value that you believe to be most critical to interpreting the round, so long as you can explain it to me. 3. CLASH: This is the essence of debate, and its absence detracts from the quality of the round. Teams should seek to find the interconnection and contradiction of their points and elevate them. This means seeking out where your case and your opponents match strike each other and telling me why this clash turns into a clear reason to vote for you. This should occur on both a contention and framework level. For example if both you and your opponent value preserving life, and you find that on the contention level your opponents are either inherently threatening this standard or do save as many lives as you I expect this to be a focal point of debate. 4. STRONG CONTENTIONS: This becomes the final part of the debate, I do appreciate a strong contention level of debate especially when teams show me they are well researched and understand the topic fully. However, the presence of a strong contention cannot outweigh the value of framework and weighing, hence this is at the lower end of my concerns. That being said I expect both teams to provide me with clear and compelling contentions.

Feedback and critiques will be provided if they are asked for.