Winer,+Samuel

Background: I am affiliated with Walt Whitman High School in Bethesda, Maryland. I have judged for two years, mainly on the Maryland local circuit. I am also a lawyer at a firm in D.C. I haven’t judged any rounds on the January/February topic yet.

Presentation: I will award speakerpoints based on how clearly and effectively each of the debaters communicates their arguments to me. This means that your speakerpoints will drop significantly if you are going too fast for me to understand you, and I will also likely award you a loss because I won’t be able to flow your arguments.

Standards: I strongly prefer that debaters set up a value-criterion structure, and debate the merits of each others’ standards. At the end of the round, I will choose a value-criterion and see which debater’s arguments satisfy that value criterion best. This also means that you need to be weighing your arguments, so I know which arguments are the most important in terms of the value-criterion.

Argumentation: I strongly prefer that debaters make intuitive arguments which are directly related to the resolution. It is very hard for me to be persuaded by arguments which seem non-topical or entirely counter-intuitive. This doesn’t mean, however, that you shouldn’t be making unique arguments, as long as they are persuasive.

Crystallization: I prefer to see strong crystallization, as I believe that it is persuasive and makes my decision much easier. This means that you should be giving voting issues as you go through the each of the individual arguments, but at the end of the 2NR and the 2AR, you should be taking a step back from the flow and showing me the big picture of the round and why I should vote for you. Often, I end up voting for the debater who crystallizes the round better because he or she usually makes my decision the clearest.

Jargon: From my judging experience, I have become familiar with basic LD jargon (value, value-criterion, contention, etc.) but I have found that I’m not completely knowledgeable about some of the more obscure jargon that debaters use. Therefore, it is best if you explain the way that your arguments work in relation to other arguments rather than labeling them with vague words which may result in my failure to understand your point.