Jiang,+Evelyn

I'm a parent judge for Monta Vista High School. I've never debated myself; however, I've been actively judging LD debate. Latest tournaments I've judged including varsity divisions in 2011 Berkeley, Stanford, VBT, 2010 CPS, 2010 Alta Silver and Black, and 2010 Glenbrooks Speech&Debate.

In general, I favor the traditional value/value criterion oriented LD debate. I look for contentions that are well developed and impacted, and persuasively presented. I'll do my best to flow you. Speed is less likely an issue unless you're super fast, in which case, I will let you know if I cannot follow you any more. Start with a reasonable speed and ramp up usually works for me.

In descending order, my preferred elements of debate are:

Crystallization: Clarify your voting issues. When this is in-sync with my flow, it makes decision making easier for me.

CP/DAs: I think they're good strategies and very effective arguments.

Theory: My understanding is that theory is used to claim that your opponent has violated some rule of fair play. If you're running theory, plan to slow down for me and clearly state your theory elements, i.e., interpretation, violation, standard, and voter (I only know fairness or education), clearly state to drop the argument(my default) or drop debater, and link your standard to voter. And did I mention I prefer framework debate? I tend to have a hard time to convince myself that I should vote for you if you're solely winning on an abusive theory.

Kritiks: Through out my judging experiences, I've encountered this 3 times, all of them I voted down, because they were abusive and somehow all lead to nuclear war and extinction of human kind. I'm skeptical about this but if you show valid warrant that I can agree with, I'll keep an open mind about them too.

Overall I'll listen to any arguments, including your contentions, new techniques, or any form of off-case arguments. But do explain and impact them, otherwise, I won't guess for you, I'll just discount them.

Most importantly, have fun debating.