Franklin,+Jonathan

I am a parent and attorney with a student who does LD for Walt Whitman High School. My field of law is appellate litigation so I am very familiar with legal debating structure as well as legal concepts. I was not a debater in school, but I have judged LD for two years, mostly at Maryland and Virginia local tournaments, and am familiar with the format. I use flowsheets to judge rounds. However, if you speak too quickly you run the risk of losing me. I cannot judge what I cannot follow. In that regard, I also prefer if you keep the debating jargon to a minimum. I know some of the basic terminology (e.g., turn, drop, extend) but generally prefer plain English over technical terms and the more esoteric a concept, the less likely I will know what it means. I judge mostly on whether the debater is able to articulate a logically compelling argument that both advances her proposition and responds to her opponent's. I am more influenced by the quality of the reasoning than the quantity of arguments made. I appreciate it when debaters flag what they believe to be the voting issues, and prefer arguments that are cohesive to those that simply rattle off a list of otherwise unconnected points.