Judge Philosophies

What to know about my experience:  I debated for 4 years in high school at Maine East. I have coached in Chicago for 5 years at the following schools: Phillips, King College Prep, and Phoenix Military Academy. My teams have competed at outside tournaments like ISTA, The Glenbrooks, Blake, Iowa Caucus, Michigan, Harvard, Maine East, and Marquette. When I coached at Phillips, my team won the city championships in our conference (when each separate conference in the Chicago Debate League had a city champion). I have also taught at the Chicago Debate Summer Institute and have worked as a support coach for the CDL Middle School League.

My judging paradigm:

My preferences/rules on spreading: 

1)     Do NOT mumble when you read your warrants. They should be read at the same volume as your tags.

2)     Raising your voice an octave higher than your natural speaking voice when you're spreading is unacceptable. I do not want to hear Mickey Mouse.

3)      If you can’t spread without gasping, then you shouldn’t be spreading. If you sound ridiculous, I will lower your speaker points. It takes away from what you're saying, no matter how extraordinary you are as a debater.

Basic Preferences:

1)     I want a clean, organized flow. That means I basically want to hear good clash, signposting, sticking to your roadmap, and you should explain all of your arguments well. (i.e. a pet peeve of mine is "Our impacts outweigh their harms." and then not explaining it. I don't buy what you don't sell. WHY do your impacts outweigh their harms?)

2)     If you tell me to extend a specific card, don’t just tell me the author. Remind me of what the card said and then tell my why it’s important to extend that card.

3)     I also don't care for tag team cross x. The entire premise of debate is lost when you can't answer your own questions or when your partner needs your help to answer questions. Each one of you should be capable of standing on your own two feet without your partner’s help.

4)     Consult CPs are just a waste of time in my opinion, although I will listen to them. If you can sell me on it, I'll vote on it.

5)     Framework for running a case that has absolutely nothing to do w/ the topic is a complete mockery of policy debate in my opinion. I am an old school policy debater and judge. Therefore I want to hear a debate round based on the topic. Realism bad has nothing to do w/ the topic. If you are running one of these cases, then you need to prove to me why your framework is the best framework in the round in addition to proving that not only do you have an actual policy, but that you solve for something through some type of course of action. Sitting back and evaluating the problem or making people aware that the problem exists is NOT action because you need to prove that this newfound consciousness WILL (not MAY) lead to action that will solve.

6)     Conditionality bad/dispo bad blocks should be a last resort. Let's stick to the actual issues of the round instead of time skews.