Paradigm

Amishai Goodman-Goldstein
Florida Forensic League Hired Judges

I’m Amishai (pronounced ah-me-SHY) call me Amishai or "judge." Don’t call me Mr. Goodman-Goldstein. I am in college so even if you think I’m old you don’t need to tell me.

ADD ME TO THE CHAIN--please create one chain using my email and stick with that chain throughout the round. Please do not use speech drop/file share if avoidable. Varsity debaters should use PDFs, not Google/Word docs.
Agoodmangoldstein@gmail.com

TLDR - experienced policy debater, coach, & judge. I will handle whatever you throw at me, but I am a truth judge. I do not like nihilism. I do like substantive debate. Do not run a “throw a ton of stuff at the wall and see what sticks" strategy. Warrant warrant warrant your arguments. Explain what exactly matters, why events will happen as you say they will, etc.I will not vote on the dropping of an argument that I haven’t been convinced I need to care about. Do not think of this round as a whack-a-mole game.Use your absolute best sportsmanship with me, your opponents, and your partner.

Disclosure of case is good. Do it and don’t run anti-disclosure/selective disclosure arguments.

I am somewhat familiar with this year’s resolution (IP) having judged a few tournaments including nat’l circuit.

NOVICES AND MIDDLE SCHOOLERS, you might not understand everything below. Don't be intimidated, I am here to help you and not just judge you. Ask questions!

LD & PF debater note:

I am primarily a policy judge — and if your round is LD or PF, I will be judging it vaguely like I judge a policy round, so just read my TLDR and you’re good. I don’t often judge those events but if I do, I don’t ascribe to the idea that a member of the general public needs to understand the round and am fine with theory/whatever.

I AM NOT A TECH JUDGE!!!!!!!!!! Run a bunch of highly contradictory arguments and I am going to vote you down, no pretending that I’ll consider it. Too many students are nihilists and debate reinforces that. I refuse to be a propagator of nihilism. Believe in something, some sort of consistent line of reasoning with clearly warranted and articulated impacts (and Ks can totally do this), you’ll be good. I flow, but I’m not voting on tiny sub points on the flow basically ever unless the round collapses on those.

To make that even clearer: I will be considering all of your arguments in the same universe, and if they can’t coexist in that universe or aren't important, you are going to lose. Substantive argumentation is so much more important to me than "dropping subpoint b of evidence Average Joe '95."

Most debaters shouldn’t be too affected—positively or adversely—by how I judge but if you’re a debater who uses your extensive experience to beatdown your opponents in the nihilistic style I outline with rapidfire mutually exclusive, unwarranted arguments, you can either change your approach in my debate room or I will vote you down whether or not your opponents call you out for it. Up to you.

If you are talking about the US Government/Judiciary with regard to policy implementation, get your facts straight or just say fiat.

I don’t typically flow author names or years, you need to extend by referencing your claims--please. I flow online in shorthand.If you reference cards by page numbers/source names, I may botch the flow.

kritiks:

Ks are perfectly fine, if your K is generic I'll have seen it, if not I can still work with it and will understand the concepts at least at the elementary level. I think the burden of proof is higher for K affs on T and fairness. Your alt should be truly competitive and must carry impact beyond the debate space.My contradictory arguments standard includes Ks. Your K must coexist with any other arguments you run.

Topicality, when not obviously trivial, is good substantive debate—do not drop topicality if run against you, you must give a non-lazy defensive argument, and if it you think their topicality attack is trivial and unimportant, explain why. For negs running topicality, tell me why it matters. I am willing to vote on T.

I know when you’re overdoing analytics as filler, so do the work and get all the cards you need. A constructive which is largely uncarded is rarely a good constructive.Analytics must be warrant-heavy. I’m not going to start tech judging just because “we read X so they’re wrong.”

WEIGHING, LINE BY LINE, IMPACT CALC AND VOTERS
Do it. You do it, other team doesn’t do it, you’re not guaranteed a win but your chances go way up. Do the work on the flow for me, tell me why their warrants are wrong, why their arguments don’t matter, etc. If there’s no semblance of basic impact calc/weighing/voters, I don’t have any guidance from you on how to weigh different args. WRITE MY WHOLE RFD TOP TO BOTTOM IN YOUR 2AR/2NR, DOWN TO THE SMALLEST PARTS OF THE DECISION—BUT PLEASE DON’T GIVE ME A TECH RFD THAT CONTRADICTS WHAT YOU READ HERE, IF YOU DO I DEFINITELY WON’T USE IT.

Style and Sportsmanship:

Do not appear visibly annoyed at something your partner or opponent does in round, hit the table, loudly sigh, etc. Be silent when your opponents are speaking. Do not interrupt ANYONE unless reclaiming the floor when cross examining. Speaker points will be docked if you do any of these and I’ll call you out.

Spreading is fine but if you’re spreading so fast you’re gasping for air that’s extremely unhealthy for you and it’s going to hurt my flow. It also doesn’t make sense for non-tech judges like me. On a 1-10 of speed, I like a 6 BUT if you need to go slower to be clear do so. I may or may not tell you to slow down if you’re too fast so pace yourself appropriately.

Run your own timer and be honest about it. I won’t give you time warnings but I’ll run a timer of my own as well.

Clash is good, personal attacks are not. No hostile tone or bullying. Profanity in speeches is fine but cursing out your opponents, including questions like “do you really ******* believe that…” are unacceptable.

If cross ex is open you and your partner both need to be asking and answering questions. You can choose to split the CX periods and have only one person talk in each one even if open but IF ONE PERSON DOES ALL OR 75%+ OF CX TALKING, I WILL REDUCE SPEAKER POINTS FOR BOTH TEAM MEMBERS.

Just because I may seem personally inclined to certain ideological arguments DOES NOT mean I am going to vote for them by default. An idea isn’t good because it’s progressive or conservative—what about it makes it those labels?

Do not make arguments which imply that my ballot should be awarded based on immutable characteristics of debaters. I vote on ideas, not identities. Tell me how your identity fuels and interlinks with your ideas instead.

Openly bigoted arguments will automatically lose. There's plenty of room to debate tough issues without making bigoted arguments.

I will NOT flow or vote on cross examination but you should still view cross ex as binding. You need to use cross-ex to extract points to make for the rest of the round; it’s not an argumentative speech. I’ll dock speaks if you start making a speech in cross.

Don’t steal prep.

Please try to clarify everything you need to with me prior to the 1AC.

Reminder—clipping and cutting are not the same! Being explicit that you are cutting a card is fine, deceptively clipping lines in your card and/or selectively choosing to read certain words with others to make the card say something it doesn’t actually say is certainly not fine. If you catch your opponent clipping or doing any other sort of evidence violation, say so as soon as they’re done talking so I can review the cards and proceed according to NSDA rules.

SPEAKS/DECISION/POSTROUND

I'm lenient with speaks. You start at 28 which is a very satisfactory but unremarkable performance, or a good one with small errors. You have to make major gaffes to go below a 27, but I happily give 29s to very strong speakers.

Asking questions after my decision and feedback is fine, especially if you’re confused as to why I voted how I did.

Out of respect for the dignity of everyone in the debate room, if you lose, you may not suggest my decision should be changed after or imply that your opponents did not deserve a win. If you do, you and your partner get zero speaks and I report you to tab immediately. I have done this and will do it again.

Have fun, be nice, take the round seriously but not too seriously, and we’ll all have a good time!