Sisco,Sara

I am a Ripon College Forensic team member. I compete in Extemporaneous speaking along with informative and communication analysis. I debated varsity policy debate in California for 3 years from 2004-2007. During my high school debate years, the teams and coaches at both Dartmouth and Berkeley coached me. I have judged varsity policy debate on the California circuit. I do not see a problem with speed during the debate however if I cannot understand the words coming out then I can not flow the argument. Cross-ex is vital, if you can ask the right questions then you can provide the right answers in a later argument. There amount of arguments presented is up to you, make sure each of the arguments is well developed and you have the evidence to back it up. I would not follow an argument that is not backed by clear and defined evidence. Make a good Topicality argument and I will accept, if it’s a space filler, its not a good argument. Counter plans are good, if it is argued that this is better than the current plan then ok, but a generic counter plan that is adapted to every case is easy to spot. If you are going to run a kritik, make sure you understand the material. There should not be a K run that is only understood by one of the team member, both should be able to argue it and be asked questions about it. As a whole I place a lot of emphasis on the clear clash in the round, please do not be to ships passing in the round, actually argue against each other. The team that takes on the other teams argument in the clearest most precise manner will be much more successful than the one that runs the arguments that they were told to run.

I have little experience with LD, as I debated policy in high shcooll, but I have judged novice LD before. Please prove your case, persuade me why you are either in support or in negation of the resolution. I do not like arguments that take us in ciricles that will eventually prove a point. Both side have the weight of proving why they are right. Use the values that you have argued and make a clear and true clash between you and your opponent. In the end if you prove you case better than the other side you have my vote. But make sure all your claims are backed up and have a point.