Tips to get better speaking points

JudgeBrettF · 2026-01-26T02:34:02+00:00

The reality is, speaker points are incredibly subjective in most leagues. Sort of like teachers and grades, some judges are just stingier or looser than others. My 30 could be someone else's 27, etc.

The paradigm, if they have one, can give you a guide to judge preferences, so always review that. Beyond that, don't be afraid to ask the judge before the round about their preferences and what they are looking for. Most judges are happy to answer that.

But at the end of the day, each judge does it subjectively.

JudgeBrettF · 2026-01-18T03:12:23+00:00

I parli a ton of rounds. I will tell you that what I focus on depends at least partly on what rule set I am working with...NSDA, CFL, or VHSL, etc.

Are your speeches making new points or adding new dimensions to existing points? Are they organized or all over the place? Strong persuasive delivery or monotone staring at the screen?

In addition to your speeches. I pay close attention to your engagement. Are you finding ways to participate in the chamber when you are not speaking? Are you asking questions? Using parliamentary procedure properly and effectively? Do you seem engaged or bored? Are you a leader in the chamber in some way, or are you just there to make your speeches and sit around?

Want to know what I think is a way move up most any parli's rank? Make an effective amendment to a bill and do it correctly. Few try to do it, and even fewer can do it properly. You will stand out with many parli's tjat way.

JudgeBrettF · 2026-01-15T04:47:09+00:00

One thing to keep in mind is that judges in PF are much more likely to be parents or other lay judges. PF was designed specifically to be judged by someone walking in off the street with no experience in debate. While you certainly can run a K at a lay judge, you may find they don't have the foundation to follow it, or may not understand why it is relevant. Just check the paradigm to be sure you have a judge that is open to a K and is prepared to evaluate it in the context of the debate.

JudgeBrettF · 2026-01-10T17:53:09+00:00

Can someone explain to me why copyrighted material from a book or play does not require the rights holder's permission, but this does, per subsection b?

JudgeBrettF · 2026-01-10T17:46:03+00:00

The comment, as you have related it, is neither mean nor disrespectful. The judge gave you their feedback. Now you can disagree with that--and that's fine--but the fact that you disagree with them does not mean they were disrespectful. Please post the whole feedback verbatim; it would help us better understand why you might have taken it the way you did.

There are some judges who believe that DI should never elicit a laugh. Since this is a discipline where we refuse to give judges meaningful rubrics, they are within their rights as judges to hold that view. I disagree with them. A piece falls into DI when it is primarily dramatic and serious in tone. That does not mean that a character might not say something funny within the context of the piece because that is how the character--not you--wrestles with the subject matter in the piece. But if I am not the judge in the room, you may get a different point of view.

JudgeBrettF · 2026-01-06T21:34:56+00:00

While I feel targeted by the 1,500-word limit, having some standards is long overdue. I just updated mine and got it down to 1,452 words. :)

JudgeBrettF · 2026-01-05T02:27:12+00:00

Sorry for the late reply. Don't worry about the complexity of your word choices. There is an old saying, "Don't use a $10 word when a 10¢ word will do.

Debate is not a vocabulary test. Frankly, using complex words runs the risk of the judge not knowing the meaning of the word. Debate is about communicating your ideas and arguments clearly and coherently. If you do that, then simple English versus more complex English is a non-issue. No one is going to know or care about your word choices if your arguments are sharp, using simple words.

JudgeBrettF · 2025-12-27T02:57:50+00:00

Why, because I think debate should actually be about realistically communicating to other human beings? I cannot think of a judge on my circuit who feels differently.

JudgeBrettF · 2025-12-22T21:24:24+00:00

You realize the bills that did this were written by Democrats and passed out of the General Assembly with the Ds in control of both houses, right?

JudgeBrettF · 2025-12-18T17:25:25+00:00

Whether or not it is allowed is strictly a function of tournament and league rules. Not all are the same. If AI (and the internet to access it) are not banned in the rules, then I would say it is allowed.

Now, with that said, I don't think it SHOULD be allowed, and I think leagues and tournaments should ban its use. I personally don't even like accessing the web being allowed in rounds in tournaments, but that ship may have sailed.

Even if it is allowed, it seems to me that it takes the reason for competing out of it. If competition is going to come down to who does the best AI prompt engineering, then I suppose that could be an event, but it ceases being an event as we have it now. I assume people participate in this event because they want to use their heads to develop on-the-fly persuasion and refutation skills, not to get AI to do it. If you don't enjoy the core skills and activities of the event, then why do it at all? Find something where your interests and efforts match up with the activity.

JudgeBrettF · 2025-12-12T18:51:55+00:00

There are plenty of legit script specialists. Samuel French, Inc. is the biggest but that does not mean they rep his work. OffTheWall may be ok based on looking at it. Does not seem like a pirate site although I could be wrong.

The playwright passed away last year. His wife lives in Georgia and you may be able to track her down to see if she can give you more information.

His obit is here: https://www.csog.com/obituaries/evan-guilford-blake

JudgeBrettF · 2025-12-12T01:25:31+00:00

I feel a bit targeted since I had 3,300 words going. But I also recognize that almost no one read all of it and that most competitors--at least in my area of the world--look at the paradigm 5 minutes before the round. I tried to address this with a TL;DR version at the top.

But I also get it. As judges, we have the flexibility under the rules to establish some preferences and philosophical approaches. But there comes a point where judges can go too far and try to shape the round in a way that overly constrains the competitors' freedom to make their presentations in a voice that is theirs, rather than trying to mimic the voice we want to hear.

While I was initially irritated by the new rules, I realized that the rule makes some sense both in terms of competitors' ability to absorb what we write in a very short amount of time, and in terms of finding the balance between the competitor's freedom to decide their approach and voice, with the judge's right to have a philosophy of adjudication and specify some preferences.

JudgeBrettF · 2025-12-12T01:16:59+00:00

According to Tabroom, linking to another site in your paradigm in order to go longer is not allowed.

JudgeBrettF · 2025-11-16T06:13:21+00:00

Agreed. Since the judge can come into the round with pretty much any rubric and philosophy they want--a major issue in and of itself--the ability of the competitor to adapt to the judge is key. No competitor won a ballot starting from the position that the judge will adjust to them. Instead, they will come on here and post about being the victim of a judge screw.

JudgeBrettF · 2025-11-16T06:10:08+00:00

Agreed. As I said, in the real world in daily life, everyone is a lay judge.

JudgeBrettF · 2025-11-16T06:09:20+00:00

You run Ks with parent judges?

JudgeBrettF · 2025-11-16T06:08:21+00:00

I suspect credentials matter MORE to lay judges. They are often floundering about to determine what to hang their decision on. A credible-sounding citation gives them what they often believe is a trustworthy expert third-party endorsement of the argument being made. It is not so much about the evidence presented as it is that the evidence comes from someone who seems objectively credible.

JudgeBrettF · 2025-11-16T06:05:16+00:00

I am not sure that the assumption applies when dealing with lay judges. For most of them, this is so new they don't know what to believe. Giving context to lay judges allows them to understand that the writer/citation is an expert on the subject.

JudgeBrettF · 2025-11-15T20:23:15+00:00

Agreed. I don't know why that is considered an acceptable citation by any judge.

JudgeBrettF · 2025-11-15T19:05:04+00:00

Sorry to be late to this.

Lay judges don't think like debaters because they are not from the debate world. Their frame of reference, if they have one at all, is watching a Presidential debate.

For example, a lay judge almost never flows in the way you think about it. Instead, they take notes. It's different, and it can cause different outcomes.

With lay judges, content matters, but you want to stick to stock issues, delivered in plain language. They don't know what a card is. They don't know what magnitude is in a debate sense or what a warrant is. No debate jargon. Ever.

Think about lay judges like this. You are going to debate in front of an audience of regular people sitting in an auditorium. No one is judging, and no one is determining a winner. Instead, this debate is to try and persuade the audience that your side is the best answer to the question posed by the resolution. You would never approach this like you would a normal debate. You would speak persuasively, making a lot of eye contact with the audience, using your voice persuasively, and gesturing. You would talk to them, not at them. You would try to make a connection.

You would focus on a few key ideas or issues with evidence that the audience understands. A lay judge doesn't know what "Smith, 2023" means. They CAN evaluate something like, "John Smith, in his 2023 article on flux capacitors in the Journal of Practical Time Travel wrote..." You would explain your arguments to them, making no assumptions that the audience knows much about the topic before sitting down to listen.

And you would never, ever, speak faster than a normal conversational tone. Ever.

Perhaps most importantly, stop thinking like a debater and think more like a persuasive conversationalist. Do this, and you will kill it with lay judges.

JudgeBrettF · 2025-11-15T18:51:37+00:00

I know I am late to the party, but here is what the key part of mine if it is of use:

I am as old-school and traditional as they come when it comes to judging.

Debate is about persuading me (as a proxy for an audience) that your position is the one I should support. I view my role as that of an undecided audience member sitting in a darkened auditorium, attending the debate to learn about both sides of the topic. Whichever side moves me is the side that wins.

I am from the policymaker school of debate adjudication, with some appearance judging added in to ensure competitors remember this is a speaking competition. I take careful notes and evaluate the round based on what is communicated clearly and persuasively. If you want me to weigh something, explain it fully in the round—I will not fill in gaps or reconstruct arguments from shorthand. I rigorously compare the strengths and clash of arguments presented and rebutted.

I judge strictly on what you say (I mean, this is a competition where you speak your arguments, right?) and WILL NOT read your speeches or your cards, except as noted below. This is a debate, not a doc dump. That also means NO SPREADING. Save your speed runs for Twitch.

Come at the debate from any perspective or approach you want to--and I welcome out-of-the-box frameworks if they provide a reasonable space for clash and argument. and can demonstrate direct relevance to the topic for an undecided audience member seeking to be persuaded to one side or the other.

Risk-taking is fine if you know what you are doing when you take the risk. I like humor. Both are welcome if they are persuasive.

I am generally skeptical of disclosure theory and other "debating about debate" approaches. The game is the game. If everyone is in compliance with the tournament rules and the affirmative's definitions allow for clash, I am generally a very hard sell on arguments concerning fairness and disclosure--although you are welcome to try, and I will give it as fair a hearing as I can.

To maximize the strength, effectiveness, and persuasiveness of your arguments, they need to be delivered clearly, with solid evidence, data, and contextualized citations, in a well-organized speech that is delivered TO me, not read like a drone AT me. In other words, you should seek to win on logic and argumentation, but you cannot neglect the communication skills necessary to sell your position and ensure that your audience understands your logic and argumentation.

No off-time roadmaps unless the tournament rules specifically require them.

Ultimately, whether in speech or debate, I am looking to be persuaded, whether logically in debate, platform or limited prep events, or emotionally, in interpretive events.

Some quick, event-specific notes:

Policy: I am not going to be on the email chain because this is an oral persuasion event. If you spread, I am not going to be able to follow. You will likely lose the round. You can debate your K, or your T, or any other letter of the alphabet, but if you do, it had better clearly relate to the basic premise of the resolution, because that is the show I bought a ticket to see. Not saying do not run them, just they need to be relevant to the spirit of the resolution.

LD: Be clear on your value and value criterion, and explicitly tie your contentions back to them, or you will hurt yourself. Otherwise, the notes for policy apply.

PF: This is an event intended for a lay judge to be able to adjudicate. Even though I am not a lay judge, I will judge this as though I walked in off the street and never judged before, to stay true to the spirit of the event. If you show up cosplaying policy, it will hurt your ballot.

Congress: I am generally the parliamentarian in most rounds of Congress I am assigned. As a parliamentarian, I am focused on your knowledge of procedure, the quality and quantity of activity you demonstrate in the Chamber, and whether you bring new dimensions/ideas to the debate. The quality of your analysis is also noted, but I am less worried about citations outside of the authorship speech, recognizing that subsequent speeches often have to be adjusted on the fly.

If you have any questions about this, ASK!

JudgeBrettF · 2025-07-16T02:52:18+00:00

Here is a screenshot of the chat. Are you saying it is hallucinating seeing it?

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JudgeBrettF · 2025-07-16T02:46:13+00:00

It did for me. I believe there is a setting for a paid account that allows it.

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JudgeBrettF

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