As a Lincoln Douglas Judge I am a very traditional judge from a very traditional area of the country. With that, comes all of the typical impacts.

I am not able to flow spreading very effectively at all.

I, very rarely, judge policy, but those would be in slower rounds as well. Because of that, though, I am at least somewhat familiar with K debate, K AFF, theory, CP's, etc.

For me to vote on progressive argumentation in LD, it has to be very clearly ARTICULATED to me why and how you win those arguments. Crystal clear argumentation and articulation of a clear path to giving you the ballot is needed.

Hello, my name is Kristen Fanning and I previously judged speech at The Three Rivers Tournament, CFL Qualifiers, and the PHSSL Tournament in 2022, and Congress for KESDA 2022. At the MOLSH Tournament of 2022, I judged Congress, Prose, and Impromptu on the same day. At the Invitational in Duquesne University 2022, I judged Congress and Prose. At Central Catholic High School in 2023, I judged Congress and Informative Speech. Before I go on, you can reach me at krisvf14@gmail.com if you have any questions.

Anyhow, I graduated from Upper St. Clair High School back in 2015 and went on to study Toxicology at Pennsylvania State University. I spent my first two years at Erie and transferred to University Park to finish and earn my degree in May 2019 with 6 other Toxicology students. It was a rather small program; however, I have acquired background knowledge in Biology, Organic Chemistry, Biochemistry, Pharmacology, Immunology, Oncology, Human Anatomy, and Mammalian Physiology. During my undergraduate career, I had laboratory experience in a biomedical engineering laboratory that studies nanomedicine as cancer treatments. Afterwards, I went on to work in a laboratory at the University of Pittsburgh’s Department of Medicine (Division of Pulmonary, Allergy, and Critical Care Medicine), studying acute lung injury, immunosuppression, and muscle fatigue from smoking, vaping, COPD, sepsis, and COVID-19. I currently have 4 coauthor publications (I’m waiting for my 5th one on muscle fatigue during sepsis, which is currently undergoing review), and I’m working on a first author scientific literature review.

Publications:
Li T, Long C, Fanning KV, Zou C. Studying Effects of Cigarette Smoke on Pseudomonas Infection in Lung Epithelial Cells. J Vis Exp. 2020 May 11;(159):10.3791/61163. doi: 10.3791/61163. PMID: 32449738; PMCID: PMC7946338.

Li T, Fanning KV, Nyunoya T, Chen Y, Zou C. Cigarette smoke extract induces airway epithelial cell death via repressing PRMT6/AKT signaling. Aging (Albany NY). 2020 Dec 1;12(23):24301-24317. doi: 10.18632/aging.202210. Epub 2020 Dec 1. PMID: 33260152; PMCID: PMC7762507.

T. Li, K. Fanning, Y. Chen, C. Zou. PRMT6 Deficiency Aggravates Cigarette Smoke Extract-Induced Airway Epithelial Cell Death Through Repressing PI3K/AKT Cascade. Am J Respir Crit Care Med. 2020; 201: A4068.

Li W, Kitsios GD, Bain W, Wang C, Li T, Fanning KV, Deshpande R, Qin X, Morris A, Lee JS, Zou C. Stability of SARS-CoV-2-Encoded Proteins and Their Antibody Levels Correlate with Interleukin 6 in COVID-19 Patients. mSystems. 2022 Jun 28;7(3):e0005822. doi: 10.1128/msystems.00058-22. Epub 2022 May 18. PMID: 35582921; PMCID: PMC9238396.

Outside of the laboratory, I love learning about history (Ancient-Modern Day) and I still learn about it through my love of writing historical fiction stories as a hobby. They aren’t published, but I hope to do that some day.

You may wonder, what does all of that have to do with speech and debate?

Considering my background in scientific research, my technical knowledge, and my leisure time of studying history for writing stories, I’m particular about facts… if your speech was informative and you were to claim something as a fact, you must have evidence and/or sources to back up the claim. In science, we are constantly learning as our facts evolve from new discoveries. If we see evidence to support these new claims (through reproducing data in experiments, peer reviewing manuscripts, and reaching a consensus), we simply change our minds and look further into these discoveries with questions (sometimes questions to challenge the discoveries) to get a better idea on what we’re learning, just like with astronomy, quantum physics, cancer, and COVID-19. Otherwise, supporting claims with emotions, beliefs, anecdotes, etc. will be dismissed and not taken seriously.

On the other hand, if your speech is about philosophy, art, symbolism, literature, or anything that has room for interpretation, I’m open to hearing all kinds of views considering that everyone has different backgrounds.

No matter the type of speech, I want to enjoy it and stay neutral.

For giving a speech in general: choose your topics wisely, speak at a moderate pace, enunciate, speak clearly (especially since I’m going deaf in both ears and I’m having difficulty hearing the pitch of women and children), be polite (especially with the competitors), and no foul language.

Lastly, I want you to relax, do the best you can, and have fun.

Hi, I'm Casey! Did both speech + debate events as a youngin'. I now work in special education and disability care.

"Strike me and I'll give you 30 speaks" -a judge much funnier than me.

I'm a big believer that debate is a place where anybody from anywhere can come, view the debate, and understand a decent chunk of what is being said. I try to be as tabula rasa as possible, but have outlined circumstances in this paradigm where that goes to the wayside.

If you give me something to judge, and don't tell me why and/or how to judge it, chances are I'm gonna put that point/contention/whatever way at the bottom of my 'things to care about in this debate' list.

♥ A TL;DR of this Paradigm ♥

Don't spread. Quality of arguments over quantity- this goes for any day, any round, any tournament. Run whatever argument you want as long as you link it to your case (yes, this means be topical (on the resolution)). I'm not the best judge by any stretch of the word- SO, please don't use super dense lingo and expect me to understand it.

I don't care about email chains/documents.

Tricks debate bad. Unique points good. Being a jerk bad. Positive vibes good. Being condescending big bad. Weighing points good. Roadmaps fine. Extending points good. Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo. Have fun + drink water.

♥ ALL BELOW POINTS MOSTLY CONCERN LD/POLICY ♥

Don't spread- it's straight up unnecessary + cheapens debate to quantity > quality. (Woohoo, strike me!)

That being said, I'm fine with people speaking faster than 'normal'. You know what the difference is. If I have to call for clarity/speed more than 3 times in a round then I'm going to really be harsh on your speaker points.

♥ That's that ish I don't like ♥

You're gonna find it very hard to run some form of Disability Pessimism with me and win- this is one of the only biases that I can't ever seen to get past- I am biased towards cases that do work to make a "positive" outcome the most attainable scenario. This doesn't mean don't run arguments that say the world isn't gonna end- if you can prove the world is gonna end, then seriously, do it.

Nihilistic/depressing for the sake of being depressing arguments make me fall asleep and fall into the ever expanding void of Lovecraftian horrors that no doubt live in the Hudson Bay (or so I've been told).

♥ Uhh idk what to call this section, maybe like 'stuff you probably should and shouldn't do' ♥

I don't care how you access your criterion, I just care that you actually access your criterion. Run any K, plan, CP, or what have you and I'll happily flow it as long as you've linked to the resolution and framework (dead serious- that's it!). If you're running a K, make sure it's topical (like, seriously, I'm a big stickler with this) and assume I don't know what you're talking about in the slightest and go from there- I'll go out of the way to say that traditional K's are an easier way to win. If you're using a K, I need to understand the link and the terms you use! It is not my burden as a judge to flow a point in LD that doesn't link back to your criterion/value/philosophy.

If you're running a plan or counterplan, the more unique the better IMO. Obscure ≠ Unique (Policy debaters are quivering at me saying that- I know, I'm scary- fear me).

I'm not the biggest big fan of how LARP-y LD has become in the past few years. I'm not opposed to it, per se, but strongly believe moral/ framework arguments should always come first in LD. If you're going to run a LARP-y case, have at, but show me why we shouldn't look to a moral system (or whatever way you want to conceptualize it as) to achieve the end result of the round.

Role of the Ballot arguments usually make me cringe. "Education" based arguments also make my brain explode- running these with me unless heavily contextualized will usually go nowhere.

'Debate Space' arguments are bad.

Disclosure (or even time skew, for that matter) theory is usually not good to run with me, unless you really, really feel like the case is abusive and whacky.

I usually see right through trick debate and hate it with a passion. This stuff cheapens debate. Sophistry and my bias against it won't be overcome by you running heavy theory for it, trust me. Same thing with frivolous theory.

Weigh your points (give me them sweet sweet voters), especially in your final speech. I won't vote a point down because you don't extend it, but I'll be a lot more skeptical that you just gave up on the point somewhere along the way.

Truth > Tech, but Tech isn't a bad thing. If there's no base for you to ground your argument in truth, you can't access technical arguments. Extend tech off of truth.

♥ In Closing ♥

I don't like it when people are haughty, pretentious, or talk over others. Don't simply assume your argument is the best because your coach said so. Believe in and know your case, but don't take it as a threat to your person if someone questions something in your case (unless it's like, really egregious). I'll go out there and say that if you sound like a jerk who's simply trying to destroy or demoralize your opponent, I'm a lot more likely to give you less speaker points. That being said, you should still try to destroy your opponent... but like, ~metaphorically, my dude~. This is high school debate. Save the attitude for real-life stuff, like people who think that water isn't wet, people who think Chipotle is better than Moe's (you're literally just lying to yourself, stop smh smh), and people who don't think pineapple belongs on pizza.

Finally, have fun. Bring a sense of humor. Bring some sarcasm. Bring some water. Water is good. Always.

Have a fantastic day, and keep growing and thriving in your Speech and Debate adventure!

I’m a traditional judge; framework matters to me because it is the metric by which I judge the round. I can handle spreading.