Berrios,+Jerrell

This is my second year in policy debate at UNLV, but I feel like I've learned a lot about debate and have spent a good amount of time discussing things with my team / learning from observing top level debates.
 * __Background__**

I am open to all types of arguments. I don't think that things like rap, poetry, and narratives are necessarily bad as long as you have a defense for those things. In fact, the only type of aff I've read in college so far have included narratives. I definitely thoroughly enjoy traditional debates too, though, and I enjoy "framework" debates a lot.

K's - I will admit that I'm not SUPER well versed in a lot of the K literature, but I have been forced to debate against a variety of Ks. I understand and am very familiar with the generic base, i.e. anthro, cap, security, Nietzsche, etc. I have a high threshold for the explanation of the alt (how it solves, what it does, etc). I believe that the best k's are the ones that genuinely interact with the aff. Debate is a game of clash.

Negative strategy – I believe in preserving maximum strategic and theoretical flexibility for negative teams. I don’t believe contradictions are a bad thing early in the debate, as long as the negative block and the 2nr is consistent.

Affirmative strategy - I think more affs should straight (link or impact) turn disads. A good 1AR should try to bury the 2NR by reading plenty of evidence, covering, and always using offense. For the 1AR I think it is important to EXTEND WARRANTS inside your evidence. You should explain the importance/relevance/ implications of the evidence as well.

CPs—The text of the CP (and all perms) should be written out, and I hold them to as high a standard as I do the affirmative plan. I do not think that a negative team should be afraid to CP in the 2NC (it is a constructive, aff gets a CX, and the risk of a straight turn in the 1AR should check any abuse). These 2NC counter plans could be used to make external impact turns or uniqueness takeouts go away.

T- I'm going to steal this from Matt Gomez because I agree with him: IMPACT YOUR STANDARDS. Education, ground, and fairness are internal links. Decision-making, Advocacy, and research skills are impacts. Affirmative team: Counter standards and tell me what affs they'd eliminate from the topic and why those affs are good. Negative Team: What affs do they allow, why are they bad, what affs do you allow, why does that resolve their impacts.

DA's - DA's are awesome.

I feel like the best type of debaters to these things consistently: a) Consistently compare evidence—“our evidence on X argument is better than theirs for the following reasons.” These reasons may include, but are not limited to qualifications, recency, history is on our side, more complete/better warrants, etc. b) Saying things like, “even if you don’t believe that we are winning argument X, we still win the debate, because…” c) Consistently engage in effective impact comparison d) Remember that defensive arguments are still important e) Be deep on offensive arguments. A few well developed arguments in the block are typically better than 7 or 8 shallowly developed arguments. f) Are unafraid to make logical arguments forcefully, without necessarily using “cards” as evidence.