Gonzalez,+Misael

Assistant Debate Coach at Damien High School, CA Assistance Debate Instructor at St. Mary's Hall, TX Graduate of Whitney Young High School, IL Studying at Trinity University, TX

The language we use in this activity matters. Be conscious of your community and who your opponents are. Calling an argument "retarded" is a recipe for nasty speaker points. Disrespecting women or any minority in this activity for that matter will make me dislike you.
 * Things I won’t “leave at the door”.**

[]


 * Arguments and Evidence:**

A complete argument consists of a claim, some data, and a warrant. **If your argument doesn't meet this standard, I probably won’t care as much if it’s dropped.** One good piece of well highlighted and well explained evidence is better than 10 cards that are terribly highlighted. Well drawn out analytic arguments that call into question internal link scenarios and impacts can be very persuasive to me.


 * What is debate:**

To borrow the words of one of my favorite people:

"If no one offers a counter-metaphor or ideology of the debate space, I tend to think of it as a competitive and educational space in which 2 teams argue about the relative advantages and disadvantages of a position. I genuinely value learning new topics every year, so I enjoy debates that increase my knowledge of the year’s topic. However, because this is an activity to which I have dedicated my life and I think introspection is important, I can also find value in debating about debate. Since these two can oftentimes be in direct competition with one another, I do my best to evaluate the relative loss or gain of fairness and education in any given round. I think in general I am more persuaded by arguments about what gives us the best portable skills to be better people outside of debate than I am about debate being a game. (Although you could persuade me that debate should be viewed as a game…)."

-Dr. Sarah Topp (A.K.A The diva I want to be when I grow up)

YES. I think these debates are the most educational and dedicating large parts of a negative strategy to a heavy case debate will definitely give you high speaker points.I think it's worth calling into question advantage internal links, impacts, and solvency. I love teams who push impact defense. The negative can win no risk of the AFF.
 * Case Debates:**

When going for a K, contextualize your theory in terms of the affirmative case and it will be easier for me to vote for you. The alternative is important. I'm a lot more likely to vote on a "case outweighs" argument if I'm unconvinced that the alternative resolves the links that were advanced by the negative. For the aff, don't forget that perms win debates. Framework debates are usually non-starters unless you're using it as a means to get another argument, like case outweighs or no alt solvency.
 * Kritik Debates:**

Impact calculus matters. Include comparison and it will be a lot easier for me to vote for you. I believe there is such a thing as no risk of a disadvantage. I love the politics DA but It's really not hard to poke holes in most internal link scenarios,yes, even without evidence.
 * Disadvantage Debates:**

Frameworks for competition should probably be established by the debaters. You can win that conditionality is bad. You probably can’t win that negative fiat is bad.
 * Counter-Plan Debates:**

Impact calculus matters. I'm aff leaning on a lot of theory issues (intl fiat, consultation), but buzz phrases like "contradictory worlds" ,"infinite unpredictable actors", and "steals the affirmative case" are not impacts by themselves.
 * Theory Debates:**

Distinctions are really important. If you want me to vote on T, I need an explanation of what ground you lose under the affirmative interpretation versus the ground you gain under yours. The debate over competing interpretations vs reasonability is a little silly.
 * Topicality:**

I like paperless. In order for this to keep working, we should have good paperless manners. Prep stops AFTER you save your speech and pull the flash drive out to hand to your opponent or your partner. Don't hand your opponent a flash drive with a ton of documents on it. You should place a mark or a return where you stop reading a card.
 * Paperless:**