Swaim,+Alex

Current affiliation: UT Dallas High School affiliation: Kingwood High School

CX: I subscribe to the competing advocacy thought process on CX debate. Each team is advocating a plan (or status quo), and it is their job to convince me why their plan is better than the opponents.

To this effect, I don't weigh on Topicality heavily unless there has been a serious incursion of definition. I weigh critiques on their merits, but I don't see some critiques (language, single source, etc) as a serious affront. I also place little weight on evidence beyond proving an argument. Attacking an opponent's sources on a common-knowledge event (say, the existance of malitias in Darfur) will only work if there is a unique fact within the evidence that cannot be supported. Instead, I prefer to consider the argument being made (be it in Inherency, Solvency, or other) and how the opponent deals with it.

LD: I will buy any argument, so long as it is made. Taglines are not arguments, and I don't like contradictory arguments in the same case. I vote more on the big picture than on the technical flow: if you make and carry one argument and tell me why it is more important than any of your opponent's arguments you will win.