Danco,+Robert

Robert Danco High School Policy Debate 2010-2014 Constraints: Berkeley Prep

My name is Robert Danco, and I debated for four years as a 2A/double 2 at Berkeley Preparatory School in Tampa, Florida. My opinions on debate stem very strongly from the teachings of Bill Batterman and Kevin McCaffrey – look at their wikis for more perspective, but I will be quoting sections of their philosophies because they’ re much more skilled than I am at writing.
 * __About Me__**

As a debater, I struggled with clarity. I had this thought in my head that because some of the best debaters I had seen in my first year of debate were blindingly fast, I had to get to that speed as fast as possible. The resulting stuttering and sheer incomprehensibility of my speeches was a mental frame I had to address.
 * __Speaking__**

Go slow. The most common misconception about debate is that you are speaking and not talking. Speaking takes place in a vacuum. You are talking to a judge. You are never as clear as you think you are, barring the top speakers in the country. Connect on important arguments – debates won’t be won on the 3 seconds you saved blazing through the thesis of your 2AR, but they can be lost because I didn’t flow it.

Critiques: Debated them way more than I read them. That being said, doing neoliberalism research was one of my favorite things in high school, as was working on a Ricoeurian forgiveness affirmative. If you have clear, specific analysis, you can win. The alt should be easily explained. Tricks need to be more than one line in the block to be winnable in the 2NR
 * __The TL;DR List__**

T: Love it. We went for it a lot, usually against better teams. See first paragraph under Broad Perspectives. Do it well or don’t do it in the block. Competing interpretations vs. reasonability is winnable for either side – explain how that implicates the other work you do.

Disads: Bread and butter. I’m not too familiar with the midterms debate, so operate with that in mind. You’re fine with whatever you want to do (probably) – specific disads are awesome

Counterplans: Counterplans that rely on certainty and expediency for competitiveness are probably not (competitive, that is)

CX: Affects your points. Don’t be rude. CX is a time for clarification and delineation, not for argumentation.

Theory: If you are a freshman or sophomore, don’t bother with it. Others: conditionality is probably the only reason to reject a team, and only if argued from a post-2013 perspective. Time skew, etc. is a waste of time.

Afro-pessimism/Other Non-Traditional Affirmatives: Don’t pref me. I have a keen interest in these debates, but lack the knowledge to mobilize an effective decision (I think). I will do my best, and have no biases either way, but I really have a limited understanding of what you discuss.

Framework: Generally boring; you are much better off making substantive arguments about the Affirmative directly or about their method

Flashing/Tech: I take prep for flashing. If you have a computer problem, don’t freak out. I’m not here to punish you for your technology.

Clash: If you make an argument that implicitly answers another, make sure you let me know. I cannot possibly make all inferences across arguments in a debate.

Please, please, please read the first paragraph below this. Far too often, teams that can win don’t because they don’t commit to winning one argument out of fear, and don’t impact arguments enough in final rebuttals.


 * __Debate Perspectives__**

This is verbatim from Kevin McCaffrey:

“In short, I make much better decisions when you reduce the size of the debate at every opportunity, when you take strategic approaches to the debate which are characterized by internally consistent logic and assumptions, and when you take time to explain the reasoning behind the strategic decisions you are making, and the meta-context for your arguments. If your approach to debate strategy depends upon overloading the opponent’s technical capabilities, then you will also likely overload my own, and if your arguments don’t generally “jive” with one another, then I may have difficulty processing them when constructing the big picture. I tend to disproportionately reward gutsy all-in strategic decisions.”

“I am a sucker for a clearly articulated, nuanced story, supported by thorough discussion of why I should believe it, especially when supported by high-quality evidence, even in the face of a diversity of poorly articulated or weak arguments which are only implicitly answered. Some people will refer to this as truth over tech – but it’s more precisely proof over rejoinder – the distinction being that I don’t as often reward people who say things that I believe, but rather reward fully developed arguments over shallowly developed or incomplete arguments. There have been exceptions – a dropped argument is definitely a true argument – but a claim without data and a warrant is not an argument. Similarly, explicit clash and signposting are merely things that help me prevent myself from intervening, not hard requirements. Arguments which clash still clash whether a debater explains it or not, although I would strongly prefer that you take the time to explain it, as I may not understand that they clash or why they clash in the same way that you do.”

I do believe that various arguments can by their nature provide zero risk of a link (yes/no questions, empirically denied), as well as effectively reduce a unique risk to zero by making the risk equivalent to chance or within the margin of error provided by the warrant. I am a sucker for conjunctive/disjunctive probability analysis, although I think assigning numerical probabilities is almost never warranted.

Copied from Bill Batterman 29.7-30.0 – the best performance I am likely to hear in a given season. I don’t think I have given anyone a 30 in five or six years and am frustrated by judges who give multiple 30s at each tournament. I will use the upper 29s to recognize special performances. 29.4-29.6 – one of the best performances I will see during the season. Someone I feel should be in contention for the top speaker award at the tournament. 29.0-29.3 – an excellent performance. Someone I feel should be in contention for a top-ten speaker award at the tournament. 28.5-28.9 – a good performance. Someone I feel should be in contention for a speaker award at the tournament. A team that receives points in this range is one that I think should clear. 28.0-28.4 – a pretty good performance. Someone who isn’t quite “there” yet but who demonstrates solid skills across the board. This is "average" on my scale. 27.5-27.9 – a slightly below-average performance. Someone who shows strong technical skills and poor strategic vision or poor technical skills and strong strategic vision. Good connections often make the difference between points in the 27.8 range and points in the 28.2 range. 27.0-27.4 – a below-average performance. Someone who is competent for their division but who needs to improve in order to be in contention for elimination rounds. 26.0-26.9 – a well below-average performance. Someone who needs work in a lot of areas in order to be competitive in their division. I often give points in this range to debaters that don't fully participate in a debate (partner takes over CX, partner prompts during rebuttal, etc.). Below 26 – this is reserved for offensive debaters or debaters who are clearly in over their heads and who don’t demonstrate much effort or desire to improve. Poor sportsmanship or unethical behavior will earn a student extremely low points.
 * __Point Scale__**