Feldman,+Jonah

 First of all, I am not the debate coach at Berkeley. Sorry for the dissapointment :( (for those of you that don't get that, look up the name of the Berk debate coach). This paradigm is going to be a little disorganized because my thoughts on debate are a little disorganized, but it should still be helpful. Background/general stuff: I debated for 3 years of Nat Circuit Policy in High School, and I'm currently doing APDA Parli at Tufts. I had plenty of experience with speed, progressive debate, and all that stuff. I was also a 2A in high school, so keep that in mind. Overall, I'd consider myself to be a pretty Tabs judge, although I do have some biases (which I try to supress) that I'll talk about a little below. Fair warning: I don't have much experience with this year's topic, so try to keep the topic-specific jargon to a minimum: or at least explain it to me. Although I'm fine with speed, try to preserve clarity. You get a lot more points down on the flow if you speak 20% slower and 50% clearer. I will default to a policymaker framework unless someone tells me different.  Try to be courteous in your rounds. It'll reflect in your speaker points, and being rude just makes debate a worse experience for everyone. As a general rule, I prefer tech over truth, and I'd rather hear an overused arguement done well than some fancy new K that you obviously don't understand. However, if you have some obscure K that you fully understand, feel free to use it! Additionally, impact calc should be in every speech after the 1NC.  DA's: Obviously these are a good thing to use. You should have specific links, or barring that, you should be able to contextualize your generic link in the context of the aff in the neg block. Try to have a clear brink and IL chain in your DA's, the neg block should have an overview that explains why it turns case. DA's are better when paired with Counterplans, however I'm totally down with you taking DA and case into the 2NR. Case specific DA's are awesome, although I understand they're a high research burden.  Case: I think case debate is incredibly undervalued in squo policy. Having a bunch of case defense makes it 100x harder for the aff to outweigh your K/DA, and in my opinion is the most fun part of the debate.   CP's: Overall Counterplans are a good thing, provided they're mutually exclusive. I'm fine with Actor counterplans, I <3 advantage counterplans, and some process stuff like XO is good (although the aff can certainly make theory args against it). I'm a not a fan of consult/condition/delay counterplans, but it's up to the aff to prove to me that they're not theoretically legit, but neg be warned that I am more sympathetic to aff theory args on those types of CP's.  Kritiks: I'm sure this is the only part most of you care about anyways. Kritiks on the negare good things to run, and in high school I primarily ran Security (and Cap of course), and I also dabbled in Anthro, Baud, and DnG. I'm not familiar with some of the more obscure authors like Lacan and Bateilles, and tbh I'm not even super familiar with DnG. If you're running a Kritik, pass the grandmother test. Don't rely on me to be a philosophy expert (hint: I'm not) who already understands your hyper-dense jargon. Clear and concise 2NC overviews are absolutely essential to expertly running a K, and contextualizing your link to the 1AC (whether it be to the plan or the 1AC performance) is critical. I want an explanation of what your alt does, what my ballot means, and why I should be ignoring the traditional policy framework. Although I love K's, there are few things more painful than a bad K round, so please try to understand the literature before running a K.  I am not as big a fan of K affs, although I will listen to them. I'm disgusted how many judges nowadays won't even listen to Framework as an arguement, and am definitely sympathetic to neg framework claims. However, running framework isn't an instant win for neg vs. K aff, so it is still entirely possible to win with a K aff, especially if it pertains to the resolution (the farther away from the rez it is the more symapthetic I'll be towards neg FW claims). However, I will hold the aff to a high threshold for explaining to me just exactly what your aff and 1AC performance does.  Performance debate: I know this is contrary to the direction debate is headed, but I'm not a big fan of performance debate. If you're dedicated to performance, I'm going to need a clear explanation of why debate is a critical forum for you to express your performance, and why the speicifc format of policy debate is a good one with which to be pursuing your project. What does my ballot do, and why is a performance debate better than a policy one.  T/Theory: I'm not the biggest fan of these debates, but they are a neccesary part of debate, and I'm totally okay for using them, even if it's just a timesuck. RVI's are dumb except in extenuating circumstances (like 10 T shells). 2 conditoinal advocacies is good, 3 is fine but is pushing it, and 4 or more I'll be very sympathetic to a condo claim. Make sure you SLOW DOWN when going through T/Theory standards. If i can't flow it, you've lost all that neat analysis. In-round abuse is always better than theoretical abuse, but both can win. I default to reasonability, but can be persuaded by competing interps.  If you have any questions, feel free to ask me before the round. Good luck and remember to have some fun!