Kanesa-Thasan,+Amrit

I debated for Lexington High School for four years. I'm currently a freshman at UMass Amherst.
 * Background**

**Important Things:** I will try to judge you as fairly as I possibly can, and make every attempt to understand and evaluate your arguments. I love all the time I spend in this activity, and want to make sure it stays like this for others to enjoy as well. With this in mind, I agree with the great Ayan Sanyal in that I will not tolerate any kind of hateful speech whether it be racist, sexist, or anything. This will guarantee you the lowest speaker points I can give and a talk with your coach.

Honesty and integrity are paramount. This is true in debate, and extends to everything else you do. Do not lie, do not fabricate evidence, do not take shortcuts in citing or highlighting your evidence- this will result in a loss.

Be nice. Have a good relationship with your partner, and definitely do not be condescending towards them. Maintain a respectful relationship with others in the community and if things are really not going well then have a talk outside of the round. Be funny! Make a joke in your rebuttal. Smile a lot, be goofy, make the debate fun. This is often overlooked and can make a HUGE difference on the happiness of the people in the room. A note of caution: if you attempt this you actually need to be funny and not offensive.

Cross-ex should be pointed, aggressive, and relevant.

Here are some quick specifics: ** I am a huge fan of a good DA/case debate. ** ** I think in order for the negative to win there needs to be substantial impact comparison, this means analyzing the interactions of the impacts and going past basic magnitude/probability/timeframe. I do believe that the aff can win a probability of absolute defense on a DA. **
 * Disads**

I am familiar with some of the literature surrounding kritiks, however this does not mean that I understand the complexities and nuances in your kritik, nor how it applies to the aff. What is most helpful here is specific link analysis, preferably from the 1AC and subsequent speeches. I am not a big fan of 2 minute (and longer...) overviews at the top of the 2NC – these arguments should be dispersed throughout the speech. For the aff, I see that they run into problems when they neglect or screw up arguments like value to life, methodology, or framework. These arguments are often stupid, but you still need to answer them. I do not know anything about psychoanalysis.
 * Kritiks**

Best part of debate. 2ARs are full of spin and rants about the impacts of the aff from the 1AC, to prevent this negatives should engage the case from the 1NC and tear it apart. It makes the debate 100x better and makes you look like a total badass.
 * Case**

I believe topicality plays a very important part in a good negative strategy, and not utilizing it is to that team's disadvantage. Please do not read Aspec/Ospec/etc as these are a waste of everyone's time. I do like competing interpretations, but I am very open to debates about reasonability. The quality of the definition is something I see rarely discussed in T debates, and I think a discussion on the source of the interpretations is a crucial aspect of a good T debate.
 * T**

I have a very high threshold for Theory, and I default reject the arg not the team unless the other team argues otherwise. If you do plan to go for a theory argument please be ready to dedicate more than half a second to it in your speeches. I will miss these and give the other team lots of leeway answering them in later speeches. I understand multiple conditional advocacies can be frustrating, but make strategic choices and deal with it. Delay, consult, and conditions counterplans are pretty bad. PICS, including word pics, agent CPs are awesome. None of these biases mean you can slack off. There are very convincing arguments on both sides and you need to be making them.
 * Theory**