Bartlett,+Austin

Austin Bartlett Experience: 4 Years CX at Round Rock High School, Third year out

General: I have no preferences for what you're going for in the debate as long as you do it well. I want to hear a narrative that is cohesive to some degree, i.e. for the Aff you should be constantly talking about how awesome your Aff is going to be. Similarly, for the Neg, you should have a clear story for any variety of argument, for instance if you're going for counterplan disad, you should have a clear method as to how your counterplan works and your disad should have a clean link/uq story to follow, I don't want to have to call for either team's uniqueness evidence after the round to make a decision.

Aff Debate: This is probably the most forgotten piece of any debate round, it isn't the aff that frames the round, it's the neg, the neg is going to try and distract the aff from talking about the aff. All I can say is to just not forget about the case, don't let the neg control the round, as for the Aff it's your best piece of offense in the round, and you don't want to leave that behind, and for the Neg it's what you're attacking, and when either side loses focus on this the debate and flow gets far more muddled due to the loss of focus.

DAs/TOs Debate: I ran everything from space debris to algae blooms to politics, I would love to hear some less generic scenarios because those are always interesting. I think you should try and focus on your links and internal links as those are how you create a story of what the aff is causing. Not much else needs to be said here.

K/K Aff Debate: ran Cap, Colonialism, and Anthro throughout high school, I'm going to know how these Ks function a lot better than something a bit more abstract, but don't let that discourage you, I'm game to hear anything you have to say on this front. I will say that I'm not going to know the specifics of your literature if you're reading Foucault or something similar, so I have a higher threshold for an explanation. I also believe that your best bet for this debate is to focus on the link and alt scenarios because once again that is the story of your aff. I will say that I have had rounds, where I've evaluated a K as a disad, in this round the neg, was winning the link and impact flows and the aff was winning the alt flow and that being the only scenario I was given to evaluate at the end of the round I wrote a ballot for the neg because the K was still acting like a disad. As for the topic of K affs, just like Ks, I think they're interesting, definitely willing to hear them but just like any judge I'm going to expect a somewhat higher degree of explanation.

Framework Debate: I think this is one of the easiest ways to win or lose the debate. Unfortunately, this is often ignored or pushed to the side in most rounds so it ends up not being evaluated at the end of the day. Competing frameworks provide a lot of depth to the lens of how I should decide the round, and are crucial in winning the more out their arguments. Don't just run competing interpretations as to the framework of the round, actually engage in clash.

CP Debate: Generic counterplans are bad, try to have as many specific solvency mechanisms to the affirmative that you can. Be creative with your arguments here and make sure that the net benefit to the counterplan is clear.

T Debate: For me, T is generally a timesink for the Neg, as it's easy to spend 20 seconds going through a T argument and then the Aff has to spend a minute or so responding to it. Therefore, the burden of proof for T is much higher than other arguments. I also find it extremely hard, if not impossible to vote for T when you read specific links to their aff in your Ks or DAs. I think you can be smart with T such as identifying the aff as effectually topical or extra topical, but don't just read this as a timesink.

Theory Debate: Much like T debate, you're going to have to push for this for me to vote on it. I think that when somebody gets up and reads condo it is merely a time sink and they have no intent of going for it, please don't be running these because it will just waste both teams and my time. Once again, I don't think this should be discouraging, but rather you should adjust your strategy if you're going to just try to read theory as a timesink.