Ehrlich,+Miranda

Ehrlich, Miranda

I’m a junior debating at the University of Minnesota, and an assistant coach at Wayzata High School. Couple of top-level comments: --Clarity/speaking is really important to me. Please be comprehensible on both tags and card text! --Dropped arguments need a claim, warrant, and implication – “perm do both” without an explanation of how it solves the net benefit is not a winning argument --Impact calc is extremely important, but underutilized

Some specifics: Disads – The more specific, the better, but if politics is your A-strat, I’m a perfectly fine judge for you. Counterplans – Many are theoretically questionable, but affirmatives rarely push back on this. Substantive PICs are awesome – multi-actor object fiat is the worst. Everything else is somewhere in between. Kritiks – I like topic-specific K’s, and think they’re a good strategy on this topic in particular. Neolib, imperialism, etc. are all very viable strategies in front of me, but they need to be applied specifically. I would also highly recommend extending case defense to bolster your K – the most common aff argument I vote on against K’s is “case outweighs”. I also like K affs that are topical, defend a small-ish impact, and critique disads – especially if you can point out why the disad is contrived and silly, which it likely is. Generic postmodern K’s, on the other hand – not my cup of tea, and I’m not familiar with the lit base. Non-traditional – I’ll consider voting for *nearly* anything, but be aware that I find a well-debated framework argument to be persuasive. Theory – conditionality is almost certainly good, unless it is wayy excessive, like 5 counterplans. I do however think that if the neg makes performative contradictions – for example, reads a security K and then a terrorism impact on a disad – it can be justification for the aff to sever their reps/judge choice. I do not default to judge kick unless told to do so. Theory is nearly always a reason to reject the argument, not the team.


 * No racism good, sexism good, etc.