Sears,+Kat

I debated for 4 years in high school at Whitney Young. I traveled nationally my junior and senior year. I attended the TOC both years and broke my senior year. My partner, Jeron Dastrup, and I won the glenbrooks tournament in 2013. I attend the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign where I'm studying Political Science and English with a minor in History.

Debate for yourselves. Don't make big changes to arguments based on my preferences. 1. I'm voting for the team that was most persuasive in the round 2. I vote on the flow, I don't want to do work for you. 3. Be respectful. If you are not respectful to your opponents, your speaker points will reflect it.

Win the round in front of me: 1. 2nr/2ar should be well organized and concise. I'd rather have you spend your prep time doing that, then giving a stand up 2nr/2ar that i will have to spend a lot of time dissolving 2. I'm not kicking the alt/cp for you 3. K overviews/ Theory blocks- don't let them become a blur

Specifics:

Topicality- My default is that a plan should be topical, however if I am told otherwise I can definitely be persuaded. I always favor topic specific untopical affs vs. random affs that can be recycled year to year. I also like examples of case lists when the round comes down to competing interpretations

Framework/ K-Aff- I like these debates. Debating the rules of the activity is very important. I ran untopical arguments a lot, and in depth discussions of these arguments will get my vote. If you read an untopical aff, framework is a legitimate strategy against you. "The negative coulda, woulda, shoulda" - aff arguments against framework do not garner sympathy with me. Each side should have offense.

Theory- Make sure you're clear, I flow on paper. Blippy arguments that are not explained will not go far for me. Contradictions in round are bad, but must be used offensively for me to vote. Completely justified to concede one part of the contradiction to take out another argument, teams should do it more often.

CP/DA- i won't kick the cp for you unless told: I can / I should in the instance of "x". They should be based off the mandates of the plan. The more specific to the aff, the better it is.

PTX- evidence quality usually isn't too great on these debates which makes me appreciate well developed arguments and great evidence. I will vote on this DA if you go for it.

K- You need an external impact. Root cause arguments are barely ever explained well enough, and rarely encompass the entirety of the kritik. FW debates on the k- usually means you have to win DA's to the k to get leverage in this area. I really like these debates.