Mezzatesta,+Michael

Background: I debated for 4 years at Loyola High School in Los Angeles, graduated in 2009.

I won’t exclude any kind of argument – feel free to run whatever. However, make sure I can understand your position and that you’re linking to some sort of framework / decision calculus no matter what you run.

Weighing is a big deal. The first thing I do in making a decision is figure out which type of argument I should vote on first (e.g. theory, args linking to AC framework (or NC), K impacts, etc), so any work you do here in explaining how the various frameworks interact and why I should prefer one over another will probably make your chances of winning a lot higher. This is usually a given in a standard AC/NC debate, but just means that if you’re going to run a lot of positions (or have to answer a lot of positions), try to make sure I agree with you on how they interact / what order they come in. That being said, weighing on the impact level is also important.. if I have competing aff/neg impacts back to the same standard, I will defer to explicit weighing arguments made in-round before judging them on their quality myself.

Feel free to run theory. However, know that I have a pretty low threshold for bad theory arguments and probably won’t vote on theory unless I can clearly see the ballot story.. that means you need an internal link from your violation to your standards AND an internal link from your standards to your voter. That being said, I’m open to more creative arguments on theory as well as RVI’s.

Go as fast as you want, just realize I’m not the best at flowing. Make sure you slow down for taglines and author names, and the faster you go the more you should signpost.

Extensions should have a warrant and an impact, but may be done quickly (especially in the 1AR).. just make sure you do enough work on them that the crystallization story in your last speech isn’t too much of a stretch.

Feel free to bring up any more specific questions with me before the round.