Saindon,+Brent

University of Pittsburgh 4th Year Coaching

Hmmm...what to say. Most strategies are OK. I don't flow (I take notes that I generally do not use at the end of the debate -- I write to make sure I continue to pay attention because most debating, especially card reading and technical debating, is pretty darn boring). Since I do not flow, I do not think an argument missed on one part of the line-by-line is necessarily a dropped argument. Arguments are dropped when nothing a person says in an entire speech provides a good answer (which means that an argument someone talks about for 2 minutes could still be a "dropped" argument if the talk is irrelevant). References to the arguments that one refutes are useful, but most of the time, I can figure it out on my own. If you are concerned, do your best to make it clear.

Less argument quantity, more argument development is a good principle to follow. This does not mean I always like just one argument, but 10 major positions is probably too many. Speed is OK, when necessary. However, it has become way too common to see bad debate at high speed. I don't care how fast the arguments are delivered. I care about whether or not they are of sufficient quality to stimulate reflection. Too much speed (especially when one delivers a speech in a monotonous voice with little way to determine transitions) can get in the way of sharing some meaning with me (and the other team).

Topicality -- The topic is what you make of it. It is a statement, not a proposition. However, you can make arguments as to why we should consider it a proposition. Then, the question becomes what exactly the topic proposes. Also, one needs to address the question of affirmation. what does it mean to "affirm" the topic? Ground is a product of interpretation, not something one is guaranteed to have. What competing values (or perhaps not competing) go into deciding how the topic should be interpreted?

Everything else -- Perhaps I missed the conference where these decisions were made, but when did it become necessary to talk about something called a "framework"? What the hell is this thing? Why is it different than T or some other value debate? What makes this argument so special? Right now, my "framework" is called "contingent decision making". I don't decide all debates happening at the tournament, and I am happy that I do not. Consequently, I do not need to make a universal decision on how everyone at the tournament debates, nor would most people care about what I decided. I don't mind a good counterplan/disadvantage debate, but if the entire strategy hinges on reading a pile of uniqueness evidence (none of which is of high quality), leave me out. Specific strategies are interesting, but I also do not mind stock strategies that take issue with a central tenet of the topic. Most things that people call critiques now are usually just disadvantages in disguise. If you make an argument like "Aff = a net increase in biopower" then yes, you probably are required to supply some "biopower low now" or "biopower is manageable now" cards. The point: most critiques do not work that way. Debaters have been tricked into debating them like a disadvantage in order to gain legitimacy from their peers. You turn a potentially powerful argument into something trivial by debating it this way. Again, I missed the meeting where critiques became DA/CP strategies in disguise. All this fetish with alternatives (which used to not be that big of a deal) stems from DA turn in critique debating. All debaters perform, and that performance has effects in our community. Some people just do not 'fess to the fact that they are performing.

Still, all of this stuff can be irrelevant if you advance a sucessful argument to the contrary. But, I'm not a blank slate, and I do have some beliefs about what debate is and how it works. Some of those beliefs did not make it to this page...

"So, what would