Pavlath,+Elizabeth

La Reina High School '16 CSU Long Beach '20

Conflicts: La Reina

Hi my name is Elizabeth and I debated LD for four years at La Reina High School, and I am currently a policy debater at CSU Long Beach.

Theory/T: Overall: Make sure to weigh between standards and voters. Why does fairness come before education? When it comes to LD, make sure to adequately justify RVI/no RVI and drop the arg/drop the debater. I will default to competing interps unless told otherwise. When it comes to the RVI debate I will listen to both sides of the argument, but keep in mind since I am a college policy debater, the RVI debate is not much of a thing, so I might be a little more sympathetic to no RVI arguments. I think as long as you can justify a counterinterp, give net-benefits, and adequately beat their shell, you'll be fine. Theory: LD seems to have a lot of theory that is completely unnecessary in the round, and is only there to add another layer to the debate. I will listen to the theory argument, but I will probably be annoyed as these rounds do become messy quite easily and then I'm left figuring out what to weigh. If you execute frivolous theory well--good job. If you want to have a frivolous theory debate, a great shell to read in front of me is: **The neg must specify the status of the CP in the speech that they read it in through an advocacy text.** I love that shell.

Topicality: Read it! I think T debates can be really interesting when there is good carded evidence and good topical versions of the affirmative forwarded by the negative.

Framework I love this argument, however I think LDers make the shell too generic with the interp: **Resolved implies a policy option.** I will gladly vote on this argument if there is a topic specific reason why the Aff must defend a policy option and why the Aff not defending a policy option on a particular topic is a bad thing. Generics don't cut it.

Disclosure Theory I will vote on disclosure theory because I do believe it is important that both sides know what they are up against. That being said the person who is running disclosure theory should have their arguments disclosed. Also I do not think disclosure theory is too out of round because it does affect how strategies play out in round. It could mean the difference between a generic K debate and a nuanced case specific debate, and the nuanced case specific debate will be more interesting.

Ks: Go for them. I read a lot of Anti-Blackness and Fem Ks in high school and I am now reading the Cap K in college, but that doesn't mean that I will automatically give you more credence. You still have to explain why the alt solves the Affirmative, what the world of the alt looks like, what your impacts are, and how the Aff links. If you're Aff you need to be making perms to the alt, disadvantages to the alt, saying their impacts are inevitable, their root cause doesn't explain the Aff, impact turns if you can, link turns, and no links. You need to be very specific in how the perm solves. I would rather you read only perm do both with fleshed out reasons for why this solves the criticism then several blippy perms.

K Affs: I am all for K Affs--policy option or not. Make sure you have a solid method, ROTB, or ROTJ to explain why I should vote Aff. If your K Aff does not have a policy option, I am sympathetic to the negative running framework. This means you need really solid reasons as to why you shouldn't have to defend a policy option.

Policy Style Affs Go for it! Have a solid link story to your impacts whether it's extinction or a more systemic impact. I don't want to hear a policy Aff with a lot of missing links or a very tenuous link chain. If the link chain is weak I will probably give a fair amount of credence to smart analytics that point out flaws in the link chain. If you are neg you can go for the politics DA or a topic specific DA in front of me, just make sure that you can explain the link well and give a good overview in the 2NR explaining your position.

Philosophy I am most familiar with Utilitarianism and its justifications. If you are reading Kant you need to explain it a lot because I have not read that much on Kant. This goes for other philosophy frameworks as well. Make sure you explain them.

CX: Use CX strategically. As a college debater I love using CX to poke holes in my opponent's arguments and hint to the judge where I am going to go with my strategy. As a 2A and now a 2N, CX is important so use it wisely.

Spikes For the most part spikes annoy me because most of the time they seem to say--Affirming is too hard, so the neg should not be allowed to answer my position. Yes affirming in LD is hard, but not impossible. Cut some good evidence for your position and know your position well and you should be fine. If you want to read spikes such as Aff gets RVIs on T--that's fine, but otherwise I would not recommend reading spikes in front of me.

Speaks- I typically give in the 28 range. I will go higher or lower depending on strategy, argument quality, and whether or not you said something reprehensible.

Flashing/Prep I don't count flashing or email as part of prep time, but make sure that you get the doc to your opponent within reason. If you take too long I will start docking speaker points.