Taffe,+Caitlin

A little background: I am a current student at Sacramento State studying communications. I am currently on the policy debate team there. I have debate at one LD tournament and understand the format. As a debater, I have run most arguments including high theory on the AFF and NEG, please feel free to run any argument.  That being said, I will address important questions here, as they arise: CPs - I really love specific CP's that make a concerted/evidenced attempt to subsume some specific aspect of the aff. If you go and cut one of your opponent's solvency articles and made a CP out of it, I'm gonna think that you're at least relatively awesome.

Disads - I love them, but think it's kind of silly that they've turned into a "who can read more cards" contest. I think smart analytical arguments are incredibly valuable/underrated and, although I do not read evidence if I can manage, would prefer to hear two pieces of wonderfully specific & warranted link evidence than six cards with one word in reference to the aff somewhere at the bottom.

Framework & Topicality – To me, this is simply/should be questions of what we should do when we enter a debate round, why that version of the activity is a good one, and how your methodology is the most effective/productive. If you are able to answer those questions, you’re in a good position. I will not on face reject a non-topical affirmative, but for goodness’ sakes, please have an answer to topical version of the aff. Topicality requires deep and warranted explanation and I am definitely not familiar enough with your literature critiquing topicality itself to comfortably vote on it unless you really flesh it out. (What does the phrase "flesh it out" really even mean? Weird.)

I believe that the affirmative should defend a topical plan action taken by the “USFG,” however, I do not think this is the ONLY thing that the affirmative can or “should” necessarily be held to doing. If the affirmative chooses NOT to defend the implementation of a topical plan, they must also explain to me how voting aff achieves something in the context of your arguments (i.e. an explicit explanation of how my ballot will do anything besides signify the winner and loser to the tabroom).

If a negative team reads topicality or framework against a non-topical affirmative, there MUST BE SOME ENGAGEMENT of the affirmative’s argument in order for me to justify voting neg… I believe that topicality is an a-priori issue and comes first in almost every instance, and I absolutely do not think that reading topicality is wrong or EVER a reason to vote against the negative (unless it’s explicitly offensive, of course); however, if the affirmative is making arguments about why their ethics precede topicality or something of the like, the negative will not be able to win simply BECAUSE they ran topicality.

Other things that are still quite important: For better or worse, I am NOT going to call for a bunch of evidence after the round unless it is ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY. Most commonly I have called for evidence on a Politics DA.

I really enjoy a hefty & comparative case debate in the block.

If you are rude to your opponent in cross ex, I will be so distracted by your attitude that I will probably not want to listen to your answers or give you good speaker points. People who make smart arguments & are KIND to their partner/opponents will get really good speaker points.

When prep stops that means so do you fingers and lips, once time has stopped there is no note taking or conversing about the debate. I do not consider flashing prep time unless during paperless blunders I get the feeling that something shady is happening. In those instances I will start prep again.