Daftary,+Sohum

Hi, my name is Sohum Daftary and I'm a junior at Greenhill School. Use this page as a general guide to debating in front of me, but feel free to ask any specific questions that linger.

For starters, I love debate and I want the debaters to love it as well. Be aggressive, but don't be a jerk. Be considerate to the other team as well as your partner. Don't ever give-up in the middle of a debate, getting through a tough debate is an amazing learning experience and display of courage. Have fun, make jokes as long as they aren't too offensive. I'm a reactionary person, so look for visual cues from me during CX or in your speeches. As far as the actual debating goes, do your best to think strategically and think for yourself. Use explanation that is contextualized to the debate round rather than pre-written blocks from some older kids. Talk as fast as you can without being unclear. If I can't understand you, I'll say "clear" a few times, but then if I still can't understand you, I won't be able to flow you. Here are some specific arguments and my judging interpretation:


 * Kritiks:** I'm traditionally a plan-focus style debater and I have a very high threshold for Kritiks with vague or utopian alternative that have little explanation attached to them. It's probably not the best idea to go for you Baudrillard or D&G kritik in front of me, but this being said, I will do my best to understand your argument and evaluate it equitably. Put more emphasis on how the alternative resolves each impact and how it is competitive. K-tricks should not be the primary section of the 2nr, but rather a tool to make the affirmative stumble. Topic specific and aff specific kritks are much more interesting than mysterious or across-the-board kritiks. Lastly for the neg, don't be dodgy in CX. As far as being aff goes, press on the issues that I mentioned above-- ie: the alt solvency and permutations. Make sure your answers are responsive, if it is a kritik of representations, be sure to have a defense of your representations, etc. I love disads to the alternative like anti-politics or cede the political. Start theory debates early on, ie: Floating PICs, Judge Choice, Utopian alts, etc. And most importantly, weigh your affirmative against the kritik, it's the best weapon you have.


 * Framework:** It's very hard to win that the aff should not get to weigh their plan against the kritik in front of me. I subscribe to political simulation where we can test the worlds of the aff and the alternative. However, if the affirmative messes up the FW debate or does not give substantive reasons why their method of debate outweighs, I will give the negative much more credibility. Use FW as a way to undermine the aff, not as a way to get rid of the aff. Be creative with FW on both sides, have disads to their view of debate and net-benefits to yours that are grounded in "real world" impacts.


 * K Affs**: Again, it will be hard for a performance team to win my ballot against a good Framework/T argument. I believe the aff needs to defend a plan text and plan implementation. However, some teams read K affs just to be involved in FW debates, so the negative needs to be prepared in defending their world of debate, specifically, why defense of plan implementation is a good thing. Performance affs/K affs are cool and interesting, but not a reason why the aff can blow off the resolution.


 * Disads:** I like most of them. My expertise falls under the politics disad, so I will be able to give you good feedback and critique on this argument. Technical debates are great here, do a lot of evidence comparison, internal link examination, impact framing, turns case, and link-uniqueness work. I love nuanced aff answers to generic disads like politics, or disads that are very specific to the aff. When it comes to the final rebuttals, you need to do a lot of work explaining why the disad outweighs the case or vice versa. To "outweigh" does not always mean to have the bigger terminal impact, but you can outweigh if the internal link chain to the case is much more probable than the internal link chain to the disad, for example. Just be sure to make that a large part of your impact framing. Lastly, don't over rely on "Timeframe, Magnitude, and Probability"-- that jargon is a bit overused and could be refined. Explain the impact and how it interacts with the case. Don't use hyperbolic rhetoric over realistic depictions of your impact scenarios.


 * Counterplans**: I like counterplan debates. The neg needs to have clear net-benefits and explanations of how the CP solves the aff. A solvency advocate is not necessary, but not having one increases the risk of having a solvency deficit. The aff should clearly explain the solvency deficits in the 2ac. For Plan inclusive counterplans, "cheating CPs", the aff should go for a competition or theory argument in front of me. Think of smart permutations to get around contrived net benefits.


 * Topicality:** Most violations are very contrived for this topic, the aff should point that out. I will vote on "we meet" arguments, so don't be afraid to go for that. However, the aff needs to have a counter interpretation and explain why it outweighs. I will not vote on reasonability, but you should use reasonability to lower the threshold of their violation and allow for your "we meet" arguments to have more lee-way. Because this year's topic is so broad, the competing interpretations debate is vital to decide who has the best vision for the topic.


 * Theory:** I don't like voting against the other team on theory, especially claims of "fairness". The other team should not lose just because they made the debate a bit harder for you. Resist the urge to go for theory as a voting issue, rather, use to strategically disable parts of the other team's argument, ie: Floating PICs, Severance Perms, Utopian alts, Plan-contingent counterplans. etc. Have a counter-interpretation to nullify a lot of their offense. The thing I hate the most is when teams go for stupid theory arguments as reasons to reject the team, like reading 50-state Fiat or international fiat. Those are NOT reasons to reject the team, but reasons to reject the argument.

Think about the judge, don't complain if you lose, but rather, think of ways to influence the judge better next time. Good luck, have fun.
 * 1) greenhilldebate