Seong,+Christina

Being from a Canadian high school, I didn't do the traditional national circuit. I did compete, however, in LD, PF, and parli for four years, and qualified to TOC twice, in addition to the less technical style of BP more prominent in Canada. Now I'm at UC Berkeley competing with the APDA team and judging the local/state level tournaments in LD and PF.

Weighing/impacts: It's important for you to outline a clear decision calculus and weighing mechanism (and actually following through with it.) The best way to do is to actually compare the two arguments instead of extending the impacts of your own. Explain explicitly how you undermine your opponent's link/assumption/uniqueness. If your impact stands alone with no comparison, it means little. I like

Speaks: Speaker points are a combination and balance of content and style. Hence, note that everything in this post is technically going to be a factor I consider in giving speaks. In terms of style, I don't mind moderate speed. I really don't like to (but will if necessary) yell clear, so enunciate while spreading and use inflection/emphasis. If something can be said slower and/or more concisely, do so. Be polite, give opponent your cards when asked, etc.. I give on average 27-28.

Theory/T: Don't use theory if you're not going to develop it. T debates are only interesting if they actually contain specific in-round arguments/abuse. Make sure you impact everything out. Education in and of itself is not an impact, and if you just end your T by saying "fairness is a priori," I will not vote on it. Give a standard of evaluation on T; if none given, I will probably default to ground. Again, weigh your impacts and your standards against your opponent's. I will probably default to competing interpretations and think it is more compelling than reasonability.

K, CP,DA's: I will vote on K's, and if done well, kritikal affs, but make sure they are topical and substantive. I personally wasn't a huge K debater, so slow down on them. In general, I'm open to your arguments as long as they are well developed (the worst arguments are one-liners) with warrants/impacts.