Kostelny,+Cole

Bio
University of Minnesota debater class of 2019 Appleton East (WI)- 4 years of debate

I haven’t seen a whole lot of the HS 2017-2018 topic so please explain the args well, keep acronyms to a minimum because I am not yet super familiar with the literature. Email: colekostelny@gmail.com

My thoughts on debate
Debate has done a lot for me over the years, respect the activity, respect the community and your opponents, and stay true to yourself. I may not be the greatest judge in the world but I try to evaluate the round the best I see it. I view debate as a game. I adopt an offense defense paradigm. Win your offense and do comparative analysis of the debate and odds are that you win my ballot or at the least get decent speaker points. The best thing that I can tell you is do what you do best because ill probably enjoy that debate more, make arguments and adapt the arguments to me, rather than doing a 180 flip with the strategy. An argument is a claim, warrant, and an impact. Smart analytics will always beat out 5 under highlighted short cards if argued properly. What you say your cards say is important, I read cards to make sure that the cards say what they say you do. Speak clearly, If it isn’t on my flow then I don’t evaluate it, my facial expressions are readable and I will tell you clear once, after that I stop flowing, you should be looking at me sporadically so you or your partner should be able to figure out if I am following along. Please do the line by line debate or if that is not your thing tell me how I should organize the debate. In high school there are very few debaters who I feel can do embedded clash well so don’t do it unless you are 100% sure that you will do it well. If you have to think twice about that then don’t do embedded clash yet, practice, do drills with it, and then get better at it for next time! A It's always Sunny in Philadelphia reference is always appreciated.

Affs-
The clearer you are at conveying what the aff does and how it functions the better. In the past I have been oriented towards more traditional style policy affs with a plan. However that is not to say that if you are reading a soft left aff or a critical aff that you change what you are reading. Please dont, rather if there are overarching thesis claims I'd like to know what they are, I want to know what the aff does, and please be clear as to what you defend/ do not defend.

Counterplans-
They are fine, my threshold for voting on counterplan theory is in the middle, probably a reason to reject the argument, but I suppose I can be convinced otherwise. Side note, I am not a huge fan of word pics but I understand the strategic value of them in certain instances so read them if you must.

Disads-
Read em, debate em, impact em, do analysis on them. Politics debates can be really fun to watch or really meaningless to watch, please be the former. Negs make the tricks, Affs respond to the tricks, please read relevant cards that have been updated it makes the debate more pleasurable for everyone!

Kritiks-
Explain what your argument is if the literature you are reading is deviating a bit from the norm. More explanation the better, apply your evidence and compare it to your opponents arguments. I probably wont know your terms of art if the kritik is super specific so please elaborate. The best way to debate the kritik for me is to make the debate more technical. Long overviews are more often then not a waste of time, just do the work on applicable spots during the line by line debate and I will have an easier time evaluating your argument.

Theory-
Offense defense is how I evaluate these debates.

Topicality
Offense/ defense once again. Impact out your arguments respond to the other teams arguments in the line by line if topicality becomes an issue. I have a relatively low threshold for reasonability. Topical versions of the aff should probably be explained once they are made or at the very least in the 2nr if you are going for a TVA, I dont like to have to reconstruct these debates, but I will if I must because both teams are unclear.