Bonitto,+Mia

I have a wide background of debate arguments. In high school I debated for Fred Sternhagen and the Concordia squad. We ran the K, primarily we talked about queer theory, feminism, terror talk, prolif and first priority. A lot of these arguments have a special place in my heart and I will always be willing to listen to a debate about them. I went to college fully intending to read the K for UNI. I debated on the UNI squad for a year before leaving due to some differences in opinion. While there we kicked the aff a lot and tended to read theoretical cheap shots. As a result, I have come to be accepting of their place in debate and am willing (if they are debated well and the reason to vote is articulated) to vote for them. We also engaged in several complex topicality debates. I left UNI and went to debate for WSU which is where I graduated from. While I debated at WSU I cut several disads and did a lot of work on straight up affs. I enjoy straight up debates and the intricacies of knowledge that are required to spin a nuanced story about the relationship between disads and the aff. I also impact turned the K and engaged in several framework debates.

As you can see from this background, I have a huge breadth of debate experience and have run almost every style of argument. Unfortunately with the gains in breadth of experience comes a loss in depth of experience. I am difficult to pigeon hole as a debater because I have not spent a significant amount of time running any specific style of debate. I think that some people tend to pigeon hole me as a K debater due to my history and that is largely incorrect. Likewise, I think that people who see that I graduated from WSU tend to pigeon hole me as a straight up debater, again this is not really completely correct either.

I firmly believe that you will do best in debate by reading what you are best at and that is what I want to hear. I will try VERY hard to listen to anything you have to say and to vote on the argument that wins. However, I do have some general proclivities which I will address now.

K’s: To be honest, I do not like the way that the K is read in debate now. I miss (tremendously) the days when I was able to take for granted that no one would attempt to win a ballot by attempting to convince me that, for example, women having rights is bad for the economy. I want to hear a debate about the link on the side of the aff and the neg. On the neg, it is unlikely I will vote for your K if you don’t talk specifically about what the aff has done that is “capitalist” and the fact that that they said the word democracy or use the state isn’t likely to be good enough. On the aff, I’d love it if you tried to link turn the K or went for the perm in a way that wasn’t just “do the alt in all other instances”. ALL of this being said, I can listen to and judge a clash of civilizations debate if that is what you want to do, I have seen these strategies run in a convincing way and will vote for them. On a personal note, I am getting a Ph.D in child psychology and I find the way that Freudian style arguments and psychoanalysis are deployed in debate to be quite frustrating. If you are going to go for psychoanalysis you should expect me to look irritated. This does not mean that I won’t vote for it if you win it, but despite my best efforts to be fair, it may be an uphill battle. You have been warned.

DA’s: Not much to say other then I don’t do any work on debate anymore at all (Ph. D takes up a fair amount of time) so the intricacies of debate that are required on many DA arguments are a background I just don’t have. I will do my best to evaluate these debates and you can help me by offering plenty of explanations. I enjoy aff specific link stories and comparing the impacts to the aff.

CP’s: Again, not much to say other then I think conditionality is abused in debate today. If you offer more than 3 CP’s in the 1NC and have more than 1 CP after the block I feel like you’re probably cheating. I hope the aff will read theory arguments and go for them if they are well debated and there is really abuse. I feel this way about consult and condition CP’s as well. For whatever reason, I think PICs and word PICS are actually less abusive and very strategic if well done. That being said, I understand that sometimes there aren’t any answers to the PIC other then theory.

T: I like T debates if you keep in mind that I don’t know much about the topic. People rush through T debates and sometimes, as they often aren’t carded, they’re very hard to flow. If this an argument you want to go for, slow down and give a good explanation.

Theory: as indicated above, I will vote for “cheap shots” if they are well debated and it is articulated why they should be a voter. I think the neg cheats a lot and gets away with it far too often and am more than willing to take a stand if you are.

A few other notes: 1. I try very hard to write as much down in the debate as I can and when I am faced with a decision in a debate I try very hard to resolve it with the flow. As such, I become frustrated if I cannot write down everything you have to say. Try to prioritize clarity over that one more card. This should be a particularly important note for performance teams. I FIRMLY believe that you should flow and if you refuse to flow and sign post and debate in an order, it probably won’t go well for you. I will take your arguments and try to line them up myself and it probably won’t line up the way you want them to. (this does not mean that if you do that and you’re good at it, you shouldn’t do that, I will do my best to keep my flow organized, but realize that it will probably be an uphill battle)

2. I like (and miss tremendously) debates where people talked about systemic impacts. I tend to believe that probability and timeframe are significantly larger concerns then magnitude. I care about people and like to hear debates about people. Given the choice between gender violence and nuclear war I’d prefer to vote for gender violence. This should influence how you debate the K in front of me and also how you debate your disad. I will probably be more persuaded to vote for a smaller faster more probable impact over a longer term, less probable larger impact. (of course, if that is not the way the debate goes down, I will vote for the winning impact story but it may be easier to persuade me if you take this course)

3. I will probably call for cards, I care a lot about good cards and like discussions of quality of evidence. As a debater I had a high threshold on evidence and I wish everyone else did. If their cards doesn’t say anything, I’m completely comfortable not voting for their argument. Also, I probably won’t vote for arguments that you haven’t read a card on.

4. I hope that everyone cares about learning as much as they do about winning. Be nice, don’t swear a lot, and don’t talk down to your partners or the other team. If you are being unpleasant it will be reflected in your points. Don’t steal prep as a paperless debater or as a paper debater. Otherwise I have no opinions about paperless debate, I did it and I don’t’ count the flash drive time as prep time.

By the way, an addition to my T section. While I enjoy T debates and will vote neg against a not topical aff if the neg wins their argument, I will not auto vote against an aff that doesn't have a connection to the topic. It is equally easy to persuade me that the aff has done something that is more important then the topic as it is to persuade me that the aff must be an instrumental affirmation. I will flow the debate and vote on what occurs within it. I have been on all sides of this issue, from being the one running the not topical aff to being the one who read T in almost every neg debate and went for it in the 1NR. I have thought about my position on this quite a lot and have come to a place where I believe that each of these strategies have value and do not have a proclivity one way or the other.