Holmes,+Robert

Gulliver Prep Coach 10 rounds on this years topic

IT IS NOT NOW FAST YOU CAN READ BUT HOW MANY ARGUMENTS I CAN UNDERSTAND. CLARITY AND SPEED, PLEASE!!!!!

Speaker_Points: I really like analysis and clash. If you give me great analysis and answer the line-by-line, and the other team is only extending but not necessarily answering, I will probably give you higher speaks than them. Persuasive speaking in rebuttals will also help you get higher speaks. I like it when debaters sell me their story on a particular argument. I believe that evidence is intended to give credibility to a debater's analysis, so don't let the evidence speak for itself -- give it your own analysis, and evidence comparison is a good way to both get higher speaks and my ballot. Reasons I might lower your speaks: if one partner tools the other, they will both get a penalty; if a team gives up or doesn't try, they will get a penalty, rudeness beyond a level of friendly competition deserves a penalty. Poor line-by-line and lack of analysis may not be directly penalized, but certainly won't earn you good speaks. General_Comments: I am a policy judge, I prefer counterplan-disad debates, and those are the arguments with which I am most familiar. I like good solvency arguments, clever and specific negative strategies, and clash.I am comfortable with topicality, although I like clear violations and a coherent and persuasive story on the standards debate ( i.e., why the aff interpretation is bad), and how these standards turn into a voter at a higher level than "voter for jurisdiction" can convey. If you want me to vote on theory, I will need a very clear abuse story with an explanation of why I should vote on this argument that extends beyond the "voter for fairness" level. Different types of arguments may require a higher burden of analysis and argumentation in order for me to vote on it independent of the remainder of the round. An argument that two contradictory conditional counterplans are abusive may require less articulation and analysis than an RVI on T, which I would probably not find persuasive under any conditions. I dislike Kritik debates, for two reasons. First, I am not familiar with many of these arguments and authors, as I did not run a kritik as a debater, and many of the positions that are now common did not exist when I was debating, and also because I have not read any of the literature or judged more than a handful of debates where the K was in the 2NR. So I may not fully understand what you're talking about if you're repeating the same kritik catch phrases without explaining what they mean. Second, I find most of these arguments to be very poorly argued at the high school level. Personally, a kritik link claiming that acting through the government automatically legitimizes government action contains approximately the same level of analysis, in my mind, as the claim that all policies (including court decisions) somehow cost political capital. Therefore, I tend to be more persuaded by specific link turns with good warrants than by generic rhetorically powerful link cards that don't explain themselves in a language I can understand. So, if you feel you want to run the kritik despite my personal preferences, then I ask only two things (which I have not yet seen in a round, so don't dismiss them) -- in most kritik debates, the round ends and I still have no idea what the alternative functionally does -- do you fiat everyone changes their mind? do you fiat anything? -- and so weighing plan solvency for the harms against the alternative solvency becomes problematic, and I am left to my own understanding of what the alternative is, and this may be different than your understanding, so you should probably be very specific. At the link level, I ask that you give good analysis explaining how the actual action of plan interacts with your generic links. Just saying "but they go through the system" doesn't really help.