Sipe,+Kevin

Experience: I debated for four years at Vestavia Hills High School (AL, Class of 2010), two of which were on the national circuit. I qualified to NFLs my junior and senior year and TOC my senior year. In general, speed is fine, theory is fine. Just do what you do best.

When I originally wrote my paradigm, I was a very opinionated first-year-out. Most of what I wrote was just angry reactions against arguments that I frequently lost to. Now that I am a few years removed from the activity, I (hopefully) am much more open-minded about most positions. If you win a standard and link some offense back to that standard, you’ll probably end up ok.

The best hint I can give you is that the more you want me to do with an argument, the more work you need to do on that argument. If a spike from the AC takes out T, the extension of that argument should probably be longer than four seconds.

Some additional thoughts:

1. Speaks: As much as I would like to average a 27, at most tournaments I usually average slightly above a 28. I base speaks off of the strategy you choose and your ability to efficiently execute that strategy. Running interesting positions and being brilliant in CX can boost your speaks. Being evasive in CX, being rude, and being excessively unclear can lower your speaks. I’ll usually give a 30 once or maybe twice a tournament.

2. Theory: I default to reasonability on theory debates, but winning competing interps will be pretty easy. I’m probably more receptive to RVIs than most judges, especially if the theory is obviously a time suck. I prefer the classic theory shell, but that’s not necessary. My favorite responses to theory include line-by-line “no abuse” arguments and counter-interpretations.

3. Extensions: I nitpick on extensions a lot. If your opponent has skimpy extensions, point it out, and I’ll be much more willing to give their arguments lower risk, if not ignore them entirely. Uniqueness evidence and descriptive warrants can be extended quickly, but dense, philosophical cards and long analytics need to have a complete extension. All of that being said, I give a little bit of leeway to 1AR extensions.

4. “Policy-style” arguments: All of these are fine. On the K, I haven’t read much critical literature so you may have to slow down or explain it to me like I’m an idiot in your rebuttals. But please, please, please don’t be evasive in CX if you run something particularly dense. There’s nothing I hate more than to see an argument that made no sense in the 1N become crystal clear in the 2N. I’m open to theoretical objections to all policy strategies as well, especially conditional CPs and weird perms.

5. Discourse: This is what I’ve probably changed the most on since debating. Discursive arguments are fine, as long as you win some sort of framework for me to evaluate them. “He’s trivializing the holocaust, so drop him because we are people first and debaters second” is not nearly sufficient to win.

Good luck!