Watkins,+AJ

Have fun. Please! Debate is an activity I had ups and downs with, and if I see members of the community being excessively rude to anyone else, I will be very upset. Being aggressive is fine, but please play nice. I have thought very little about debate since I got to college so make sure you are clear in all explanations. That also means I know next to nothing about how the topic has developed since camp-time, so I guess you can use that to your advantage. Arguments require a claim and a warrant. Anything short of that is not an argument. Be clear. BE CLEAR. I don’t care how many cards you can read, if I cannot understand every word in the tags and text of the card, I will yell clear. Debate is a communication activity and if I cannot understand the arguments your card make, you will be in a tough spot. Do whatever you do best. Whether it be disad and case or a critique, as long as analysis is specific and in depth, I will have no problem voting on it. I like to think I am a good judge for most kinds of arguments, so don't be afraid to do what you do given what I did in debate in high school. T – I love it. I think people underestimate the power of limits. While by itself it is not an impact, it is a major internal link into external impacts like decisionmaking, advocacy skills, and education. Impacting T is a must – that means you have to do impact comparisons (what matters more: education or decisionmaking?). Certain standards are not impacts by themselves, so make sure you have an impact. You convince me of the competing interpretations vs reasonability debate. DA – I love them. I LOVE POLITICS. Politics is your friend. Politics was my friend! Any other disad is also good as long as you explain the story well. Impact calculus is very important so make sure you do in depth comparisons combined with turns case arguments. If one part of a DA is weak, the AFF can certainly win low risk without evidence as long as the flaw is explained well enough. CPs – They are also good. I was not a huge counterplan guy but I do realize the utility of them and appreciate a great counterplan debate. If you think a CP is illegitimate, go for theory. Though I do have pre-dispositions about theory, they should not be relevant if you debate well. Like I said above, you have to impact theory. There also must be IMPACTS to solvency deficits – saying it doesn’t solve x part of the case needs to be explained in terms of why that matters. Critiques – These arguments need to be explained in the context of the AFF. If the links are generic and not contextualized, the perm is a compelling argument. A great critique debate is always great to watch, but debates composed of mostly buzzwords and shallow explanation are painful. When AFF, answer all the K tricks, because if explained well they are very compelling. Specific analysis is more important than cards. Plan-less AFFs - I went for framework every 2nr against any AFF that didn't read a plan text. However, don't let that influence your arguments in front of me.