Lopez.+Ethan

Ethan Lopez School: The Barstow School Varsity Debater


 * __General:__ ** There is no argument that you cannot run in front of me, although I do have some preferences. FLOW! I don't want to do your work for you so use your flow to keep the round clean. You should be flowing the debate and use the line by line to answer arguments that the other team is making. Your arguments should lineup next to your opponents arguments on the flow. The only way for that to happen is for you to signpost it during your speech

__ **Topicality:** __ Competing interpretations really make sense to me. Reasonability seems pretty circular. I am willing to vote on T but you are going to have to win an impact. Wait what? An impact? Yes an impact, you have to justify why voting aff would be a bad thing. I have seen too many novice rounds that could have been won on T had they managed to impart some part of their impact upon me. The biggest problem that I see in T debates is the lack of internal link and impact work in the standards debate. Painting a picture for me of what the topic looks like under your interpretation (usually large or small) and WHY that interpretation is best for debate.

__ **Ks:** __ I think I am a bad judge for the K. I don’t read any of the literature. I don’t understand most of the –ologies. If your K is going to be more complicated than Security/Fem/Cap, then you have probably lost me. Once I am lost, like most people I tend to seek ground in debates that I am familiar with, this probably means aff arguments like No V2L without Life and case outweighs. I have been persuaded to vote for the K. What does this tell me; that Affirmatives do a terrible job at answering the K when I am judging. Be prepared to have a good defense of your alt in front of me, and a clean link story. I think most alts, are bad CPs and don’t solve anything. I think AFFs do a bad job of sticking it to the NEG on these questions. ALTs like CPs should really have to defend the consequences of the world that they create. Link debates are important especially when you are trying to go for permutations. I think often times the AFF misses the easiest out in these debates, that the NEG has usually double turned themselves in these debates. Just because the ALT is conditional (see more on that in the theory section) does not mean the rest of the K is and often times the impact turns the case. If you ignore this advice you choose to do so at your own peril.


 * __Performance Affs:__ **Feel free to run them but you are going to have to work really hard to get me to vote on one. I am of the belief that you have to defend some kind of advocacy that is topical. Unless the other team is just outright losing or has dropped some damning argument you aren't going to get much out of me. If you are going to read a non-topical, no plan aff I am already going to be putting the other team ahead of you.


 * __Theory:__ ** Still have yet to hear a good reason that makes sense for conditionality, especially when used in conjunction with contradictory arguments. I spend a lot of time coaching and thinking about theory. I actually don’t mind theory debates when done properly. I give 2ARs and 1ARs a little more leeway in going for theory, but the argument still needs to be there for the 2AR from the 1AR. I want to hear a warrant for your argument not 7 points of blip. I think 3 good warranted arguments are better than 7 sentences about 7 different things. That being said, plenty of people run conditional arguments in front of me, and it still takes the right arguments from the AFF to win conditionality debates. That being said I think I voted AFF on condo bad when the AFF went for it in the 2AR (does not need to be the whole speech, but you need to invest some time to get it done) probably around 80% of the time. Most of the other theory questions you have about CPs will be answered below.


 * __CPs:__ ** I think most CPs are legit. You should have some form of solvency advocate for your CP. Evidence about the link to the net-benefit is not a solvency advocate. In these instances lit checks abuse for the most part. Be willing to spend time talking about the impact. So be willing to do an impact comparison that "if I reject the argument not the team, then they d/n have a cp to solve case, which was conceded by the 2NR and it outweighs their net-benefit without a CP" This will get you a very long way. NEG read the inverse if you think you are schooling them on the rest of the debate and this is their only way out, a little preempt will go a long way to better speaks. Consult CPs/Condition CPs/PICs are a different monster. AFFs too often fail to debate or understand the normal means, that can get them out of a lot of the consult debates. PICs out of words are probably not the best strat in front of me. There are a TON of CPs on this topic, and there is zero reason why we should not debate them. International fiat is a risky endeavor. I can be sold either way. Delay should lose to perm do the CP every time…


 * __Rebuttals:__ ** This is where you should be comparing impacts for me and explaining how I should vote. A good impact comparison does more than just magnitude, timeframe, and probability.. it actually compares your impact risk in relation to their impact risk. Reality is you are not winning all of your arguments. You will start to lose fewer debates once you can realize what arguments that you are and are not losing. This is the speech that you have to think like a judge. The tag line in the rebuttals is not an argument, you need to be drawing distinctions between the text of your authors and theirs and giving me reasons why your evidence or analysis answers their arguments and theirs does not answer yours and what that means to me in how I should evaluate those claims. Seem like a lot to do? Really helps if you are setting this up in the block and 1AR. Just remember that if I have to do work for you, you might not like the outcome…..

__ **Paperless Debaters:** __ This really only applies to how I stop prep time for those teams debating paperless. Your prep time stops when the speech is saved on the jump drive. If you are the person giving the speech, you do not need to go and open up the speech on the other teams computer. Your partner can or better yet the other team. If the speeches are clearly labeled on the drive then there should not be an issue. Once you hand the drive over to the other team, you can give the order and debate.


 * __Speaker Points:__ ** Things I think about when I am assigning speaker points are (in no particular order), clarity, delivery, style, strategy, success, how bad you made my flow look. My flow is how I decide the debate, the more work I have to do for you the fewer speaker points you will be rewarded.