Sama,+Supri

Supri Sama 3rd year debater Chattahoochee High School

put me on the email chain: suprajasama@gmail.com

Do what works for you. Debate is ultimately a game of persuasion, stick with the style of debate that works best for you. My philosophy is just a random collection of my thoughts on debate, not hard rules that you should or must follow. I do my best to resolve the central questions of the debate using the arguments that are supplied by both teams. I try not to intervene and will stick to my flow as much as possible this way I weigh the warrants that are actually communicated in the round rather than tagline extensions.

//Debating versus Evidence // I think that it is very important for debaters to be proficient in line-by-line debating while also being able to explain and develop the warrants for their arguments. With that said, I believe that debate is also somewhat of a referendum on the quality of evidence researched and the quality of argument constructed. To me, it is important both to have a good argument and to have the ability to debate that argument well.

It is difficult to develop a uniform standard for judging debates in which debaters do a great job on an argument that is not substantiated with great evidence. At the margins, however, my flow dictates the degree to which evidence matters.

None of this should give you the impression that I require every argument to be supported with evidence. On the contrary, analytic arguments are extremely useful and often under-utilized in debates.

//Paperless Debate// First --I'm pretty lax about prep time and I don't take prep for saving and sending, this being said, if it starts to get egregiously bad, then I will intervene.

Second -- Flowing is monumentally important in a debate round and, if it's clear to me that you are not flowing, I will call you out for it and probably dock your speaks.

//Topicality// It does not make much sense to me for topicality to be evaluated entirely via risk or offense/defense. If the affirmative meets a good interpretation of the topic, it is difficult to persuade me that they need to meet the best possible interpretation of the topic. Negatives can convince me otherwise by doing a good job impacting their limits / predictability / ground claims.

//CP/DA // I thoroughly enjoy a good CP/DA debate, especially when it's specific to the affirmative

<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",Times,serif;">A counterplan is competitive if there is a functional difference between what the counterplan mandates and what the plan mandates as determined by their texts. If a counterplan includes all of the mandates of the plan, it is not competitive.

<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",Times,serif;">The following is a list of counterplans that I have come to regard as probably illegitimate: <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",Times,serif;">-Counterplans that are wholly plan inclusive <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",Times,serif;">-Counterplans that are not functionally distinct from the plan <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",Times,serif;">-Counterplans that compete off of the certainty or immediacy of the plan

<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",Times,serif;">Hopefully your DA has a link specific to the affirmative, the more specific and well-researched, the better.

<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",Times,serif;">No risk of a link is definitely a thing, however, a clearly articulated link threshold is less arbitrary and therefore more convincing to me.

<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",Times,serif;"> Impact work is especially important when the neg is defending the status quo. Don't just tell me that your impact has a larger magnitude, tell me why that's true and why magnitude is more important that the aff's framing.

//<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",Times,serif;">Kritik // <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",Times,serif;">Interact with the aff well or be overwhelmingly good at not interacting with the aff.

<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",Times,serif;">I enjoy debates that treat the K like a CP/disad debate - the K cannot be an excuse not to be technical, nor an excuse to evade concepts like uniqueness, comparative impact calc, etc. "No value to life" is borderline-completely meaningless to me the vast majority of times it's referenced. Debate the K like a disad - impacts need a unique link to the aff, and then need to actually be impacts - "epistemology first means vote neg on presumption" is not an impact. Value to life presumptively does not outweigh extinction.

<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",Times,serif;">I think if the neg can garner a significant risk of the link and that the impact to the kritik outweighs any impact the aff may have, the the alternative doesn't necessarily need to have 100% solvency (see above). This doesn't mean that you don't need an alt in the 2NR, just that if you do enough impact analysis between the aff and the K to convince me that the aff causes more harm than good, I will probably vote for you.

<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",Times,serif;">//Theory// <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",Times,serif;">As a 2N, I firmly believe that conditionality is beneficial. However, I am not sure if this gives the negative the right to introduce arguments that directly contradict with one another and if the aff can make a cohesive argument that is well thought out and can provide me with specific examples of in-round abuse, I may be persuaded to vote aff.

<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",Times,serif;">It is difficult to persuade me that theoretical objections are voting issues. It seems that there is always a more appropriate remedy. This is true even if a theory argument is dropped. For example, dropping “multiple perms are illegitimate – voting issue” in the 1AR does not mean that the negative automatically wins; these cheap shots are silly and I think it is pedagogically unsound for the debate to be decided on them.

//<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",Times,serif;">Performance // <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",Times,serif;">The affirmative team should defend a plan that affirms the resolution.

//<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",Times,serif;">Warning // <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",Times,serif;">Don't be rude. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman",Times,serif;">Cheating is bad, don't do it.