Saulet,+David


 * Experience: ** 4 years of College Parli and College LD. Currently Assistant Director of Debate at Concordia University Irvine where I coach Parliamentary Debate in addition to Assistant Director of Forensics at Oxford Academy where I coach Public Forum debate. I participated in National Circuit NPDA debate in College where speeds can get pretty high without cards, CX, or prep. I can flow, however there are some things that you may want to adapt when doing policy debate in front of me.
 * 1) 1. Please be really clear with your taglines, the more accurately I have your tags, the better things will fare out for you.
 * 2) 2. I would prefer to be able to hear you actually articulate the internal warrants of your evidence instead of just hearing buzzzzzzzzzzzz…that’s Porter 13. I honestly do not understand the pedagogical value of Policy Debate if the reading of cards is completely incomprehensible because of the expectation and norm that judges can just ‘call cards’. At this point, why not just have both teams email their cards to the critics and let them render a decision on who has the better cards given the way the collapse happens? I think that policy debate has succumbed to some of the polar opposite extreme problems that Parli has in that in Parli we can often over rely on unwarranted analytics and it seems like in policy debaters are also over relying on evidence and tags to substitute having to actually make analytic connections.
 * 3) 3. Your cards/evidence do not make arguments-you make arguments using your cards/evidence. I would like to see you applying specific pieces of evidence to others and explaining how the internal warrants interact. This is called warrant comparison. Often times this skill is lost underneath the guise of ‘implicit clash’ which I think can be done well, but more often than not results in lack of substantive clash.


 * DA/CP: ** As always, be very precise with your tags. Also, I appreciate when you contextualize your link evidence to the Affirmative. Explain how your more general Biz Con link actually applies to what the Affirmative plan text does. Your Disads should outweigh/turn the case. Making analytical connections between your evidence and the Affirmative is very very good. Delay, Veto Cheato, Study CP’s are terrible. Not the biggest fan of Politics but will listen to it providing you can articulate a sound link argument. Big fan of tight topic disads that turn the case with CP’s that solve the Aff. Advantage CP’s are great as are PICs that are grounded in solid literature.


 * Case Debate: ** I’m not exactly sure why I don’t see more case debates in an event with disclosure and publicly accessible evidence resources. I thoroughly enjoy Negative strategies which include spending a substantial portion of time reading both offensive and defensive arguments against the case solvency/advantages. Also really reward 2A’s who are able to efficiently respond to this strategy as well. Too many teams just concede that the Aff solves and that their Advantages happen-all it takes is one solid solvency takeout to destroy the entire foundation of the Affirmative.

**Criticisms:** I love criticisms and quite frequently read them throughout most of my time as a debater. I think that they are an essential part of the toolbox for any well-rounded debater. I think that Kritiks should be centered in some sort of Affirmation-how that manifest is up to the debaters of course. To give some context, my senior year my partner and I read a Baudrillard criticism with an alternative which was precisely the lack of an alternative. On a separate occasion, we ate a piece of paper with the topic (ag subsidies) written on it as performative interrogation into our consumptive ethics and talked about consumerism. I think that performative, rhetorical or discursive critical arguments should also have a central point of locus for the Negative to leverage offense against. While I am most familiar with Rhetorical criticism, Postmodernism and Race, I am generally familiar with most K literature-however this does not mean I intend on filling in gaps for you-these are your arguments to make or break. Critical Affs are fantastic and very strategic. Negatives would do good to find leverage points to counter-kritik and/or PIC out of critical affirmative teams more. I am fine hearing FW against the K, but this should probably be part of a larger strategy, which hopefully also engages the K as well. Negative teams reading the K against policy Affs should be prepared to defend their K against Framework as well as impact turns.

**Theory:** Not the biggest fan of theory on the larger totem pole of arguments but will evaluate your interpretation, violation, standards and impacts against your opponents. I will need you to say your interpretation clearly at least twice so that I get it down accurately-especially if there are multiple definitions. I think that generally Topicality generally comes down to who controls the internal links to Limits, Precision and Grammar. You should be impacting out your standards and explaining why they are important. Theory should be reserved for instances of protecting yourself from abuse, i.e. Topicality, Framework, Condo/PICS Bad, etc. Spec arguments are a waste of time. I will listen to Framework against the K, however you really need to explain to me how this justifies me automatically dropping them. I think that Framework is a lens for the round, however if you win that I should use your lens, then it’s likely your opponent cannot filter their offense through that lens. While I do think that Conditionality is generally abusive in Parli, I have no predisposition on its use in Policy. However, I am compelled by arguments about multiple contradictory conditional advocacies being bad for debate.


 * Rebuttals: ** Rebuttals are about doing a few central things: impact calculus, warrant comparison, collapsing and crystallizing. High speaker points and favor awarded to those who are able to explicitly identify the arguments that still matter in the debate by the Rebuttals and the arguments that don’t.


 * Presentation: ** I don't care whether you sit or stand. My only preferences are that you be comfortable, look good and speak well. Don’t mind tag team CX. I don’t like having to time flashing evidence but if you are lolly-gagging, I will make you time it to keep the tournament on schedule. Higher speaker points awarded to those who speak passionately, clearly, organizationally, and humorously. Overviews and signposting should be your best friends. Feel free to ask specifics before the round.

Happy Hunting!