Durkin,+Connor

Tahoma Senior High School '12
 * Connor Durkin**

I really enjoyed my time in debate and I hope that all of you do too. I wrote everything you see below a couple of years after I graduated high school--I am updating this now as I may begin volunteering with the local Urban Debate League. I would say everything still holds for the most part I'm just a bit more rusty.

4 years of high school LD at a small public school program. I travelled when I could and focused on national circuit style debate my Junior and Senior years. My senior year I sort of qualified to the ToC (got pulled off the at large wait-list but did not attend). I also won Washington State my junior year and am not opposed to more "lay" style rounds.
 * Experience:**

It's nice if you stand when speaking but if you really want to sit I won't hold it against you. I spoke pretty quickly in high school but I haven't flowed really fast rounds in quite a while. [|Here] is a video of someone speaking at about the max speed I could probably handle right now. Please be clear--I will shout clear if you aren't but if I have to more than a few times I'll start docking speaker points. Speaker points will probably be somewhat arbitrary--I took a whole year off from the debate community and likely know very few of you so I won't really be able to judge how competitive the pool is. Points are based off of strategy/style. I will start at a 27.5 and dock you if you do annoying things. 28.5 if I think you should break, 29+ if I think you should go deep/win the tourney and 30's if I end up calling my mom after the round to tell her how amazing it was.
 * Presentational Preferences and Speaker Points:**

Run what you want (kritiks, performatives, theory etc.) but realize that I am most comfortable with substantive debates. Always give me a clear ballot story and ALWAYS weigh things through some sort of value structure. Nebulous impacts that aren't filtered through some sort of framework for determining what is good and what is bad will be thrown out. Really, clear weighing esp. of the comparative sort will probably win you the round.
 * Content:**

Sidebar on theory: I'm not wild about it. I used it very sparingly and never really felt that it ever made a round more enjoyable. I will listen to all arguments but In my head 99% of theory violations are a reason to reject the arg not the debater. Also if you can just show me why an argument is unfair and explain why fairness is important that works for me--I'm not obsessed with the standard theory shell structure.

Give them to me. Tell me how many sheets of paper (or excel pages) I am going to need before you start speaking.
 * Roadmaps:**


 * Have fun!**