Gilpin,+William

I debated in LD for four years during high school, two in Oklahoma and two in Florida: I was the runner-up in the 2010 Florida state debate tournament and a semi-finalist in the 2008 Oklahoma state tournament. Both states had reasonably traditional circuits that I feel have had a major influence on my paradigm. I am very interested in new and original arguments and case structures, but please explain to me what is happening, as I was not a circuit debater and thus may not know some of the trends. I am generally more interested in traditional framework debate, but I'll listen to whatever you think is important. As a non-circuit debater, I am fully aware that my decisions may occasionally deviate from TOC norms.

Speaker points: I monitor posted yearly statistics for speaks at major tournaments and adjust my normalization accordingly.

Speed: Do whatever you think makes you look good, just be articulate. I’ll let you know if I can’t understand you, but I’m generally fine with speed. I may start to have some trouble understanding you at policy level speeds (aka, around when you need to start doing unusual and humorous breathing patterns to continue to talk). Speed is important when it allows you to better present the full depth of your argument, but not when it is clearly just an attempt to spread out your opponent.

If you think you sound better going slow, please feel free to do that, even if your opponent is spreading. Just do what you think allows you to best express your ideas. If your opponent spreads and you don’t, though, it may get awkward, so I’ll usually end up comparing how well you grouped and focused on the important arguments in comparison to the pile of arguments on his/her side of the flow.

Drops: If you drop an unimportant argument, you aren’t going to automatically lose the round. I feel much more comfortable voting on the holistic debate in the round than on random drops. This is not an invitation to drop things; rather, it is an invitation to focus on clash over bookkeeping.

Theory: If there’s clear abuse, just point it out and tell me why it matters. Tell me why I should ignore the argument (I am more likely to buy this) or give me a really good reason to actually vote down your opponent for it. If you think a full theory shell is the best way to do this, go ahead. But I’m generally not interested in debates about debate, so I'd rather you just tell me what’s wrong and why the argument is bad.

Originality: Overall, I tend to like arguments that show that you have put original thought into the topic and haven’t just compiled a list of generic stock arguments from a mysterious book of evidence that your coach bought for you. If your opponent runs a really clever case, I'm going to be looking for you to have good responses. I really don't like the use of theory as a catch-all default when you don't have a better response, and I thus am generally uncomfortable seeing theory in response to cases that aren't obviously abusive.

Again, there are many exceptions to all of these preferences, so please run whatever you think is a good argument. If you think it's a smart strategy, chances are that I will, too.