Leasau,+Zachary

 Debated 3 years Edmond North High School Current Assistant coach for Edmond North High School Current debater at the University of Oklahoma

Hi, I'm Zach, I am a young samoan/british male who enjoys long walks on the beach, reading, and... oh yeah... Debate. I've been debating/coaching/judging for a few years now so it's probable that what you're arguing I've heard it or run it before. That being said, since beginning my debate career at OU i've been doing mostly K debates. But regardless i'll vote on anything as long as it's done well.

T: Generic T arguments don't get very far in front of me unless they are based in the literature and the negative can prove that the loss of core ground outweighs the affs education claims (e.g., why is the politics da/other generic da more important than the aff's particular education). If the aff doesn't read any offense they will very likely lose the debate. I find it hard to evaluate topicality when teams don't do very good analysis on why their interpretation provides good forms of education/limits/ground for debate (contextualize your interp).

Theory: Just because you read your theory block and it’s longer than your opponents doesn’t mean that it’s a reason I vote for you or buy your defense. Theory is just like any other argument, it needs to be developed, answered and fully explained if you’re going to go for it. I default that conditionality is probably okay unless the neg is reading contradictory positions.

CP: I’m not the biggest fan of word PIC’s or Consult CPs but I understand the strategic value of some of them, they have the same weight as other cp’s they should just only be used in specific situations.

D/A: The more specific the links the better, D/A turns case seems to be a compelling argument that many aff’s don’t know how to handle… It’s possible that there’s “no risk” of a d/a but not likely.

K: In my experience, alternatives are under-debated. The aff needs offense against the alt and the neg needs a specific explanation of how the alt solves the case. Impact framing is important: don't stop at 'utilitarianism is key' or 'ethics first'. Tell me why you should still win even if you lose the impact framing debate (e.g., 'even if the neg wins that ethics comes first you will still vote aff because....'). Absent specific link analysis the permutation is pretty compelling. When deciding between reading the K you always go for and are comfortable with versus reading the K's you know that I read you should default to the K's that you are comfortable with. Don't read a huge overview in the block, put it on the line-by-line. When Affirmative and Answering a Kritik always, always, always defend what you do. Framework is not persuasive when read by the affirmative. Winning the specificity of your affirmative is better than generic kritik answers or impact turns. I am also a big fan of “non traditional” K’s because I think we should always remember that for some of us debate is more than a game. However I do think there are a lot of good things about squo debate.

K Aff’s/Framework: I think the affirmative should be tangentially related to the topic but am easily persuaded what “related to the topic” means. I usually think that the “topical version” of the aff argument is persuasive unless the aff goes for a specific benefit that is unique to their advocacy and not solved by switch-side. I do buy the argument that winning framework is a reason that the aff should lose instead of just defaulting to the negative getting to weigh their impacts.