Manaker,+Eli

I am a college freshman (not debating) who debated for 3 years at Strath Haven High School.

My e-mail is elimanaker@gmail.com. Please include me on an e-mail chain. Feel free to e-mail me for questions about my paradigm.

I have not been debating for half a year now, so understand that I will be rusty on understanding the fastest spreaders. Still spread, but understand you're going to need to slow down and be understandable on the tags.

__**Education Topic**__ I have not been very involved in this years topic, so I'm not an expert on what the scope of the topic is and common affs. Feel free to read your tricky aff, but know that I will not understand what's tricky about it unless you explain it to me.

__**Overview**__ Open CX is fine, prep ends when you stop prepping (but don't abuse this), spreading is good. Topical debate is probably the best form of debate, but I am willing to listen to other formats of debate. If you say something out of place, such as "he" to a "she," that should be discussed after round. I think that is an important discussion to have, but an honest mistake does not mean you should lose the round. However, my tolerance ends after one or two honest mistakes. If you continue to mis-gender someone or offend someone, that will justify a lost. Similarly, if you do any such behaviour intentionally, it will likely result in a loss.

Do not spread tags or analytics. If you do so, I will not be able to flow them, and then that is a problem when you try to extend them. I will feel bad if I make a bad decision because I couldn't catch your arguments fast enough, but that is also on you. Be aware that I am not reading your prewritten blocks or the cards. Do not make and arbitrary role of the ballot. If you want to go 1-off Biopolitics K, feel free, but if your role of the ballot is "whomever best combats biopolitics," I'm probably voting on the aff's ROB if it is not a similarly arbitrary ROB. Do not read affs that don't pretend to engage in the topic. I am predisposed against non-topical affs, but if they are in the direction of the topic, I am open to voting for them. If you eschew all topic education, I'm probably going to eschew voting for you. Do not read an 8 minute overview in the 2NC and have the 1NR do "case that wasn't answered in the overview and case." I will be very lenient to a 1AR that explains responses to the K and says they were dropped. Clash is necessary on both sides--it the team reads specific responses to your position, you need to specifically answer them. Do not be offensive. Offense is good, being offensive is bad. Offense is a turn on case, being offensive is saying racism good. A turn on case means you receive speaker points, racism good means you don't receive speaker points. Do not read death good. I think there is intrinsic value to life, and that perpetuating human life is good. Framing that involves "nuclear war is non-unique" or "embrace death" is not framing that picks up my ballot easily.
 * __Things Not To Do__**

__**T**__ I'm open to voting on T. Make the violation clear and give a topical version of the plan (or explain why the plan is not core of the topic). Contextualize your block to the aff and the round, and you're in a good spot. Reasonability is a question of whether the aff's interpretation is a good interpretation. Competing interpretations asks me which definition is better--aff or neg. Give actual reasons why one is better than the other. Saying reasonability causes judge intervention is not convincing; use more nuance.

__**DA**__ The more DA's in the 1NC, the happier I am. Turns-case is important as is contextualization of impacts and explanations of how to weigh relative scenarios.

__**CP**__ CP's are good, but only when they compete. Cheating CP's are okay--it's up to the aff to give me reasons to reject them. Reject the arg, not team is convincing for most CP theory (excluding condo) but I can be convinced that anything is reject the team, it's just an uphill battle.

__**Condo**__ I'm up for a condo debate as long as you actually engage with the other side's blocks and don't just spread through pre-written blocks. I will happily vote down a team that read one conditional advocacy and be equally happy to vote for the cheating CP that was part of a 4 conditional strategy. As long as you can defend your interpretation (on both sides), do whatever you want with condo.

__**K**__ I'm not very well versed on the literature. If you are running a normal kritik like cap or security, I'll mostly understand what's going on and happily vote on it. Drift towards a Fiat K (à la Antonio or Kappeler) and I'm not a great judge for you; I am predisposed to believing in value in a policy-simulation debate. That's not to say I won't vote for you, but it's an uphill battle. If you tend towards literature such as Agamben, Baudrillard, psychoanalysis, etc. I'm not very familiar, so slow, English (i.e. not jargon) explanations will be vital.

__**High Speaker Points**__ Here are two unusual things you can do that my boost your speaker points (moderately): Explain a new mathematical concept to me in-round that somehow affects the round Talk about obscure geography in-round and how it affects the round