Erwig,+Alexander

I've been involved in competitive forensics for nearly eight years now. I did national circuit LD in high school and then parli with a tournament or two of policy for the University of Oregon the last three years. I've coached high school policy for nearly four years. I've been exposed to and deployed pretty much every type of strategy, so my preference is that you go with the types of arguments that you are most comfortable with/think are most strategic rather than trying to cater to me. That said, I am predisposed on certain issues and will try my best to lay those out for you. Critical Debate: I'm a big fan of the K, whether that be on Aff or Neg, but would greatly prefer topic-specific links rather than more generic "you used the state" approaches. I've read a fair amount of K lit, but the burden is on you to make sure that you clearly explain whichever theorist you're using. Simply restating the contents of a card isn't the same thing as understanding what the evidence says and actually explaining it. To give you a model of the critical arguments I deployed throughout my debate career, I ran Marx most often, and also occasionally dabbled in culture jamming, security, Deleuze and Orientalism. Read whichever argument you want, and explain it well, we'll be golden. On the flipside, I'm very receptive to framework and T as a response to critical Affs. If you are side-stepping the topic entirely, you should have a well-thought out defense of why there can be no topical version of the Aff that discusses your issues in the context of the topic. Straight-Up Debate: I honestly probably prefer evaluating a high level straight up debate to a critical debate. That's not to say that I feel more comfortable evaluating one or the other, I just tend to think that nuanced policy debates are more educational and more interesting to judge. Most of the time I find that the internal link stories on disads are quite contrived and neglected. The more realistic your internal link scenario, the more success you'll have with your disad. Regarding counterplans I think most of these theoretical issues are up to you in the debate, I tend to think PICs and functional competition are legit but am also receptive to theory arguments to the contrary. Misc: You won't be too fast for me, as long as you're clear. That said, I appreciate variation in speaking pace (slowing down on tags/authors, emphasizing certain arguments, etc). That doesn't mean slow down, it just means break out of the monotone drone that quite often becomes the norm. Most importantly, debate to your strengths. I'll be happy adjudicating any debate in which both teams are deploying their best strategies and making smart arguments.

If you have any other specific questions, feel free to email me at aerwig@gmail.com.