Stille,+Graysen

Debated for Grapevine High School for 4 years Currently first year debater for San Francisco TL;DR – The best debate for me is the best one for you. I try to get rid of any bias I have on arguments because debates where a student needs to conform to my notions of “proper” debate are just boring. Here’s the longer version that’ll give you a better sense of how I evaluate everything. Like I said above I love hearing everything, this is more to get the most speaks out of me that you can – Things to keep in mind as the AFF: The NEG gets away with a lot in most debates and I’m open to hearing logical arguments that can disprove some of that nonsense. Offense that’s directly related to the 1AC will always trump “greatest hits arguments” and just in general, shows your depth of knowledge on the topic. Things to keep in mind as the NEG: I consider the 1NC a work of art. Each piece represents something in the larger picture of the debate. My motto as a 2N was to never put something in the 1NC that I didn't feel comfortable going for after the block. 3 well-constructed arguments is always preferable to five mediocre ones in my mind. CP’s: They Gucci, the more specific to the aff the better. I can flip either way on the question of which Counter Plans are legit or not, like I said above, I’ll vote on the best arguments I hear. That being said I get kinda tired hearing the same old neg strat you pull against any old aff. Make it something unique and tricky and let the higher speaks shower upon you. DA’s: Big fan of the straight-up DA/Case debate. It shows your ability to analyze advantages and better turn the case with your impacts. These debates are very interesting and shows a debaters talent if they can do this effectively Kritik’s: Contrary to popular belief I’m not gonna pull the trigger as soon as I hear the word “Ontology.” There’s an art to K debates and it gets annoying when people decide to jump on the bandwagon because all the cool kids are doing it (They are by the way, because K’s are dope). If you don’t feel comfortable running a certain K then don’t. Stick with what you feel is your best argument and I’ll respect that decision. The more specific the articulation the better. As I’ve said before, I’m not a fan of “greatest hits” arguments. In some debates I see their merit but those are few and far between. Impress me with something new. Topicality: I don’t know shit about oceans. I think there’s seven but I have no clue. You could probably get away with some tricky aff’s as long as you have some credible evidence to back it up. As far as these kinds of debates go I’m fair game on both sides. With that being said I want you to impact it out at the end of the round. Tell me WHY debate education is good. Tell me WHY fairness in this debate is key to X. Saying “They jacked our ground so we can’t read politics” isn’t persuasive to me. Tell me why the education you lost from this debate matters in the real world and that’ll get you mad props from me. Framework: Like I said on T impact the debate to why these kinds of debates matter or don’t matter for your worldly application. The “greatest hits” argument also applies here too. If I have to hear the same Shively or Giroux card one more time I’m going to bash my head on my keyboard. Creativity is something debate lacks and that’s what I want to see come back. If you can show me something I haven’t seen yet in these kinds of debates then bonus points to you. There’s become this community idea that framework is horrible and even though I agree with that to some extent I don’t exactly believe in a ton of tautological truths so having these debates is fine by me. Pet Peeves of mine: I said earlier that I’m open to anything but these are just some things I don’t know how to feel about/just don’t like hearing. Gendered Language K’s: These arguments just come off as ad-hoc at best. If you have a problem with something another debater said then I’m more than willing to let the round pause and you can discuss what happened. The debate community has become more fractioned off in recent years. I want see if we can’t work to fix that. X person was a Nazi / anything about the author not relating directly to their argument: These come off as ad-hoc as well. Apply this as a turn to the author’s argument and we’ll see but hearing “Reject the K because they were a Nazi” on its own does not a good argument make. Elitist Language/trash talking: Don’t be an asshole. I get it, tournaments are stressful and all your teenage angst is boiling up but put that towards making good arguments, not bashing them. If you’re being blatantly disrespectful or ignorant of the other team I’m gonna remember that. Y’all worked hard to get where you are, every argument has merit and should be respected, cross apply that community building thing. <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12.8000001907349px;">Greatest Hits: I've said this on about every section of this page but let me re-iterate it one last time. For the love of God make unique arguments. It totally defeats the educational benefits of the activity if you're just rehashing the same cards year after year.