Sidwell,+Cindy

I am a debate/speech coach, specializing in Public Forum and both Traditional and Progressive LD. This is my 8th year coaching and I did policy long ago in high school.

When it comes to a preference of arguments I really am open to anything as long as it isn’t extremely morally repugnant (promotion of rape, etc…) or offensive. I’m really not a fan of definition, T, or theory debates, but don’t make the mistake of not running one when it is completely necessary and your opponent is being abusive. I am open to Ks, but I am really bugged by them if they are generic and you don't really believe in it or understand it. I am open to speed, and If you aren’t clear I will yell, “Clear,” and if you are going too fast I will say, “Slow.” Please slow down on the tag line, I like to flow tags instead of the author most of the time. PLEASE HAVE SOME ANALYSIS OF YOUR INFO! If you are just reading cards without any analysis, you are destroying the beauty of debate, which is actually getting you to use your brain. When it comes to the end of a Lincoln Douglas debate the first thing I look at is the Value/VC. This is how I will weigh the round in almost all instances. Just because you lose this part of the debate does not mean you lose the debate as a whole. As long as you can prove that you fit it better than your opponent I will still give you the ballot. VOTERS!!! At the end of the round please give me voters. When I sign the ballot I don’t generally write that one person just won everything on the flow. Give me a couple options as to why I should vote for you instead of going over everything. You could lose all but 1 or 2 arguments but as long as you can show me that that argument or arguments outweigh when looking to the V/VC I will still pick you up. I love impact calc. Please do the work for me; I don’t want to be left at the end of the round trying to decide whether econ collapse outweighs 10,000 people dying. Tell me specifically WHY yours outweighs. Traditional v. Progressive. I really don’t have a preference as to which form of debate is better. As long as it is organized and well developed I believe anyone can beat anyone regardless of their form of debate. Speaker points. I’m generally not too rough on speaks and give them based on a couple different things. Most of the time I give high speaks based on how well you debate in your particular style. For example if you are a progressive debater I probably won’t be judging you too much on eye contact. And the same goes for the other side, if you are a traditional debater I won’t be judging you on how many cards or how fast you go. Across the board as long as you’re making great arguments and debating your style well you will get high speaks.