Flanagan,+Thomas

Experience: I have been an active participant in debate for four years. I debated in high school at Monsignor Kelly High School and advanced to semifinals at TFA state. I currently debate for the University of Texas at Dallas.

Speed: is fine, lol.

T: I default to competing interpretations. Impact calculus of standards is a necessity. That having been said, I think that reasonability is particularly convincing in situations where there has been no in round abuse. Conversely, I think that teams have in round abuse claims have a compelling case in going for T.

DAs: These are great. For the aff in later speeches, it would be to your advantage to focus on fewer more well explained takeouts to the DA to work towards cutting the chance of the DA to zero. Evidence comparison is the key here. However, A well-done impact calculus alone can be a reason to takeout the DA; winning that the case impact happens first is especially persuasive to me. (These impact calculus comments also apply for the negative when taking out the case)

Case: I think that teams that use either all of the 1NR or a significant portion of the 2NC to indict the case put the 1ar and 2ar into some trouble. I think this is an underrated strategy that when done well, allows for a much lower burden for winning an offensive net benefit against the aff. I almost consider this a must in the 2NR when going for a K absent a thorough link analysis.

CPs: These coupled with DAs are great. Winning competition arguments is a prerequisite to accessing these. I usually evaluate these in terms of sufficiency. However, solvency deficits are usually convincing that I evaluate in terms similar to assessing the probability of an advantage or DA. I expect you to explain to me in the 2NR how even if the CP doesn't solve the case that the status quo is still net better than the aff.

Ks: I'm familiar with a lot of literature, however, its difficult to keep Baudrillard or Deleuze fresh on the mind, so overviews are particularly important for explaining the thesis of your argument when dealing with high theory Ks. I evaluate these like a DA, treating alt like uniqueness. In capitalism/neoliberalism debates, the sustainability question is of crucial importance. In other debates, I think the alt is the most underworked part of the debate. Explain how the alt resolves each link, how each link has an external impact or turns the aff, and how the alt can solve the aff.

Framework/K affs: I don't lean way way or the other on the issue. I treat this like any other topicality argument with some exceptions. K affs should have a reasonable counter-interpretation that somehow binds them to the topic; this will cut away at a lot of the neg offense. For the negative, explain how a topical version of the affirmative equally or better accesses their education. Using the affirmative's evidence against them to reach this conclusion is usually slayer. If you can't win a topical version of the affirmative then that provides greater weight to your ground argument.

Speaker Points: I give out speaker points based on three criteria: clarity, organization, and clash. Clarity means the easier you are to understand in terms of coherence and articulation the better. Organization is extremely helpful in terms of differentiating between analytics, tags, and text bodies, as well as keeping the line by line neat. Finally clash in terms of how well and how much you engage with the warrants of your opponents arguments is the last criterion. Debates in which teams are just throwing arguments at each other are never great.