Hill,+John

Affiliation: Dallas Jesuit Debated for Dallas Jesuit 4 years in HS; Debated for Harvard for a bit in college; coaching now at Dallas Jesuit

My View on Debate: Debate is a game where everyone can learn something new every time they play. It is a game that is, for me, centered around adaptability. I believe any and every argument can be potentially useful. This means that I believe the round belongs to the debaters and I do my best to evaluate the arguments presented to me without any substantial biases. I reward cleverness and aggressiveness. With that said, there is a difference between being aggressive and brutal, funny and mean. Debate is an activity that people come to in order to compete AND share ideas, actions that take away from that in and out of round rub me the wrong way. I tend to be fairly offense/defense minded when it comes to all arguments in debate. There should be some discussion of what each side allows under their interpretation.

Topicality/Theory I enjoy Topicality and Theory and made use of them extensively in debate. These can be very useful and dangerous parts of a debaters arsenal. Despite my enjoyment of these arguments, I do not believe they should be used without purpose or as throw arguments. If you are going to go for them I believe that you need to invest a substantial amount of time in them and SLOW DOWN, too many debaters take the fast approach to these debates which in the last few speeches really is not necessary. I will not make them voting issues for you, the reasons why it is important needs to be clearly articulated. In T debates I tend to default Competing Interpretations unless I am told otherwise. In both of these debates I require tangible impact analysis as you would perform on any other argument. Articulation of why the other team should lose is a must for the negative. Small theory/T mistakes can turn into big issues for me if I am told why they should be.

CPs/DAs These debates can be a lot of fun. I do no think a CP is necessary, but a DA by itself does require sold case defense to win my ballot. I really enjoy in depth case debates. A clever CP or PIC can go a long way for a team and PIC debates are some of my favorites. Either way, a CP should have a net benefit that is a disadvantage to the AFF. Specificity is a must here, quality of evidence comes before quantity for me.

Ks I like Ks and have run my fair share, but I am not the most well versed in critical literature so I am not up on a lot of the jargon. I think links ought be specific or the analysis on the generics needs to be substantially better in relating it to the aff. I think the alternative is the most important part of the off case K debate and it needs to be articulated and there needs to be a discussion of what the world looks like Post-Alt. I will by into any Framework you want as long as you tell me why I should and what that framework means in terms of the round. I do not believe and alt is a must but if it is there it needs to be talked about.

Extreme Debate This is for spark, malthus, a-life, etc. I think these args can be useful and fun; however, they are not persuasive if you are not serious about them. If these are not a critical part of your strategy and you do not intend to go for them, don't bother reading them. If you are serious, I am willing to listen.

Affs without plans – If you don’t have a plan, you need to have a defense of why. If you haven’t though this out well beforehand, don’t. You also need to defend why disad links, case turns, etc. are ineffective if you plan to go that route with answering negative arguments.

Enjoy the Game, be nice.