Pesce,+Matthew

Email: mdpesce@gmail.com High School: Woodward Academy (2006-2010) College: Emory University (2010-2014)

Logistics

-Be nice. You can be assertive, but don't ever be rude to your opponents. -You do not need to take prep time to jump documents. Please do not abuse this. -Clarity is important to me. It's about arguments I flow during a speech not arguments made. -You do your thing. I will try to accurately assess the debate based on arguments made.

Big Picture

-Frame Arguments: Tell me how I should evaluate the relationship between arguments and the relative importance of your arguments in comparison to theirs. If you do this effectively, it will likely greatly help you.

-Evidence Matters: Reading academic evidence that is topic relevant is important to me. If you don't, it is not a deal breaker, but I would very much prefer hearing about how your argument relates to academic literature on a topic.

-Evidence Evaluation: Tell me how I should read the evidence that is important in a debate. Does recency, qualifications of an author, or some underlying bias impact the relationship between evidence? If so, tell me what I should care the most about.

-Personal Experience: It is not necessarily less important than claims made by academics who study a topic. That being said, you must explain why this is, or is not, the case in any situation where it is important.

-Argument Substance: I have realized after leaving the debate community as a debater that I don't really have any strong preference about what arguments are made. Rather, I care much more about rewarding the team that is doing the best debating.