Haderlein,+Jonathan

Worlds Schools

 This is not a flow debate. Drops are not great but they are not devastating.

On **__CONTENT__**: teams are rewarded for what they prove, not what they assert. Anything without a warrant is irrelevant. Anything with an obviously logically inconsistent warrant is irrelevant. I will intervene against lies about material facts – as in events that have happened – and even then only if it is a turning point for a piece of clash. Any philosophical position is fair game. Teams will be rewarded for creativity but they will also be rewarded for relevance. Maturely encapsulating the current debate in the literature is just as excellent as coming up with a completely novel perspective. Play to your strengths – individual arguments are vetted more in this format than many others. The content will not go wide but ideally it will go deep. If you are going to argue something counter-intuitive, make sure it is something your whole team is comfortable explaining in detail.

Presentation is relevant. In this format **__STYLE__** should be understood in terms of how presentation effects intelligibility. “Great Public Speakers” are only great debaters if their rhetorical skills are enhancing the ease in which the debate is understood. For instance, rhetorical juxtapositions of arguments are often an exceptionally efficient way to explain the comparative without having to pedantically summarize exactly what was said and then talk about it. Excellent sign-posting removes ambiguity. Using the right word can allow you to easily communicate a nuanced thought. Picking powerful examples can encapsulate emotional and philosophical intangibles that are difficult to explain logically. Perfect style would employ rhetoric in these ways.

Snark, collegial ridicule, jokes, are all fair game. But it can never be personal. An argument may be stupid and ridiculous, but your opponent is never either of those things. Ever. You will lose points if you cross this line. This format is judged on a point scale so that means it could mean you lose the round even if you edged them out on the arguments. I also think condescension is higher risk than people think it is. If you aren’t actually ahead it is a terrible rhetorical strategy for recovering from a loss. If you are winning, it is easy to miss an opportunity to develop your arguments more, or make new ones, because you are harping on the flaw of a lackluster speech. This is especially true on Gov. A second Opp speaker can catch you off-guard by following you with a new spin on the round, and if the Whip has to play a lot of defense in response, your time was severely wasted just harping on how bad the first opp speech was rather than developing offense for the Whip to cross-apply to new material.


 * __STRATEGY __** is for me about frameworks, concessions, and turns. These topics are often broad. How you choose to articulate the comparative difference between the two sides will often be what most determines the outcome of the round. That means you should consider how your framework is itself a strategic concession. What kinds of arguments you attempt to turn determines the scope of your position, what arguments you attempt to outweigh versus which arguments you attempt to prove wrong versus which arguments you attempt to prove irrelevant, all of these decisions are what strategy is about. For those of you who do flow based formats, in this format arguments can’t be strategically proven by cleverly cross-applying drops or reading a devastating card or forcing a contradiction in Cross-X, so if you are used to winning strategically, try to win by cross applying turns and catching them in contradictions.

I prefer to vote on the comparative. That means teams need to outweigh. Teams need to demonstrate why their arguments are important, and ideally why they are more important than their opponent’s arguments. Teams should attempt to show why what they are arguing for is logically prior to what their opponents are arguing. All of this is easier if the teams parameterize the motion. Explain the burdens on each side. Explain what needs to happen for me to vote for either side.

Do not fake it until you make it. If something is really burying you, concede that you are losing and outweigh it. If an argument is a lost cause, just drop it and move on. There are always things left for a team to do in order to win. The debate is almost always not lost, but you will often need to pivot as the ideas are fleshed out.