Willett,+Patrick


 * Patrick Willett**
 * Affliations: Rufus King High School**
 * Experience: Debated 3 years; 1st year coaching**

Topicality: I like well-developed T violations. If it’s just a blurb at the top of the 1NC I’m likely to regard it as a time suck. I have enjoyed running T primarily because it is something I could actually run in my local circuit (Wisconsin). I default to competing interpretations unless told otherwise. I think reasonability is a bad argument. Ideally, max violations in a round would be two however one should be sufficient and avoids extremely messy T debates (e.g. cross applying standards and voters between the violations, aff’s answering it as if it’s one big T violation, etc).

Case Debate: I have no preference one way or another for case debates to be a part of the neg’s strategy-for a good portion of my time debating, I ran one-off’s. However, if it’s something you’d like to do, go for it and use it to tear apart the aff.

Disads: I’m not a huge fan of disads as a strategic negative option, politics especially (I think politics is stupid and a negative’s easy out when it comes to Das). As an affirmative, I would much rather see you utilize analytics to point out the illogical internal link chain that almost every disadvantage has.

Kritiks: For the majority of my debate career, I ran kritiks. They are my favorite argument to judge. With that being said, if you run a kritik in front of me, ensure you are familiar with the literature and do not just shout buzz words at me, actually demonstrate you understand the material. I do not think the alternative has to actually do anything, just explain why it’s a good idea. I’m fine with kicking the alt and using the link/impact level of the K as a case turn. For the aff, I do not find “kritiks do not belong in debate” to be a persuasive argument (attempting to exclude any argument from the debate space as an answer will generally not be effective in front of me). In regards to perms, I think they are a test of competition but if you actual attempting to win a debate on one, you need to explain what the world of the perm is. I do not find ad hominem arguments persuasive. I find contextual links and performative links equally persuasive (cross ex is binding, especially in this regard).

Counterplans: Go for it, neg’s should only claim to fiat the same agent of the resolution (e.g. if the agent is the United States Federal Government, negs can fiat any agent within the federal government be it XO CP, DEA, Congress, etc).

Framework: To start, Framework is not a neg’s way to avoid engaging with the aff (unless you truly cannot engage). Reiterating the note from the Kritiks section, any framework argument saying that the aff or argument has no place in the debate space is problematic. I will vote on Framework. I think Framework can quickly become offensively worded, please be cautious to avoid this. Framework should always be impacted.

Theory: Not fond of theory debates, I’ve found that it’s typically spreading the hell out of a block, waiting for your opponents to drop something, and then blowing that up. This is not impressive. For theory (and Topicality) arguments SPEAK SLOWLY or I may miss something. It gives validity to your theory argument if it is obviously true in the context of the round-condo bad makes much more sense with 12 off than it would with 2.

Non-traditional Debate: I’m all for it, I think it’s awesome. I find it really problematic if you don’t have a particular epistemology and you are representing that view-speaking for others bad simply put. It helps if an aff is in the direction of the topic but losing T isn’t the end of the debate. If you can argue that some mechanism of the affirmative being included in the debate space is preferable for education, fairness, etc, then that could outweigh topicality. Make sure I have something to vote on (e.g. an advocacy statement or something concrete). Shifting advocacies throughout the round is problematic.

I don’t do well flowing speed.