Harrison,+Bennett

Bennett Harrison Jesuit College Prep—3 years of high school debate

***Damus Hollywood (Notre Dame) is my first tournament judging on this topic. As such, slowing down, extra attention to clarity, and explanation of topic jargon are musts*** 1) __Clarity is really important.__ To me, this means clear articulation and differentiation between tags, cites, and cards. This applies not only to your speech but also to the substance of your arguments—i.e., “extinction” is not a tag, your evidence should be highlighted to warrant arguments, the sequence of your arguments and accompanying evidence should be clear. 2) __Debate is foremost a persuasive activity—clash is key.__ Both teams advocate a position, which should be developed by evidence and comparison with the other team’s arguments. I understand there are many ways of doing this, but the most important thing is that it is done in the context of your opponent’s advocacy. If you merely explain your own position without explaining its relevance to your opponent and how I should resolve clash, do not be surprised if my decisionmaking does not make sense to you. 3) __Be yourself, unless yourself is aggressive and/or pejorative, in which case be nice.__ This applies to your entire disposition from the moment you walk in the door, but especially to your speeches and cross-examinations—respectfully run arguments that you like and feel comfortable with; if you are going to try new things, be kind and appreciate the challenge of engaging your opponent’s thoughtful responses. Debaters tend to be most aggressive when they feel uncomfortable with their arguments or when they do not respect the value of the other team’s engagement. Believe it or not, I can sense your lack of respect; it makes me sad, and sad me is less inclined to give high speaker points. 4) __Lack of line by line gets worse over time.__ So, debate the line by line and flow. This is the most equitable way for everyone in the room, especially me, to understand clash in the debate. The further away you get from flagging which details of your opponent’s argument that you are responding to, the further away I will get from understanding your engagement with the details. 5) __Speaker points in a decent debate with clash begin at a 28.__ If you are being nice, witty, creative, and thoughtful, they go up from there. If you lack clash or are being rude, hypermasuline, or disrespectful, they go down. 6) __My face and my brain work together.__ If I look confused, frustrated, or offended, it’s because I am. --Go 50-75% speed, or else you shall be frustrated with the blips you have caused me to miss on the flow. --I understand the strategic value of using theory as a time tradeoff, but if you are just reading blocks and not setting up link and impact comparison early, it will likely not be the best 2nr/2ar strategy. --With K’s, multiple contradictory frameworks is an underutilized and interesting theory argument, but requires heightened attention to link and impact specificity. ***50-75% speed—I am new to the topic, so trying to hide T impacts by going fast will confuse me more than your opponent** --I assume competing interpretations unless you tell me otherwise—I will only default to reasonability if I understand why I am doing so. --the 1nc violation should be specific --Neg, explain what other affs they allow and what ground you lose. --Aff, you should have an equally robust defense of the aff’s goodness for the topic and the superiority of your counter-interpretation relative to the impact debate. --Slow down when reading the text, especially if it is long. --Well researched and specific counterplans make more sense for a reason, but specificity in the literature requires equally specific argumentation. --Generic counterplans make less sense for a reason, which is why spin wins in these debates, but is generally easier for the aff. --Link and impact specificity and comparison is key --Concise overviews will help me very much to make sense of the line by line. I like them a lot, but only with a main course of contextualized explanation. Most importantly, both teams should be using language specific to the aff. For the neg, this means specific link and impact debating relative to the 1AC, not just an idea, method, or institution that the 1AC represents. For the aff, this means using the specificity of the 1AC against the kritik as both turns and nuanced permutations, certainly you will need to defend your view of the world, but all the easier when you do so from the narrow position of your first 8 minutes.
 * Very important things **
 * Theory **
 * Topicality **
 * Counterplans **
 * Disadvantages **
 * Kritiks **

Also, for kritik substance, contextualized explanation should be coupled with clear interpretation of the K subject matter. Pseudo-literary tags are only cool on the computer, not on my flow. You should have concise tags and explain your interpretation of the arguments made in those tags with extrapolations and comprehensible, strategically-highlighted evidence I am sympathetic to arguments about exclusion in the community or in the topic area; however, these debates hinge on the role of the ballot. This means both teams should have an interpretation on what the ballot means, and other arguments on the line-by-line should be connected to this claim. I prefer specific arguments about method over arguments about the implications of a single debate round or the institution of debate. The rhetorical structure of these kind of debates is different, which means that you should appeal neither to the significance of a single round nor to “changing the very foundation of debate,” but instead to the superiority of your methodology to the other team’s. I think there is something fundamentally hypocritical about “debating” to change the institution of debate, but, unfortunately, rhetoric in these debates frequently appeals to this exact kind of “changing the institution.” If you choose to make arguments of this nature, I will evaluate them, but I will evaluate them as method arguments anyway, which will not help you out if you have not robustly defended your challenge to debate, the community, or the topic as a methodology that clashes with the other team’s methodology.
 * Non-instrumental use of the resolution **

Also, for both the aff and the neg, I think that challenges to “debate,” “the debate community,” or “the topic” require a discussion of what we are talking about when we talk about any of these things. If you pick up on this, I think you have the opportunity to take these kinds of debates in an interesting direction that they do not usually go.

--flashing ends when the jump drive leaves the computer --if there is an email chain, I want in --please flow --if your word freezes or something, I will be a human being and will work together with both teams to continue our respectful intellectual endeavor as quickly as possible.
 * Paperless debate **