Arnett,+Dave

Dave Arnett University of Kentucky Years Coaching: 14

A few general comments

First, I’ve been lucky enough to have coached very different and very successful teams. I learned a lot from them and other great debaters that I’ve been fortunate enough to watch and as a result feel pretty comfortable in just about any kind of debate. I would encourage you to debate your best and not worry too much about me.

Second, a word about theory. The debate world just isn’t as good at discussing debate theory as it used to be. As such I get pretty excited when someone wants to tell me smart things regardless of my particular biases on a particular counterplan or whatever.

Third, Clarity and calling for cards. If I don’t understand you, I won’t call for your evidence. I’ll give you indications if you’re falling off the clarity wagon.

Some specific things

Topicality

Like all debates these can be good or bad. While I do think competing interpretations has a useful role for evaluating T debates, there is a place for reasonability as well. I think it especially important to ground limits and education arguments within topic specific literature i.e. read cards.

Framework

I am pretty easily convinced in a debate round that the affirmative should defend a topical policy option. That said I’ve voted for many “performance” affirmatives against framework and expect I’ll keep doing it. Impact comparisons become especially important in these debates so for example limits v. Education. Often the race to the middle (which side offers the best compromise on ground and limits ) dictates who gets my ballot.

Counterplans

Literature should dictate theory and not the other way around. Consult Nato might be a bad counterplan on some topics and a germane consideration on others. Evidence that establishes clash between the plan and counterplan is the best way to resolve competition debates. I lean negative on conditionality and aff on International fiat and multi-actor fiat.

Disads

Link more than Uniqueness in a lot of situations. Impact framing is critical but can reach absurdity. Assessing the relative importance of categories of impact analysis e.g. magnitude v probability is an important piece missing in even a lot of good debates.

Kritiks

Locating me as a judge/policy guy/activist/etc...is important for evaluating kritiks Letting the other team keep alternatives and links abstract will hurt your ability to generate offense.