Nathan+Davidson

toc = Date of debate: 6/21 = Slow down just a tiny bit. We’re in no hurry for these first few mini-debates. The "try or die" phrasing in the 2AC was the right impulse, but don't let that be your ONLY answer to a solvency takeout. First, establish that you DO actually solve, THEN make your risk calculus/try or die argument. That 2ac card was pretty long – make sure there’s an important reason to read a piece of evidence that long. Defending Mead’s qualifications is the BEGINNING of a good argument, but compare a little bit more. Just because he’s good doesn’t mean the other author is bad. Economic collapse analysis was good, but slightly long. Historical analysis is difficult to pare down and still make the full weight of the argument, but that’s sort of the trick of debate. You seem to gravitate mostly toward talking about the impact in many different ways, which is good (very good), but lets talk about the rigmarole of the policy as well. You can be the resident expert on the nature of economic decline leading to war, but if your plan doesn’t solve it, it might not happen. Don’t let that distract you from other arguments. Overall, very nice, though. = Date of debate: 6/23 = 2NC - Speak outward more. You're mumbling a little bit. You can be more forceful. - Good job getting the important evidence out there. I would like to hear a little bit more analytic explanation before you just read cards. They have three arguments, but you mostly only read cards to answer. - Great job on the case list that your interpretation allows. You say 'they would allow giving cars to military officers to be topical, but it's clearly not.' But that begs the question. WHY isn't it? You're totally on the right track, but you want to develop this more. Give some more examples of precisely what they would allow, and why it would make it really hard to be negative. - Don't call being not-topical 'cheating.'
 * Debating on: Case Clash**
 * Instructor/commentator: Crowe**
 * Comments:**
 * Debating on: T mini debate**
 * Instructor/commentator: Charles**
 * Comments:**

= Date of debate: 6/28 = 1AR -- Go in the same order as the 2AC rather than answering/extending arguments at random. Need to work on time allocation – you spent too long on the CP and not enough on the DA. Reference specific 2AC evidence. 2AR -- Emphasize the impact to state budget deficits in terms of why the CP wouldn’t solve, and why fiat doesn’t get around that. Extend more arguments against the DA. Don’t just spend the whole time talking about why economic collapse is bad and the Calabresi card is subpar; extend the arguments you had in the 1AR like non-unique and no link.
 * Debating on: States CP + federalism DA**
 * Instructor/commentator: Mikaela**
 * Comments:** FLOW all the other side's speeches!!!

= Date of debate: 6/25 = - pay attention during instruction - if you have to sleep more at night then do that - try to compartmentalize your arguments so they are easier to flow/understand
 * Debating on:Theory**
 * Instructor/commentator:Baker**
 * Comments:**

= Date of debate: 7/2 = -Need to be loader and clearer in the 1AC - need to do the over-enunciation drill -Need to focus on flowing the block on the case better, when in doubt tell the whole story. You don't need to read a new impact on warming because I didn't challenge that claim, focus on explaining how you are able to solve warming. -Might kick warming, and spend your time on the competitiveness adv + impact defense on the DA -Use heg + econ as impact turns to the K
 * Debating on: Practice Debate #1**
 * Instructor/commentator: Quigley**
 * Comments:**

Redo: -Good job embedding answers to my tradeoff arg into the adv -Need to work on word economy on the case - write out which args and the order of arguments so that you can claim and warrant quick. Cut out long examples and analogies. Same on the K, you're too wordy for the 1AR. -Better job extending a diversity of args on the K. -If time pressured on the DA in the 1AR you should focus on impact defense, not UQ

= Date of debate: 7/6 = Be careful about adopting a persona (surely this is not the real Nathan) that is so derisive to opponents that you make yourself unvotable in the round. At the point that you are sounding like Dr. Evil as you “shht” your opponents you have lost all credibility. Even though in policy debate we like to pretend that we are totally voting on the flow – debaters who break rules of appropriate etiquette lose more rounds. Be careful – much of the sarcasm you show to your opponents makes you look like a weaker debater since you are sarcastically defending abusive burdens. For example, you are insisting during CX that the aff has to have “instantaneous solvency.” Not only is this standard abusive, it is not one that you apply to your own counterplan. Try to be perceived as confident (or even a little humble) rather than opting for an insulting tone. Judges see through this even though most might not tell you. Regarding the round: Reconsider this T, it is possibly useful as a throw away, but sets such a high burden for Aff (50% of DOT spending) that I find it a very hard sell. Going for it in the 2NR should never happen, in my opinion. If you want it to be an effective “time suck” then spend your 2NC time making it an effective threat to the aff by doing strong line by line and putting some offense on it. You cannot go for a T in the 2NR that was blippy at best in the 2NC. In this debate, a much more critical issue is winning the Util good debate. You make claims that I must vote for you if there is even a 1% chance of a nuc war but need more analysis, warrant or evidence for this claim. You and your partner must win a Util good framework. Rebuttal redo should contain this as well as strong line-by-line work on the disads and case.
 * Debating on: Neg vs Mass trans aff with Racism adv**
 * Instructor/commentator: Solice**
 * Comments:**

= Date of debate: 7/7 = - Work on 1AC clarity and avoiding awkward pauses when scrolling - it hurts the flow of your speech - Good job explaining your economy and hegemony internal links/solvency in 1AC cross-x - Nice heads-up move stopping Charles from reading the econ impact D on the disad - During cross-x of the 2NC, you should focus on preparing your 1AR rather than getting involved in cross-x - You're too wordy in parts of the 1AR on the case - you should be able to get through the case arguments quickly given how few arguments they make there and the fact that the block didn't read much new evidence there in the block either. - Good framing on the defense and how I should evaluate the counterplan/disad versus the plan, but you should be spending less time in the 1AR on framing as a whole and more on extending specific arguments. - Even if they don't answer conditionality bad, you need to explain the warrants for the argument rather than saying simply that they didn't answer it. - Extend more solvency deficits to the counterplan and a permutation - you spent too much time on the case and your extension of the Mead indict, neither of which are very important in the grand scheme of things
 * Debating on: Practice Debate D**
 * Instructor/commentator: Nick**
 * Comments:**

= Date of debate: 7/7 = 2NC: You need to explain why the perm still links to politics. You are perfectly clear when you are just speaking but difficult to understand when reading blocks (like answering conditionality). Practice clarity! Good job going line-by-line and answering all 2AC arguments, although a few times you were a little out of order. Conceding the perm solves federalism doesn't necessarily get rid of the turns - they don't have to extend the perm and the plan can still destroy federalism. Your CP is conditional since you also have a kritik alternative. 2NR: The K is probably not the right 2NR choice here. They have several arguments on the kritik that they could actually win on, including some offense. They don't have anything on the CP or the case they could win on and you just need to win a little of your DA. Good explanation of how the kritik outweighs. When answering the framework, you should be explicit about whether the affirmative should get to weigh their impacts. In this debate, you should say they can and just go for the argument that the kritik outweighs. Explain why it's important/educational to have kritiks in debate. Good job kicking out of the CP and DA. Do that first - don't wait until the end! Spend a little more time on the case - I didn't even have time to write down your one argument. For your redo, I would like to have you give a 2NR that extends the CP and the DA.
 * Debating on: Practice debate E**
 * Instructor/commentator: Kernoff**
 * Comments:**

= Date of debate:7/9 = 2nc: CLEARER. Your overview is difficult to understand because you don't enounciate a lot. You also are reading too many link cards and not doing enough link explanation. Unlike a politics DA, the link story is usually not about number of K cards, but rather the contextualization of those. When you make a link argument you need to then be specific about what tags, assumptions, actions, etc of the 1ac link to this. The root cause argument is good - you're persuasive about cap being the root cause of warming. Oddly, you didn't mention that the ebbs and flows of the competitiveness advantage are the same - that probably deserves a few sentences in the 2nc.
 * Debating on: rd 1**
 * Instructor/commentator: Nicole**
 * Comments:**

on the privates CP I worry about your answer to the perm that "any" federal spending causes the politics link - why doens't that apply to your cp?

2NR is very disorganzied. You need to focus the story. Some of what you are behind on (the contextualizing of the links) is because of the structure of the 2nC. = Date of debate: 7/9 =
 * Debating on: Round 4**
 * Instructor/commentator: Yamamura**
 * Comments:**

2N - instead of just asking the 1A to read lines from their cards that make certain statements, I would ask more pointed questions that interrogates the warrants behind their cards because it wastes time to have them look for lines in their cards every question. - the overview of the 2NC is a little bit too long with too many cards. Read a couple cards that you think are really important, or just try to read the cards you read in the overview on the line by line. - be sure during cross-ex to let the person ask questions. It's good to talk emfphatically about your warrants, but you also will sound very smart answering their questions head on. - Try to be a little bit clearer when reading cards - you tend to slur between cards, which makes it difficult to flow - in the 2nr be sure to articulate the impact of the bias argument. Does it meant that the aff isn't true, does it mean that their authors are lying? does it mean they can't solve? Be sure to use this argument in the broad context of the capitalism K. - you also could do a bit better of a job articulating what the alternative does. You do a good job explaining that cap is bad, but not a great explanation of how you shift away from capitalism. How does an intellectual community actual shift away from capitalism. - Also, be sure to articulate some sort of external impact. You're doing a fantastic job explaining why the root cause is more important than the proximate cause, but it often helps to have a large external impact independent of the affirmative as well.

= EXAMPLE = Awesome job! Best 1AC ever!
 * Date of debate: June 23**
 * Debating on: Constellation aff**
 * Instructor/commentator: Nicole**
 * Comments**: