KenDeJ

= = =__2ac Politics Drill - July 12__=

Comments by Tara

- Good volume – that will be a nice help for commanding the room/presence - Good diversity of arguments – although you read three non-uniques, they all had different warrants - Continue to work on building up speed - Always be aware of your height – always build a tall enough podium. - It is good to have analytics – make your analytics more arguments, than questions. Make your timeframe arguments more comparative with the Aff. Always give the “why” to your arguments (the warrants), even with analytical. - Typically, it is better to link turn than impact turn on the Politics DA. You need to view the link level as your ground – those are cards specific to your Aff. The Aff should always have better quality link turns to a politics DA than the Negative’s link. - When impact turning, you need to take out the impact before you externally turn.

=__2NC Politics Drill - July 14__= Comments by Peyton - Good speaking style and very good line by line - you're clearly answering each arg and it's well structured - I like the impact work in the overview - I think doing more comparative impact claims could get you even further, so instead of just reading new scenarios and talking about yours, creating standards for evaluating impacts will help (like Magnitude, or irreversibility etcetera which are great for Warming vs. nuc war debates) - Number off of the 2AC not newly for the 2NC (so it should be "2AC 7 - they say ice age - 1. No ice age .... 2. Blah blah 3.") - Be comparative about their evidence – so for uniqueness “ours specific about why reps vote for it" is unclear and less offensive than "Prefer our evidence - there’s doesn’t take into account key republican votes" or osmething. - Need some more cards on Uniqueness and Ice age debate - could fill up the rest of your time - The new warming impacts should either go in the overview, or you should make clear why they answer the ice age scenario (so timeframe of nuclear war means you should prefer it over ice age etc.) =__Mini-Debate #1 - Hebah/Anjay vs. Mahnvee/Ken - July 17__=

Comments by Layne Kirshon
These general comments apply to everyone. No one made any glaring errors/was unclear – in fact, all of you sounded great! That said, there are some meta-level changes you all should make to be more persuasive/effective --always look at the judge in CX. You’re convincing the judge, not each other, that you are right. Looking at the judge also means you can see their facial expressions/body-language for various arguments --speed is a MEANS not an END. Every speech in this debate ended early! Being fast is a necessary evil in debate because of timed speeches, but if you aren’t filling up your time, be slow. Tripp was one of the best debaters ever and he went barely faster than conversation speed. --Divide up cross-x correctly. This applies to the aff, not the neg, but the 2A was cross-xing the 1N and then you didn’t have questions for the 2N. You need to maximize evry cross-x as it’s a way to interact with the other team’s arguments. Also, you should give the correct cross-x because it maximizes prep time. --Arguments need warrants, not just claims! This in particular applies to the 2NC and 1AR in this debate (the 1NR was actually pretty good about this). While the 1NC/2AC just have to read cards, later speeches require argument DEVELOPMENT. WHY is the airborn laser good, WHY is war with Russia more likely. Overall, good debate. Everyone seemed to have a really good conceptual grasp of the arguments.

=__Practice Debate #3 - Aff (2A) vs. Hebah/Andrew - July__ 24=

Comments by Vinay Sridharan
Yays for everyone: -Quick, relatively clear delivery all around. -Intelligently discussed – people seem to have some understanding of the issues being discussed. -Specific yays are under each person. Suggestions for everyone: General --- C-x ends when timer ends --- should generally only finish responses if its only a sentence more or so and shouldn’t ask questions. 2ac: Pretty solid 2ac all together Put case on top --- must protect the house Make a reasonability arg on T You re-read Kagan --- that was in the 1ac “No nuke war if abl happened” doesn’t make sense – their scenario is about direct energy weapons and the miscalculatioin that occurs before an ABL is fully developed See if you have some more specific impact defense Repeititvely tagged and probably too mnay cards on the first case arg made on hegemony – you need to pick maybe at most your best 3 cards and then do something like this: Withdrawal is net better for hegemony than staying in A. Comparative evidence --- staying in is more damaging to credibility over the long-term – Carptenter 9 B. No impact to resolve --- card C. some other independent wrrnt should be isolated in this tag -- -then card. You don’t even necessarily need to read more than one or 2 cards – or even read any at all – what’s important is that you explain your internal links --- what are all the reasons afghan presence collapses heg? Make that laundry list clearer and you can deal w/ this more quickly. You drop some args on hegemony/don’t answer very well like the overstretch inevitable args or the “we’ll always have alliances” type args --- you’ve got to be like “afghan is largest example of overstretch” and explain the wrrnt in your internal links that proves that Afghanistan will collapse our alliance structures/overall ability to project power You should try and extend your conceded impacts and see if u can distinguish them --- you’ve got a central asia, afghan, Pakistan, and heg impact --- make sure you keep all of them in the debate Always keep an add-on or something to read if you have time instead of just giving an underview or whatever. --- you should never not have something to read CX of 2NC: You let her talk too much in C-X --- keep her on her toes w/ questions and keep moving, don’t let her re-explain all her args I also think you misunderstand the impact to the DA --- even if ABL solves nuclear war, the impact’s regarding miscalc before that and direct energy weapons -- -part of this may be that the 2n’s explanation of the impact is not as clear as it could be in c-x 2ar: I think you need to reframe the way you debate this. The 2ar shouldn’t start on the line by line per se, it should start by proving you win --- throwing yourself in the nitty-gritty from the first second, you don’t really give me a big picture view of the debate. The 2ar is all about the persuasive appeal, about the “Look, the 2nr really screwed this up” or the “Here’s a ton of conceded case impacts --- all outweigh the DA” You’re doing a good job but you need to be better at clearing up a messy debate to the judge – being like look, the 2nr is a hodge podge of extended args here, here, and here --- but they hvent answered all these impacts and there’s this defense against their stuff. The way you dealt w/ these args was very similar to the way you did in the 2ac and the 1ar so I wont give any more commentary on how you should be answering some of their args.

=__Practice Debate #5 - Aff (2A) vs. Conor/Sebastian - July 27__=

Comments by Tate
--Overall, I thought this was a pretty good 2AC. I think we would have been helped a lot by having blocks to some key case arguments. There was a lot of case in this debate, but I think you could have been more efficient with answering 1NC arguments. --Your answers to the DA and the CP were pretty tight but I thought the analyticals were a bit blippy. Make sure that you have fully developed thoughts in your analyticals. --You may want to have contemplated kicking an advantage in this speech. --I liked your attempt at an overview in the 2AR. A bit more of this should have been written out…more efficient and more developed. Explain your case story with more efficiency and sophistication. --You can control “probability” because you are winning uniqueness on the case flow – we are losing the war now…COIN troops there now…instability there now. --Reference key Aff cards by cite more. What cards on case do you want the judge to read? --Try to be a bit more organized. When on a particular flow, stay on the arguments on that flow alone. On off-case positions, structure your 2AR by extending key 2AC/1AR arguments in order. --I am not sure you can claim the Corsi card since it was not read. :)

=__Back to Basics Drill: Negotiate with the Taliban 2AC - July 28__= Comments by Tate

--Overall, I thought this was a pretty effective 2AC CP block. Always a few tweaks/suggestions, though. --Make sure to be a bit more flexible when reading your blocks. Know which answers apply and which ones don't. For example, your second permutation is functionally the same as the first considering how the Neg read the CP. --I thought some of your analytics were too blippy - it was difficult to understand the warrants and you were not giving enough pen time. I would make your solvency deficit (which is 2AC 4-6) all one answer and structure it as "Case is a DA to the CP: (a) can't solve heg, (b) can't solve Afghan instability , (c) can't solve terror --Instead of reading the four cards as to why the CP would fail, I would opt for two of them and then add a quick Conditionality block and/or 2AC add-on (like NATO) that the CP does not solve for.