Debate+Comments---Abla

Round 2---Comments by Jeff Buntin
Aff vs Nidhi & Ben

__2AC__ Your 2AC order was good – putting the K on the bottom was the right choice – it didn’t seem like they had any intention of going for it. On the case – you didn’t answer economy impact defense. You extended your internal links at the top of the advantage and then went directly to answering “heg inevitable,” which was the 1NC’s third argument, after two economy impact defense cards. That’s obviously a pretty big deal when it’s your central advantage, although the block didn’t grandstand nearly as much about this as I thought they could have.

__2AR__ Throughout the debate, I think you could have used the fact that your central advantage is the economy to more aggressively link-turn the elections DA. The 2AC even contains an “economy key issue” card, but this doesn’t really become the focus of the link turn later in the debate – your link-turn strategy is almost __too__ HSR-specific – you don’t ever really just push on the fact that solving your case also means solving the DA.

Case: I think you can cut through a lot of the less-relevant minutia more quickly – things like the housing market just don’t seem relevant to the overall advantage by the last rebuttals – you can just say “their housing arg – not impacted, not relevant” and move on. I think your answers to resiliency could be a little bit better – you kinda can’t just appeal to empirical examples against resiliency – it’s an internal link question, not an impact question. You have to win that your IL is big enough to overcome resiliency, or that the nature of the current/coming decline is different. Elections: I think you need an overall approach to impact-calc. You don’t really directly answer the 2NR’s impact calc frame that because nuclear war is equally bad no matter how it starts, the impact-calc lens should be the likelihood of war as determined by the relative rationality of relevant actors. There just isn’t a lot of direct comparison between your impacts and theirs aside from a generic claim that economic decline makes war more likely – and you need to either directly respond to this rationality frame or advance a competing one of your own.

**Round 3---Comments by Alex Miles**
__2A Comments__ 1) Speed/clarity issues with constructive or rebuttal: Try slowing down a little bit - you're trying to go too fast and it makes you stutter a little 2) Recommended Drills: Emphasis / enunciation / make sure your not swaying and stuff too much 3) 2AC—technical skill and coverage for case and off-case arguments: Not enough time on Keynes good in the 2ac --- when they spend that much time on the case in the 1nc, you need to make sure you're really going in depth and giving not just claims, but warrants as well for your args Divide the debate into sections --- the neg's stuff in this debate is mainly 1) no ridership 2) long t/f 3) investment tradeoff turn 4) deficit turn --- if you view the 2ac like that, and answer each of those like a mini DA, then you'll have an easier time matching warrants to claims and making more cohesive args Need better answers to this CP in the 2ac 4) Assess use of evidence in constructive and rebuttal: quantity, quality, and comparison: I thought the 2ar was pretty solid --- could've spent less time on impact calc and more time on the line by line 5) Strategic Choice and Execution of 2AC/2AR: Maybe should've kicked oil --- econ is such a prevelant part of the debate because of how it interacts with the link to elections and they spent a lot of time on Keynes bad 5) Rebuttal Re-do suggestions: Less time on the overview Most of the problems with the 2ar stemmed from 2ac case coverage, so see above for how to work on that

Round 4---Comments by Jeff Buntin
Neg vs Andrew & Jon

You should go to the solvency page in the 1NC – you certainly had time, especially if you cut out some of the repetitive Keynes bad evidence (it’s not a net-benefit to any CP, so you should be relatively light on it in the 1NC and then you can expand later). If you end up going for a DA and the case, you want to have more solvency arguments in play.

CX: you jump ship on promising lines of questioning too early – the questions about the tension between “public doesn’t perceive” and the ridership solvency args were really good, but you kind of just gave up and let the aff have the last word.

1NR: Good overall, just a few technical things Turns heg explanation could be better Thumpers! Gotta answer ‘em Start the “CP solves link turns” debating

Freight: add that any LT is captured by CP

Round 5---Comments by Ryan Beiermeister
Aff vs Julian & Elliot

social justice card too long—remember your approach to these args should be util and case outweighs instead of trying to be soft with the link (re: cap 2AR) just read util and make that cross ex arg transitions these case presses need to be int he 2aC--cross-ex arg, the terrorist card sucking--sounds too much like you dropped it make condo earlier impact defense to the ptx d/a pay more attention to the turns on case might kick econ? that's where the offense is ... cross-ex just make up a number grounded in ev and then make your jobs/investor confidence arg when you're referecing cards in the cross-ex, make sure you get the judge on your page with what card 2AR loved the straight turn don't understand why you're being soft on the lik use owen social science stuff as offense against ethics--methodological questioning bad

Round 6---Comments by Phil Holsted
Neg vs Blake & Tyler

1) Speed/clarity issues with constructive or rebuttal: Stop bouncing around while reading 2) Recommended Drills: 3) Assess use of evidence in constructive and rebuttal: quantity, quality, and comparison: 4) Strategic Choice and Execution of Block/1NR: make more answers on theory U o/w the L possibility Be careful – the perm might shield the link to politics answer the advs consider extending the CP -> you hurt yourself by spending so much time on the DA uniqueness 5) Rebuttal Re-do suggestions:

Round 8 - Comments by Arjun Vellayappan
Aff vs GR Jack-Jon

1) Speed/clarity issues with constructive or rebuttal: No 2) Recommended Drills: Keep doing what you’re doing 3) 2AC—technical skill and coverage for case and off-case arguments: Good technical skill and coverage but I thought more time was needed on the K at the expense of a few arguments on states. Also, be careful with being super light on the case (you usually get away with it but can be risky) 4) Assess use of evidence in constructive and rebuttal: quantity, quality, and comparison: Good use of evidence in both the constructive and rebuttal – you could have cited more cards by author in the 2AR to make sure the judge reads them after the debate but overall good. Could have done a bit more ev comparison in terms of qualifications or why postdating matters, etc 5) Strategic Choice and Execution of 2AC/2AR: Good strategic choices in the 2AC in kicking the oil advantage and I liked the overall execution. I thought the 2AR made good choices overall but could have executed a bit better. You should have spent more time robustly explaining why the aff solves growth in the short-term (especially when that’s their big case push) and choose fewer arguments on elections to extend. I really liked the impact comparison/calculus stuff at the top of elections though – keep that up. 6) Rebuttal Re-do suggestions: - Spend more time on case defeating the timeframe args and the solvency presses directly - Be careful with brand new arguments like “plan would be tacked on to the transportation bill” but could be worth it – you have to make that call - Choose a direction and pick your arguments better – I thought the 2AR on elections was a bit too scattershot and needed to choose to go for U o/w L or uniqueness and link turns or just case outweighs with link defense but not all 3

Round 9---Comments by Arjun Vellayappan
Neg vs GR Luke-Patrick

1N Comments 1) Speed/clarity issues with constructive or rebuttal: Yes – need to be clearer in transitions between cards 2) Recommended Drills: Pen and emphasis drills 3) Assess use of evidence in constructive and rebuttal: quantity, quality, and comparison: Great use of evidence in the both the 1NC and 1NR – could have benefitted from even more evidence comparison in the 1NR where you indicted their authors/warrants/qualifications 4) Strategic Choice and Execution of Block/1NR: Good strategic choices and execution in the block and 1NR. Suggestions below 5) Rebuttal Re-do suggestions: - More line by line rather than Uniqueness then back up to the first argument --- and like answering putin on overview - Use last 40 seconds - better impact calculus (read another link module or something)

Round 10---Comments by Garrett Abelkop
Aff vs GR Emily-Neeral

2AC -Really good. -Pick up on moments from the 1NC cross-x and apply in your speech – that the Neg’s elections uniqueness has warrants that the link wouldn’t change, that there is tension between their two hegemony arguments on the case, etc. -At times when you were making a string of analytic arguments back-to-back, and when that happens it becomes a bit hard to flow – break up analytic arguments with pieces of evidence and slow down a tiny bit when making them -Different way to phrase competition/theory arguments – “CP is an example of a way in which the plan could be done, lots of ways the plan could be done, we don’t say it should be done in a particular way, Affs job is just to prove that the end goal of the plan being enacted is good”, etc. 2AC CX -How to explain out of “you said CP = normal means” and “you said CP = bad” – explain… 2NC CX -First question, why does the government have to listen to these minority communities? Not really sure that’s what the CP does