Trisha

--I know this may be the first time that you have ran a one-off K. I have a few suggestions: (1) The K shell needs to be much longer - too much of the 1NC was case defense that is going to be very irrelevant at the end - you need to add a lot more specific links; (2) Pick and choose your case arguments in ways that will help bolster your final story - think backwards from the 2NR - which case arguments will help you sell your K vs. case story?; (3) You may want to think about putting a few links to the K on the case debate - I just felt that you made the decision to have one offensive argument from beginning to end...your 1NC should reflect that and have a bunch of different tricks/landmines. --You need to use all of your CX time when CXing the 2AC - (1) It hurts your ethos - it makes it look like you are not completely plugged in to the debate and understanding the arguments...varsity debaters could CX for 30 minutes if they need to and (2) you are taking away prep time from the 2N. --Remember to go slower at the start of a speech and during the framework - this has to be very clear. --We needed to frame our 1NR case debate much differently - (a) we need to read a lot more evidence to extend on 1NC evidence, (b) extend cards with the idea that this is to help with the overall K vs. Case story, (c) really work on word efficiency - we had so many analyticals that were about 2x the length they needed to be.
 * __Practice Debate #10 - Neg vs. Joann/Kushal - 07/27 - Comments by Tate__**

__Both teams need to be better at paperless. Remember to save your speeches before you end prep time, if possible. __ 1) Speed/clarity issues with constructive or rebuttal: Good pace, good clarity. You have a great speaking style, calm, in control, smooth delivery. You need to get faster, though. You asked some decent questions about the K, but you need to press more on what do we do about the size of the state right now? How do we have markets without state protection (New Deal, Obama stimulus). Do you overthrow the government? 2) Recommended Drills: 10 minutes of normal spreading. 5 min Pen drill (talk slowly, DON’T SPREAD, but overenunciate every word, Backward Drill (spread from right to left from the last word in card to the first word in tag,), Spread for 5 minutes overenunciating every syllable 3) 2AC—technical skill and coverage for case and off-case arguments: Very good 2AC---Case was done very well. Beginning with a quick extension of the advantage and then using cards to answer whatever 1NC arguments were left over. Also linked case arguments they made to their CP, good job. At the same time, this was a very small 1NC so you weren’t challeneged to make many decisions about cards to cut from your speech to get good coverage on more then 2 off. Practice some 2ACs against bigger 1NCs. --Always PERM! The counterplan and the K both needed to be permed. 2AR --Good explanation of your advantage/impact calculus. Need to do a better job comparing your internal links to their K---IE, if economy collapses, free market will be hindered and further government intervention/coercion will be inevitable. You are good at citing evidence and the warrants from that evidence, but you could go a better job synthesizing all the different arguments you have into a story for the 2AR. That is a tough way to give 2ARs, but you always want to have an overarching meta strategy for your final rebuttal. --Need to explain why extinction OW value to life.
 * __Practice Debate #8 - Aff vs Anja Beth/Isabella - 07/25 - Comments by Zane__ **

1) Speed/clarity issues with constructive or rebuttal: Generally fine. 2) Recommended Drills: 3) 2AC—technical skill and coverage for case and off-case arguments: <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">Generally avoid reading cards on case unless they make arguments that are both a) not in the 1AC and b) necessary for you to answer the 1nc case args. The cards you read took a lot of time and didn’t really respond to the negative. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">Use a line-by-line structure for case in the 2ac – respond to each of their arguments in order. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">I think you should have moved on to cap when you had about 1:20 left – you had 7 arguments on politics, so doing the bare minimum to cover the K was more important at that point than getting one more politics answer. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">Shorten your framework argument to a sentence or two and use the extra time to read impact turns to the K – cap solves war, environment, etc. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">4) Assess use of evidence in constructive and rebuttal: quantity, quality, and comparison: <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">Read less evidence on case and more on off-case – that’s where you generally need the most new cards. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">5) Strategic Choice and Execution of 2AC/2AR: <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">Go to solvency in the 2AR – the 2nr extended some arguments there. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">You need a specific answer to this “market self-corrects” argument – talk about how the plan is an example of the government failing in its role, so “market solves” doesn’t make sense. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">If you want to take advantage of their failure to kick the cap K, you need to extend your specific argumetns for why the perm is necessary to break down capitalism as well as one of the impacts to the K and why it outweighs – since this isn’t a great argument judges will be reluctant to vote on it absent that complete explanation. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">I think the more compelling way to explain link uniqueness is as a link arg not a uniqueness one – in other words, if Obama has spent money on transportation in the past but the negative has shown that he’s going to win the election, that means that deficits don’t lose him the election. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">5) Rebuttal Re-do suggestions: <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',serif; font-size: 12pt;">Make the changes described above.
 * __Practice Debate #6 - Aff vs. Joann/Kushal - 07/23/2012 - Comments by Connor__ **


 * __Practice Debate #5__ **

--Overall, you did a nice job on the case debate in the 2AC. It was good to start with some framing devices. We were also signposting pretty well. We did drop some 1NC arguments, like the internal link take out to investor confidence. --Slow down during your case overviews. --Utilize your 1AC much more when you are extending the case. --I am glad that you extended the dropped heg advantage - doesn't this implicate the Privatization CP? Would the DOD work with private companies to align our NAS? I don't think so. Also, have a pre-written 2-3 sentence explanation that explains the advantage. You did not get quite as much traction on your explanation of this advantage as you could. --I am glad we have theory on the CP but this was WAY too long. --You probably should have read a theory argument about private actors fiat. This CP is written incorrectly and it is extremely abusive. --You have too much in your first answers on Elections - case outweighs and fiat solves and it is non-intrinsic? All of those are separate answers that should be much more fully developed. A judge will not pull the trigger on these without warrants and some development. --Good diversity of uniqueness cards on the elections DA. --Watch clarity on tags - it was difficult at time to flow you. --In CX, be wary of asking questions you don't know the answer to. You asked the qualifications of Poole and Edwards - they have great quals! I would only ask that question if you know that the quals are terrible. --For the 2AR, I am not really sure that "perf con" is an argument that you can win in many debates. In reality, it is not that much different than conditionality. I would not have had Perf Con be a separate theory argument in this debate. --This is probably for earlier in the debate, but your theory argument would have been much more persuasive if it were about "multiple conditional worlds bad". For example, instead of an interpretation of "Neg can be dispo", it should be that "Neg is allowed one conditional world". Most judges don't see much difference between condo and dispo. Most, if not all, of your arguments are also why dispo is also bad. Your interpretation does not really jive with this. --Please stick to theory blocks that we have written in the lab. I wish that we would have waited to go for theory in the 2AR until we have done more work in the lab on this. I am not convinced that these blocks were written by you and Vivienne while you were here...there were words that you were mispronouncing which does not happen. --I asked Trisha/Vivienne to sit down and not rely on varsity theory blocks for this speech so much. They are going to work together to create a 2AR that is not based on theory blocks that they had in their files.
 * __Practice Debate #4 - Aff vs. Michael/Sehee - 07/20 - Comments by Tara__ **

1) Speed/clarity issues with constructive or rebuttal: Clarity fine, could be faster. Try to add some expression to 1AC by emphasizing words. Use all your time – another “fed key” card or other CP answer would be a good use of the remaining seconds.  2) Recommended Drills: Practice reading at full speed for 10 minutes or more to improve endurance+speed. 3) Assess use of evidence in rebuttals: quantity, quality, and comparison: You’re right to read 1AR cards developing the impact turn on politics if that’s your strategy. That said, you cannot also extend a link turn argument – this is a double turn which the neg can concede as we discussed after the round.  4) Strategic Choice and Execution of 1AR: You are double turning yourself on politics – a link turn and an impact turn means that the plan makes Obama win, which is bad. You need to choose one or the other of these strategies. When you extend case, consider which advantage is your strongest – the neg has some good solvency arguments, but they don’t answer the stimulus advantage which is just based on spending money. Point that out and emphasize the econ advantage. 5) Rebuttal Re-do suggestions: Shift emphasis to the economy advantage, work on line-by-line and answering each neg argument on each flow, and choose only one type of turn on elections.
 * __Practice Debate #1 - Aff vs. Noah/Vivienne - 07/11/2012 - Comments by Connor__ **

--Students were asked to create a five minute Negative block speech to extend an Obama Good Elections DA. Students were given the 1NC shell and a file of potential cards they could use for their extensions. They used their own 2ACs from the night before as the 2AC to answer when they gave the extension speech. --Nice clarity—want to separate cards/tags more—it all ran together a little too much --Want to contextualize your uniqueness more --Why is your evidence better? What’s wrong with your evidence? --Link—Good job on this—made this clearer --Want to impact this California argument more—why is this a good example? Explain in this --I/L Why is the DA more important for the plan for overall warming efforts? Climate leadership? Why is the plan not Climate leadership? Why will that get turned back by Obama Losing? --Impact-- Do this at top - Do more comparison on some of this stuff? --The NPT/Prolif impact is slightly dicey—makes sure youre ready to go on this if you read this new impact
 * __Elections Negative Block Extension Speech - 07/10/2012 - Comments by Nate__ **

--It is so hard to do this with a laptop but make sure your voice does not go straight into your laptop. --It is great that you have analytical arguments, but really make sure these arguments get you "traction". With each analytical that you make, you need to think about how that will win you the round. --I know you are not a natural 2AC, but this will apply to the 1AR as well. A 2A should not answer each individual argument but the DA story as a whole. Instead of saying "they say....", a 2AC will just say "my 1...my 2". When you are the 1AR, this also holds true. Your job is to extend your arguments against the story of the DA. --A primary goal I want you to have for the camp is word efficiency. :) You do a good job signposting but it takes you a long time to get to your argument. I think you could have done this speech with about 2/3 of the words and make just as many arguments.
 * __Elections DA 2AC Activity - 07/09/2012 - Comments by Tara__ **
 * -- ** Students were given a 1NC Obama Good Elections DA shell and a file of potential cards they could choose from to create a 3 minute 2AC to the DA.
 * -- ** Good volume and clarity.