Sherman,+Michael

__**Research Feedback - Wave #2/Evidence Set 1 - Comments by Tate**__ Overall, I thought this evidence for your first set on oil was good. You had a good diversity of different types of arguments. I would like for us to continue to work on our tags - often times, your tags are not doing your good cards justice! Try to add a warrant - make your cards about why oil is key to Russian economy all make different, specific arguments in the tag. Nice work!

__**Practice Debate #4 - Negative vs. Vivienne/Trisha - Comments by Tate**__ --I am glad you are using the CX of the 1AC to set up your arguments. I would like for us to try to make our questions a bit more sophisticated. For example, it is good to try to get at how the Aff claims fiat/normal means if you are running the K. However, the wording of the very first question of the CX did not get you off to a great start. --Good division of the block. --I am glad you have an overview to the CP but it needs to be pre-written. You lost a bunch of your momentum due to word inefficiency. --I would highlight down some of your CP cards...some were really, really long. --We need to signpost much more clearly - you need to debate off the flow, not the computer. We had quite a few dropped 2AC arguments. As of now, you are just reading a bunch of cards but not really engaging in the line-by-line. --Always announce if a chunk of a particular flow will be in the 1NR. --Utilize 1NC cards more on both the CP and the DA. Ideally, these are your best cards. You should talk about them. --You signposted well at the top of the Elections DA flow. --Where is your overview to the Elections DA? --Good to kick out of the K in the 2NR. --Pretty good overview in the 2NR. I would like to see this being more impact based. How does the DA outweigh the case? --The 2NR needs to have a lot more cards referenced by citation. Judges will want to call for cards and they often rely on you to give them the laundry list of citations of what cards they should be calling for.

__**Rebuttal Redo from PD #1 - 07/15/2012 - Comments by Tate**__ --Michael redid his 1AR from the first practice debate. The judge suggested he try to get through more of the case debate and to impact the solvency deficit. Those were the primary things --For future 1ARs, let's not have an overview. Your job in the 1AR is to extend 2AC arguments that are still winnable against Negative positions. Start the 1AR literally with the words "The Economy advantage - the megaregions debate". You did this perfectly when you got to the oil dependence debate (you said "On Oil Dependence...the Fossil Fuels debate"). --I would like to see us do more with the cards read in the 1AC and 2AC, especially on the case. You did this pretty well on the oil dependence advantage but I would like to hear more cite extensions on the other parts of the flow. --A goal that I would really like for us to work on word efficiency. You have good arguments/analytics, but it takes you a while to get them out. --Another future goal for *every* 1AR is that it needs to be carded. You need to find 1-2 places in the debate that are key nexus questions to read a card on. --We did okay with the solvency deficit, but we can impact it even more. Go one more step and say that inadequacies of the states means the economy can't be stimulated and there will be no shift away from oil dependence. --I thought we did a nice job signposting with labels of different sections of the debate. I did not have a flow of the debate since I did not see the original debate, but assuming you covered all of the necessary 2AC arguments and in order, your signposting would have made flowing the debate easier.

1) Speed/clarity issues with constructive or rebuttal: OK speed, clarity is not good. You need to enunciate more to make sure the judge can hear the tags and cites – part of this would be being louder on tags than card texts, rather than vice versa. 2) Recommended Drills: Practice speaking with a pen in your mouth and speaking at the maximum speed you can without losing clarity. 3) Assess use of evidence in constructive and rebuttal: quantity, quality, and comparison: Highlight your cards down – you couldn’t read diverse 1nc strategies because unhighlighted cards took so long. Read impact defense on the economy rather than internal link defense – “squo solves” is not a winning strategy if you don’t have time to read “sq solves” cards for each of the 5 internal links, whereas they only have 2 impact cards. 4) Strategic Choice and Execution of Block/1NR: Stick to your order – if you say you will do states, then federalism, you should do __all__ the states arguments, then __all__ the federalism ones. Switching back and forth is difficult to follow, especially without any signposting. Work on answering solvency deficits specifically – try to have a few cards/analytics addressing each 2AC argument on point – otherwise the 1AR can exploit their more specific evidence. 5) Rebuttal Re-do suggestions: Separate the states and federalism debates, give an impact overview on federalism, and do more careful line-by-line where you try to bury each specific solvency deficit or answer with multiple responses of your own.
 * __Practice Debate #2 - Neg vs. Ari/Sehee - 07/13/2012 - Comments by Connor__**

__**Practice Debate #1 - 07/11/2012 - Aff vs. Ashwin/Avi - Comments by Nate**__ 1) Speed/clarity issues with constructive or rebuttal: Try overenunciation drills and the backwards drill to focus on clarity, also try to not speak into the computer. Good job on emphasizing key words. You kind of randomly got faster and slower and louder and softer. Try to be more consistent throughout. Read off your own computer so you can both see it—especially during the 2ac  2) Recommended Drills: Consistent speaking. Overeunciate. 3) Assess use of evidence in rebuttals: quantity, quality, and comparison: 4) Strategic Choice and Execution of 1AR: Explain the impact to the solvency defecit Try to go in the order of the block on their offcase positions Make sure to answer all their case args, which you can do by putting the case first Be more efficient with the solvency defecit to the cp  5) Rebuttal Re-do suggestions: Cover all of the case with more efficiency and embedded clash

__**Elections Negative Block Speech - 07/10/2012 - Comments by Abe**__ -Start with an Overview that highlights either a central framing issue that was dropped or you want to especially highlight for the judge. In this case, I suspect the 'DA O/W CASE' overview would work. -Avoid inefficient language. Take out "They Say X" when referencing easily identifiable aff arguments like election uniqueness. -Make sure to reference specific cards, if you aren't specific you can't guarantee your judge will know or be able to find the piece of evidence you really want them to read. -Good analysis and card choice on the uniqueness debate. Try and bring that level of analysis to the link and impact!

__**2AC to Elections - 07/09/2012 - Comments by Abe**__: --Good job pointing out that the plan solves warming - you really drove this home which was great. I actually really liked that you put this first because it's a clear flaw in the disad. --It's great that you attacked all parts of the disad! You read a variety of cards which is always strategic. Be sure to use all of your speech time - add more cards or analytics if you would like. --You're a bit monotone on analytics and tags - being louder and more expressive will make you an overall more persuasive speaker. Still, your speed and clarity on the cards are good. --It's not necessary to begin by saying "they say Obama will solve but..." - you can just begin by saying "plans solves econ." --Add some analytics - they're quick but require a lot of response from the 2NC.