Debate+Comments---Eric

Round 1---Comments by Linda Pei
July 11 - Neg vs Julian & Shaun

1) Speed/clarity issues with constructive or rebuttal: Great speaking! You are very fast and clear.

2) Recommended Drills: Keep doing what you’re doing

3) 2NC—technical skill and coverage for case and off-case arguments: I thought your 2NC was excellent. Good job using cards on theory and topicality, but make sure to better develop and articulate your impacts. For example, you need to explain why topic-specific education matters on topicality.

4) Assess use of evidence in constructive and rebuttal: quantity, quality, and comparison: Make sure to do more evidence comparison on politics and on the states counterplan. I think you should have read more evidence on states.

5) Strategic Choice and Execution of 2NC/2NR: Great framing issue in the 2NR about how just because their technology already exists in other countries, doesn’t mean they are improving pre-existing infrastructure. It’s a good distinction to make.

6) Rebuttal Re-do suggestions: You need to articulate why topicality is a voting issue, and more importantly, why voting on topicality matters. You need to spend more time on why topicality outweighs conditionality. Make sure to flesh out your impacts better, and use your topicality standards to outweigh their reasons why conditionality is bad.

Round 2---Comments by Robel Worku
Aff vs Blake & Tyler

1) Speed/clarity issues with constructive or rebuttal: small clarity issue in the 1ac 2) Recommended Drills: 3) Assess use of evidence in rebuttals: quantity, quality, and comparison: decent evidence comparison on both the case and the elections disad in the 1ar. Didn’t read any cards unnecessarily. 4) Strategic Choice and Execution of 1AR: take the path of least resistance on the elections disad. There were 2 defensive arguments and a conceded warming add-on on the bottom of the flow – those arguments would’ve been sufficient in the 1ar. Them kicking out of the disad incorrectly doesn’t help you all that much if they go for the da + case since you don’t have the uniqueness question going the way you want it to. It is a decent DA to the states counterplan though – explain it that way in the 1ar instead of as an extra internal link to the economy. 5) Rebuttal Re-do suggestions: spend much less time on elections because they dropped a couple of key arguments. Use that time to destroy the states counterplan (with the warming add-on conceded, they HAVE to go for the counterplan).

1) Speed/clarity issues with constructive or rebuttal: Be a little clearer 2) Recommended Drills: Maybe the pen drill, but really just try to enunciate a little more and don't worry about going 100% - it's better to go 80% speed and the judge to get 100% of your args down than vice versa 3) 2NC—technical skill and coverage for case and off-case arguments: Your 2nc was pretty hot fire on the case---great job on Keynes bad. Could do a little bit better job allocating time on the econ page - you were a little top-heavy, so your analysis near the bottom on some of the more defensive args suffered a little bit. In this instance, it may be more strategic to either spend a tiny bit less time on your 1st 2 defensive args or only extend one so the later ones can be flushed out equally w/ the other args. 4) Assess use of evidence in constructive and rebuttal: quantity, quality, and comparison: Could do a little bit more of indicting their ev in the 2nc --- you were great on your args, but a little less so on indicting theirs. You need some "Even if" statements to basically account for the fact that you aren't going to win every argument on the flow. For example, "even if they win yes ridership, the short term keynes turns still outweigh their long term i/l's to the economy." Using that to indict some of their ev in the 2nc makes your 2nr easier b/c you don't have to do as much work and just is good debating. 5) Strategic Choice and Execution of 2NC/2NR: Really good block choice - I like that you settled in and went deep. Your 2nc on Keynes was better than your 2nr 5) Rebuttal Re-do suggestions: Less time on politics, more on Keynes in the 2nr, b/c that is your best link arg. Answer the aff's long term internal links a little better - your turns didn't factor those in enough - explain why long term debt turns and outweighs competitiveness
 * Round 3 - Miles**

Round 4 - Miles
1) Speed/clarity issues with constructive or rebuttal: - Slow down a tiny bit at the beginning 2) Recommended Drills: 3) Assess use of evidence in rebuttals: quantity, quality, and comparison: Not enough ev comparison on politics b/c you didn't get there with enough time --- not much ev comparison in general. The K you didn't do any comparative analysis --- you should've made a bigger attempt at engaging their FW args 4) Strategic Choice and Execution of 1AR: I thought condo was a waste of time for you - not enough time spent on it to make it credible, but it still meant you radically undercovered politics Great on states in the 1ar cordoned the debate up in the right sections and impacted each solvency deficit. 5) Rebuttal Re-do suggestions: Better on FW on cap - why does political engagement mean the alt fails? Don't extend condo Get to politics with more time and extend more than impact D --- you can shave time off the case by being more efficient / not repeating yourself

**Round 5---Comments by Connor O'Brien**
Neg vs Zach & Elsa

1) Speed/clarity issues with constructive or rebuttal: Generally fine. 2) Recommended Drills: Read 10 min or more of cards every day to improve speed and endurance. 3) 2NC—technical skill and coverage for case and off-case arguments: On T, I think putting the impact debate in your overview could potentially help you. Your re-explanation of the violation deals well with the we meet arguments, but I don’t think it’s consistent with the resolution saying increase investment rather than increase infrastructure. Improve conditionality answers – I think logic and neg flex are probably the best offense, but regardless of what you say you need clearer impact work. Make the “dispo is condo” argument we talked about. 4) Assess use of evidence in constructive and rebuttal: quantity, quality, and comparison: Since you have specific delay evidence about HSR you should read it in the 2nc rather than the 2nr. That said, if your general cards are good, reading a new card in the 2nr is probably unnecessary. Extend the alt causes to megaregions and competitiveness – the aff doesn’t have good answers to these so you should re-allocate some time from the stimulus debate to them. 5) Strategic Choice and Execution of 2NC/2NR: Go for the K! They dropped the environment impact which is probably the only existential risk. Put the counterplan on top – they didn’t extend a perm and conceded it solves China better – just do impact calc for the China impact against the rest of the case. When the aff is emphasizing link uniqueness on the econ turns, couple arguments you can make – -Characterize the internal link debate as linear – the econ isn’t just high or low so the aff can always make it worse. -Point out that some of your turns (draining workers from the private sector) are solvency-based – they’re only nonunique if the squo solves the advantage. 5) Rebuttal Re-do suggestions: Implement one of the strategies described above. Additional Comments about the Debate: Negative – I think that the need to argue “government is bad at saving the econ” and “government saving the econ is bad” in the same block hurt you strategically – it meant you couldn’t blow up the econ impact to outweigh stuff but also couldn’t really downplay it as not being an impact. I think this sort of shows how you have to think about argument contradictions when you plan your strategy – conditionality doesn’t magically make all the problems go away.

Round 6---Comments by Linda Pei
__1A Comments __

1) Speed/clarity issues with constructive or rebuttal: Work on endurance – you lose speed and clarity towards the end of your speech.

2) Recommended Drills: Do speed drills for an extended period of time – you could practice giving your 1AC twice in a row without stopping.

3) Assess use of evidence in rebuttals: quantity, quality, and comparison:


 * You don’t need to read that Rubini modeling defense card – their Iraqi federalism impact is terrible and can easily be beaten with your existing analytics. Obviously a country like Iraq, with sectarian violence between the Sunnis, Shias, and Kurds, would never want to adopt such fragmentary policies.

4) Strategic Choice and Execution of 1AR:


 * Get to States CP with more time left
 * Permutation – maybe I missed it, but I don’t think this argument was coherently extended in the 1AR
 * 50 state fiat – if you are going for fiat state fiat bad, you have to spend more time on it
 * You are missing the internal link between “not in our agential ambit” and “thus kills decision-making”
 * Mindset shift – spent more time
 * Politics cards prove that people are concerned about the economy and they wouldn’t want an economic collapse – this disproves their mindset shift argument.
 * The only example of a mindset shift that the negative cites is Occupy Wall Street
 * These protests were fed up with elite consumption – this doesn’t mean they advocate total economic collapse
 * They can’t cite an instance of a global mindset shift
 * Get more organized!
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">Working with your partner
 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">Spend a little bit more prep time to talk to your partner //before// your speech so that awkward communication issues don’t occur //during// your speech

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">5) Rebuttal Re-do suggestions:


 * <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman','serif'; font-size: 16px;">Give your re-do with the above suggestions.

Round 7---Comments by Arjun Vellayappan
Neg vs GR Jack-Jon 1) Speed/clarity issues with constructive or rebuttal: No 2) Recommended Drills: Keep doing what you’re doing 3) 2NC—technical skill and coverage for case and off-case arguments: Really nice 2NC – could have spent a bit less time on T and more on case and made a fed gov models states argument 4) Assess use of evidence in constructive and rebuttal: quantity, quality, and comparison: Good use of evidence in the 2NC and 2NR – the last speech could improve by more evidence comparison using qualifications, etc 5) Strategic Choice and Execution of 2NC/2NR: Good strategic choices in both – small things could be shored up but overall solid 6) Rebuttal Re-do suggestions: - Use the take out one internal link thing better on econ - possibly switch to housing/competitiveness rather than mega-regions b/c that's where the 1AR put up a fight - Spend more time on this putin argument - really their only viable offense

Round 8---Comments by Jeff Buntin
Aff vs AV Kevin-Tim

1AC: You’re really loud in the 1AC – which is not usually a bad thing – but you might be just slightly faster if you spoke a little bit more quietly. CX of 1NC: Your CX in general was very good – your questions about the link to politics were particularly effective.

1AR: Overall the speech was very, very good – I can nitpick a little bit to produce some comments but honestly there’s not very much I would change about the speech. Don’t extend oil dependence as an internal link to heg – their defense against oil is relatively good, and they could use it to undermine your ability to access heg as an impact to the economy by winning that dependence is inevitable or that the aff doesn’t solve it. You’re investing a lot in your economy advantage anyways – no need for an extra internal link given that their economy defense didn’t include any heg defense. 50 state fiat/theory – you could have been more directly reactive to their “the judge is an investor” counter-interp – point out that it doesn’t contain a theory of ambit/agency, and connect that to the central impacts you’re going for. Impact the investors solvency deficit to the CP – the 2AR did this, quoting the line from the GAO card that investor confidence determines whether or not HSR gets built in the first place – you should start that impact explanation in the 1AR. You did a good job impacting the state conflicts solvency deficit.

Round 9---Comments by Ryan Beiermeister
Neg vs GR Emily-Neeral

• When asking cross-x questions about cards make sure you reference the cite explicitly o Ex: European banks arg • 2NC o I thought you could have been better at impacting FX topicality—it’s dumb, but args like “all affs are FX T” is not answered—you need to impact the MAGNITUDE of this indirectness—I thought you got a bit unclear when listing all the affs they would justify • 2NR o I would do the rant about claim and warrant after impact calc o Do more framing things like what’s in the 1NR  Like short term versus long term for link turns o I thought d-dev was definitely possible—let’s discuss why you made this choice o Still no explanation of the Russia scenario o Be better on econ/heg not solving Russia—I didn’t really get your arguments here—also make some sort of timeframe and probability arguments—impact calc on the whole could have been better (use miscalc)

Round 10---Comments by Robel Worku
Aff vs AV Jordan-Cole

1) Speed/clarity issues with constructive or rebuttal: 2) Recommended Drills: 3) Assess use of evidence in rebuttals: quantity, quality, and comparison: 4) Strategic Choice and Execution of 1AR: 1ar was pretty good. an explicit answer to this presumption argument woud be good. it's not great, but you guys have to deal with it. cap k cross-apps was good. i think it means that you can spend less time on the economy flow and reallocate your time elsewhere. maybe more time on the politics flow - there was a basically dropped add-on that you didn’t extend 5) Rebuttal Re-do suggestions: