Davis-Johnson,+Drew

6/26/12 - Prepare your cx answers for broad and general questions beforehand - "Why is the USFG key" and "How do you generate trillions of dollars?" - Make sure that every argument in the 1AR serves a function and helps you win the debate in some way.  6/27/12  Many teams have difficulty splitting the block, so kudos for you for doing it effectively. But if you spend 8 minutes on a flow, why not go for it? Yes, they had some theory on the CP, but that was about it. One perm and then a tiny extension of USFG key cards from the 1AC in the 1AR isn’t enough. Don’t worry about impacts or uniqueness, they dropped those and so the war impact, no matter how over tagged now stands. The solvency debate is what is going to matter on the CP. Poke holes on the aff case flow and then solve them on with the CP. This is where the budget or Obama DA becomes key. The CP solves them and the aff cannot. Any risk of a link and you win. The theory debate was confusing. Neither team had a full grasp of how to debate it, but good job on responding with the not a moving target argument. It’s not like you can just switch which states do the CP mid round! I didn’t think any abuse happened, but explain that. Make sure you have your own standards, definition (even if they forget their own) and if you want, voters even. They are wasting your time, after all. The 2NR had everything it needed, but these needed to be built upon. Theory must be answered, no matter how it was run or if it even applies. Kick the CP if you’re not going for it. This will end any offense from the perm and complicate the theory abuse story. Solvency is a good thing to attack in this speech, but connect it the K that you went with. I love K debate, so I was happy you chose to go with it. Just make sure to rant more about capitalism. Everything in their case is caused by capitalism, their entire case ensures capitalism eternal existence and we are doomed to slavery and a slow death if we don’t reject it now. Panic is a good thing here. Your shell even claims all their impacts are non-unique, so go with it. They claim warming is a problem, so concede it in this speech and crossapply it the K. They worry about racism, find a link to capitalism (enabled by classism, bourgeois uses racism to divide proles, etc). The aff wants to start the economy, they empower the elite. Make sure you know your alternative well. In CX this was not explained well and I was thrown off by your claim after capitalism collapses, federalism will take over. The 99% and occupy speech is exactly what Zizek is talking about. Overall, it was a good debate. Keeping arguing critically! Just make to impact weigh more, which shouldn’t be a problem if you claim the impacts of the case are all the fault of capitalism. Timeframe is hard to prove for capitalism, so focus on magnitude and probability. Capitalism can only solve its problems for a short while. Analytics are your friend, especially if you don’t have a card with the answer. Last resort, attack the author. Just reading more cards is not the solution. Your team often would read three cards to say what could be just extended. If it wasn’t responded to, just extend it. Work on leading into your arguments with your CX questions. Don’t just ask randomly, attack weak spots or places you can build off of with your case. Use the CX answers in speeches. If they can’t explain their perms, attack that. Good luck in debate! Remind Tim that the intergalactic society mind control aliens want him to stop smoking so they can end the quarantine of Earth.  6.29 - Round 4 - SOX - Trace and Conor vs. (2NR) I think you get flustered by the structure of this argument. Instead of being scared off, treat it like any other debate round. You should be skeptical of their solvency mechanisms and use of fiat, just like you should be of every affirmative. You started out really strong in the cross- x of the 1AC, I thought you were headed the right direction. Most of the questions and claims you made didn't translate into arguments in your 2NC. Good use of evidence at the top of your 2NC, those cards were all very strategic. But also, when discussing the interaction of the negative offense with the affirmative offense, remember to focus on the internal links of each story. This might, in this round, require a better understanding of both capitalism and d.dev arguements. Either way, make sure you're questioning the cohesiveness of their impact story. Also, make sure to read more defense on their impact. I don't really understand the performance aspect you're trying to leverage (what's with the umbrella, bare feet and guitar?). Finally, great analysis of timeframe in the 2NR, totally sealed the deal  7/3/12  When reading 1ac, you hold each sheet with both hands, and then flip and take a huge breath. Try leaving page sitting and as you get to the last few words, memorize them, and then flip sheet as you are reciting it—you can save 2 seconds per page by doing this. Make sure to label each advantage, for example, Advantage 1 Economy. Don’t just say “Next, the economy…” You are pretty quick throughout the speech: one way to become faster is to breathe not just after each sentence, but to breathe naturally as you read quickly. Pause for a second and take a breath and continue—eventually it will be second nature CX—good historical examples, but put them in a context different from “isn’t this how X worked”—use all CX time so Zach has time to prep 1ar You spend a ton of time at the beginning of the 1ar repeating her argument—you typically don’t have lots of time to do that in your 5 minutes—just begin with extending your cards—see others, talk about the different internal links to the economy you have, and why those are more important than her internal links, ie your Stiglitz evidence Why are you walking around the room during the 1ar? You want to focus and develop your arguments

7/6 - Round 1 - Sadagopal
Voted AFF