Georgetown Debate Practice Round: Mindy/Daimyr vs. Katzoff/Herman

GEORGETOWN DEBATE SEMINAR PRACTICE ROUND ONE:

Aff: Mindy/Daimyr vs. Neg: Katzoff/Herman
Antonucci

1ac: good clarity. When I listen carefully, I can distinguish every word, which is my basic litmus test.

1AC CX: 1. Ask short questions with a minimum of introduction. Your elaborate prefaces don’t help you.

2. Argue don't ask. You want to score points in the C-X, not achieve clarification. You work your way toward an argument, but it's a little slow and tentative.

3. Remember, when explaining part of the immigrant's symbolic status, you need to refer to their status as OUTSIDERS. Our treatment of immigrants really determine our stand toward the Other.

1nc: This T violation, while clearly the product of a razor sharp mind, demands careful highlighting if it’s to be at all strategic. This runs over a minute.

You should be faster. Aim to up your rate of delivery by at least 25 words a minute using the spreeder.

Your voice wavers on the last word, in a way that denotes a lack of confidence. Debaters must project the impression that they expect to win. If you don’t feel naturally confident, you should probably fake it. It’s a function of vocal technique; if you waver, trail off, or using rising intonation to make sentences into question, you essentially say that you don’t expect to win. That rapidly becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Don't transition between cards with "and". Transitions ideally employ very short pauses, instead of "uh" or "um."

CX: I'm not totally sure what you're driving at. If you're aiming to debate the theoretical problems with the state CP, I'd engage the unprecedented nature of this action. Also, the CP involves simultaneous and uniform state action, but it doesn't mandate cooperation.

Also, you should likely ask about the status of the CP.

2ac: Use immigration to K T - I've seen you do this before, and you should always do some of your best moves. Immigration issues are uniquely conducive to Kritiks of topicality, because attempts to carefully circumscribe the language to prevent unlimited meaning are a pretty tight analogy to English-only xenophobia.

Good indicts on their case evidence – try to place these indicts in the context of a comparison. In other words, don’t just say their ev is bad; quickly cite better ev as well.

Efficiency: you are eloquent. In many places, though, you should reserve some of this eloquence for the 2AR. Case is a good example – the quick application of evidence here could save you a lot of time. It’s unlikely they’ll go for their case defense, and, if they do, I think you have the ability to do a lot of extrapolating in the 2AR.

2NC: Don’t say “scratch that” if you feel that your argument is inadequate. It creates a lot of confusion. Save the phrase “scratch that” for strategically problematic arguments. If you read politics links the wrong way, you want to scratch them.

Good job on T. Try to make the impacts more specific. A general “limit” argument isn’t that compelling; you should instead delineate what would actually happen in this instance. You’d be forced to debate health care, which is an enormous topic in and of itself.

You should start the disad by explaining why it outweighs the case.

You gravitate away from the line by line in favor of just reading cards. It's best for you to stick to the line by line, and reference their arguments more carefully.

1NR:

1nr: As a block, y’all take too much. The real tradeoff here comes in impact comparison. I think the 2NC emphasis on case defense isn't that good.

Don’t apologize! Debate means never having to say you’re sorry. This fits in with my earlier comments about confidence. You are debating well – you just need to communicate that you believe you’re debating well.

This stylistic modification alone will produce 1-3 expected wins per tournament.

1AR:

Well done.

T’s their best offense, by far. The 2NR clearly wants to go for this issue. When you can predict their best 2NR, react by dumping time and arguments from other flows there. Look for theoretical cross-applications – issues that might either interact with T or provide you with an additional out.

2NR:
A cardinal rule of debate:

YOU MUST CHOOSE. Debate is, in large part, about choice. The 2NR has issue choice – the 2AR has argument choice. Exercise this choice! In this instance, this means that you should spend all five minutes going for T and locking it down, instead of wasting two minutes on a substantive debate that you certainly cannot win.

You’re doing a good job on T, too. You just needed more time for impact comparison and explanation. Many judges’ high subjective thresholds on T really demand a five minute investment.

2AR:

Good.

You need to take what the neg gives you though. In other words, don’t just look at where the clash is. See what arguments they’re conceding – any major concessions should be a centerpiece of the 2AR.

Examples: He doesn’t cover states theory, which potentially relates to T.

Also, he's dropping CTBT turns.

Ideally, this speech should dispense with the substantive debate in a minute or two, then make some cross-apps, then put T on the bottom for ~3:30 of coverage.