Cap Classic Round Five

Practice round comments:

1AC: Good speed and clarity.

1AC CX: “How do you gain any solvency whatsoever” seems to use needless and melodramatic intensifiers.
Reardon is a she. I think your error is an especially embarrassing gaffe under the circumstances.
Directly asking “how do states capture the net benefit” is not a productive question. It really just allows the aff to get additional speech time.

1NC: Start slower for about 10 seconds to let the judge get used to your voice.
You need to build a podium. You are tall, so this inadequate podium forces you to hunch. This muffles your voice and just looks really uncomfortable.
You put in extra cards about how capitalism turns the case; I appreciate that and think it’s a good idea.
I think that this politics disad suffers from as real internal link gap. Your bioterror impact assumes a completely uncontrolled virus, which really cuts into the ability of a health care plan to contain its impact. You should try cutting or finding an alternate impact to health care as an exercise.

This should be at least a 3-win strat. It’s a 2-win strat, though, in actuality. T might be a good way to rectify this.

1NC CX:

“Now we’re going to talk about the health care disad.” This isn’t an efficient locution. Just ask. They might be thrown off balance by abrupt transitions – but that helps you, it doesn’t hurt you.

“What exactly are the warrants…” This formulation just gives the affirmative speech time.

“How is the plan capitalist?” This is an invitation to the aff to proliferate links. Ichabod, you should run with this ball until she cuts you off, and generate multiple additional new link claims.

2AC:

Your first reaction on T should be reading a card. It should be to apply your case evidence. You just immediately start reading off Planet Debate blocks. That isn’t engaging argument – it’s intellectual comfort food. Therefore, if you don’t cover the case efficiently, you will become intellectually obese. I don’t even know what that means, but it sounds bad to me.

Run blocks. Don’t let blocks run you.

Good use of an addon.

This focus on the capitalism link debate seems misguided.

2AC CX:
When Ichabod makes an argument, you have to come back and contest it. You can’t just kind of look at him and let it slide.

Don’t do tag-team questioning. Questions from the 2N don’t help here. Also, uh, shouldn’t you be prepping during this time, bro?

2NC:
Why does the 1N announce that the 2N is ready? This seems oddly control freaky

Case, States and health care is too big.

Stop just reading planet debate briefs without relating them to some part of the debate! This doesn’t advance argument at all. I’m considering just banning anything on Planet Debate briefs. When you go to the states debate, you aren’t even referencing your flow. You’re just reading a stack of Planet Debate straight down. This is just random.

There were some pretty significant health care developments in the past few days. You should probably cut cards on this to make your disad retain a degree of relevance. You might cut some cards from Congressional Quarterly

You don’t do any impact analysis on health care, and you don’t compare evidence. This Planet Debate reliance is just toxic. You must reference his points, compare your original shell evidence, read new evidence, explain why it’s better and then read contrasting evidence.

1NR:
Good speech in many ways. You’re fast, clear, and have a grasp of the issues.

You open with “they don’t understand our argument.” De-emphasize ranting commentary in favor of substantive analysis. Start with the comparisons that I just reviewed in lecture not an hour ago.

I am not going to vote negative right here and now, even if you tell me to do so.

This evidence needs to be rehighlighted. Its highlighting is still unworkable. This is especially

Decent clash and line by line, but there’s still just too much reliance on Planet Debate briefs. We must collectively move past this. It discourages evidence and argument comparison, because it’s just too much of a crutch.

1AR:

Allocate time before your speech, not during it, to avoid disastrous technical errors.

Is this liberty opening relevant? This again seems that you’re relying on Planet Debate evidence. However, you do demonstrate ownership and relate this to the debate.

Don’t just say that you “can do the perm” – you also have to demonstrate that it’s a good idea. Identify your federal key warrants quickly.

You have to compare evidence for politics. You have to reference the 2AC as well.

“No reason why” is a toxic formulation. “There’s no reason why their argument is true” is only a verbose version of “no.” It doesn’t add any substantive analysis. You should issue warrants that prove their argument false, instead of deriding the absence of a warrant.

2NR:
Good strategic vision; you do choose the correct issue. You should have a substantive defense of 50-state fiat. I mean, it’s the most plausible open door and you won’t close it by saying “:they have no reason.”

More comparisons between cap and the case. You need to close the door on “case outweighs” and “50-state fiat.” If you close those doors, you likely win.

“They went for cap for, what, 20 seconds maybe?” isn’t an argument. It’s just espn commentary. You need to make better arguments instead of just railing on your opponent’s speech.

Ethos: 1. Never say “I guess.” How could this possibly help?
2. Don’t ask your partner “am I done now”?
Those two slips really push you below a 28 here.

2AR: I actually thought this was the best speech of the round; desperation forces you to actually engage clash.

go for 50 state fiat.

You need a more rousing opening than “extend x__” It’s usually better to structure statements as [statement] then [evidence reference] instead of [evidence reference] then [statement].

Tie new arguments to something. 1AR technical errors compel tight referencing to avoid the appearance of newness. I think this is a game effort, but a genuinely winning effort has to be designed around a honest (internal) diagnosis of your errors.

I also appreciate your justification of the new perm – although this is suboptimal, it does demonstrate thought and engagement.