More speaker point improvement tips

Again, things that require very little if any practice/prep that will massively increase your points:

-have the CP text before your speech- doesn't matter if it is a 1NC or 2NC cp, if you are going to read one, have a text. It's amazing to me the number of debates I have seen recently where someone didn't have a text, then tried to wing it off the top of their head and ended up saying the opposite of what they wanted to say- esp. with advantage cps. This is a totally unforgivable error.

-When in doubt ask a question- say you and your partner are arguing about whether or not the politics disad is obama good or obama bad- just ask. Yes you may look a little foolish, but you know what looks more foolish- answering the disad the wrong way. I counted, and this year I have seen the aff answer politics the wrong way at least 11 times. The kicker here is that in 3 of those the debates, after the aff straight linked themselves to the disad, the neg went for a K anyway. I thought about whether they just wanted to go for the k or what, and it occured to me that its possibly the neg didn't know what had just happened either. Which brings me to my next point:

-Don't smoke crack.

-Don't read arguments you don't understand/won't go for, and a corollary- even if you do understand an argument, don't read it or extend it if you won't go for it when the other team drops it. I know I know, you had a certain strategy and you wanted to go for it blah blah blah, if the other team drops a disad- CHANGE YOUR STRATEGY. I saw a debate recently where a team dropped a counterplan and the other team didn't go for it. A counterplan for gods sake. If you have such time wasting crap filler arguments in your speeches that you will not go for them if dropped, don't be surprised when you are missing on points. There is a real and perceived difference between reading 8 off, each of which you are competently prepared to go for and will go for if the EV is there, and reading 8 off when everyone in the room knows you are just going to go for the cap K no matter what. Not only will a good 2AC be able to allocate time effectively, but judges will get annoyed that you wasted 80% of the debate on irrelevant crap. My time is valuable- those Duckman episodes aren't going to watch themselves.

-D-rules. If the other team presents a d-rule, make sure you make a specific attempt to on point argue it. Whether it was a morality card in the 1AC or a nuke war turns the case card at the top of the oil disad- make an explicit answer. Don't be cute or subtle. Judging debates can get taxing, by the end of a tournament the disparity in enthusiasm between the debaters and the judges is huge. I can speak with experience here as I think I can firmly say I lost more final rounds than probably anyone in debate history. What I didn't realize at the time is when a debate started at 11 at night, most of my judges had just gone through a grueling tournament getting very little sleep and working hard, and while I was all pumped up ready to go, most of them wanted to go to sleep. Slowing down and emphasizing important parts may have tipped a few of those in my favor. I see a lot of elims where things like the following happen
-the neg reads a k and a substance strategy vs a critical aff, but does not engage the morality/k components of the aff at all through the block. Ok well you have just made the 2NR impossible to win on anything other than the K
-the aff keeps going for defense on T but never answers competing interpretations
-the 2NC gives impact calc at the top of a disad, the 1AR doesn't go there, but makes some impact arguments on the case that do answer it. The 2NR says it was dropped, and the 2AR doesn't actively contest this characterization
-the 2NR accuses the 1AR of making new arguments, when in reality they were clearly in response to new block arguments, but the 2AR doesn't fight for them even though they are on a crucial make or break issue
-the 1AR drops a perm voter, while answering 5 other perm voters, 2AR fails to see the connection.

Actually I am going to stop for a second and expound on those last 2

-Challenging "newness" of arguments. When an argument is accused of being new, the debate is usually sloppy on both sides with something like this occurring
"this is a new argument, we decided our block based on the 2AC so reject this"
"It's not new, its an extension "

Not a great debate. The first statement in particularly bothers me as being so stupid as to boggle my mind but I will try to avoid going into a rant here, and just give examples of what a more complete argument would be

For the neg:
"The 1ar's link uniqueness argument is new- uniqueness debates are evidence intensive so they should have to initiate this debate in the 2AC so we have the proper time to respond. Allowing sandbagging until the 1AR unfairly disadvantages the neg as we have a sophie's choice of reading enough evidence to adequately answer the claim but under covering the rest of the debate , or not having an adequate defense of a central component of our disad."

For the Aff:
"The block radically altered the explanation and deployment of the politics disad- this legitimizes new developments of our arguments. Thier disad shell pushed the limits of what constitutes a complete argument- its insane to expect us to have to commit to making a press on every component of it in the 2AC - we would never be able to cover their crap fest of arguments that way. When they develop something and make it complete- we get the right to answer it."

For a dropped voting issue on sever perms or something
"Voting issues have to rise to the level of why is this a reason to reject the team and not the argument- this is a crucial standard to keep debates education and prevent cheap shot proliferation. Its asinine to force the 1AR to repeat this every place they made a cheap shot- that serves no educational purpose"

Dropped Value to life
"look we dropped value to life, so what- you still have to do impact comparison- their K says assuming a position of mastery over nature kills value to life- it doesn't kill the value of ALL LIFE- it kills the value of life of those who try to master and control- so who does that? The judge maybe- at most it would be every member of the government- lets be generous and assume that's 10 million people. The case still outweighs- while loss of value to life may be worse than death for those 10 million, death is still the only tangible impact for the other 6.6 billion. Even if worse comparatively, the magnitude of their value to life impact is much smaller."


Ok end of tangent, one last speaker point improvement point
-Be somewhat organized- don't lose flows, the other teams evidence etc. Judges get annoyed when debates have to stop for long periods for you to find things and that can't be good for your points. Use colored paper, piles, different desks, whatever- just try and keep stuff under control to streamline the process.