Last changed on
Sat January 7, 2023 at 5:52 AM EDT
Qualifications:
Competed on the nat circuit in Congressional Debate for 4 years - earned 3 bids, finalled at GMU and 2nd place at Columbia. Won multiple state and local competitions. I am also currently the President of the Jefferson Literary and Debating Society at UVA.
Congressional Debate:
I will rank based on who I think is the best legislator - not the best or most convincing speaker. I believe that Congress is specifically designed to be a laypersons' debate. This means that words like "inherency" or "solvency" have no place in Congress. While they may sound intriguing, you would never catch Mitch McConnell or Nancy Pelosi using them - and you shouldn't either. That doesn't mean you shouldn't bring up what those concepts mean. You should explain the inherency and solvency behind a bill without using those terms - instead, just tell me what the problem is and how the bill solves it.
Very Important: Your speech must/should be extemped. Reading off your pad will lose you a lot of points from me.
Your speech should contain a mixture of impactful rhetoric and meaningful evidence (quantitative > qualitative), and lots of clash (I cannot emphasize this enough!!!). Attention Grabbing Device's (AGD's) in your intro and conclusion can be helpful, but make sure they are relevant. I'm unlikely to be impressed by a catchy intro that has nothing to do with the topic.
Your sourcing is also important, especially in early-round speeches. Beware, if I hear you say something I think is wrong I will attempt to find the source you cited. If it turns out you're making up sources or that you're taking things out of context I will be extremely unlikely to rank you.
I believe questioning is a huge part of being a good legislator. Make sure your questions are insightful - no softballs! I do believe it's possible to be too rude or aggressive in questioning, but my tolerance is very high. I would rather you interrupt an opponent during a direct questioning block than let them filibuster for 20 seconds. Important: I will take ranks away from you if your questioning is bad. I am not the kind of judge that is impressed by someone asking a lot of simple/easy questions. I expect you to press the speaker and make them struggle to defend their arguments (especially in direct questioning). In my mind, asking bad questions is as bad as asking no questions + you deprive someone else of the chance to ask good questions.
I will rank good PO's highly, and I'm not picky about how you use your gavel or your particular style of PO'ing.
I understand that online tournaments are new for all of us, and can present a lot of problems for Congress. I will be very flexible in adapting to online tournaments and I won't dock ranks for mistakes you make because it's an online format (ex: muting yourself, not digitally raising your hand, etc).
If you find me sometime after round I can definitely give you feedback on the spot. Alternatively, you can email me at: ak6xkt@virginia.edu for feedback or if anything I wrote on your ballot confused you.