About me:

I am the captain of the Appalachian State University Speech and Debate program, and have competed in like,, every standard forensics event under the sun at one point or another. My home base in middle/high school was PF, and now is NPDA/NFA-LD. My true love is interp events, but that is nine times out of ten not why you are here lol

Speechdrop > an email chain if possible, email is at the bottom of my paradigm for chains though

Your case:

TLDR - Run what you want, and show me you know what you’re doing

I’m happy with both trad and progressive rounds. I’m originally from a trad circuit, and I’ll never get bored of a trad round done well. However, as I got to college I found a love for performance and res Ks. You should run whatever kind of case suits you best, as long as you make sure all arguments are well developed (trix are not well developed, fyi).

Disclosure theory is boring and lame, so are T shells made to be kicked, but do what you must.

On T- I am VERY hesitant to vote on the possibility of “abuse” in round, much safer for me if you can warrant and prove from your first speech how topicality will play a role.

PLEASE GIVE ME FRAMEWORKS! I want to know how you are evaluating, and more importantly I want you to tell me how to be evaluating. I enjoy good FW clash but don’t like when I am at the end of a round and neither side really warranted out their framing, or just let 2 counter interps exist all the way until the end. Make it concise, tell me what FW is best, and tell me how you are doing it (or prove how you win both framings to make me very happy).

Tech > truth*. Your link chain needs to exist and be comprehensible but I am certainly willing to believe a lot more in round than I would outside the space as long as it’s not clear misrepresentation of evidence or something to that extent.

Arguments that are in any way discriminatory (ie racist, sexist, ableist, homophobic, classist, transphobic, etc) are always going to lose and give you low speaks.

In-round:

Debate jargon is appropriate and has its place, try your best to explain as you go for accessibility but in a crunch know that I am with you.

Off-time roadmaps are fine with me, but make sure you are using it to tell me the order of your speech, nothing more.

I am a speedy debater and am comfortable with most spreading, but the round should only be going as fast as everyone participating is comfortable with. Never feel bad asking for what you need to understand the round and create better arguments. Also you will see a hit in speaker points if you share your case and rip through 30 pages in 5 minutes without anyone understanding unless they read along, that’s not what this activity is for.

On content warnings: a lot of content that always requires a warning is unnecessary in round anyway, or is simply unnecessary as they are brought up consistently under a given res. Don't give a graphic depiction of violence to get your point across. Using them for things like "feminism" can certainly become trivializing. Exercise good judgment, talk to your coach, use them when necessary.

I won’t flow cross, so make sure to bring up important points in your rebuttals!

Make sure you’re engaging! There are a lot of technicalities in debate, but it is ultimately, fundamentally, a game of persuasion. Good argumentation can always make up for less than stellar speech, but having the best of both worlds can almost guarantee you my undivided attention, and probably the win.

Run fun cases, create good clash, slay your speeches, and over all else, be a nice person. The fastest way to get high speaks from me is to be the person that promotes fairness, accessibility, and kindness in the debate space.

Feel free to ask questions after round or send me an email! I am always happy to talk about forensics. (coltrainzm@appstate.edu)