MCKmark
09-20-07, 11:30 AM
My name is Mark Wonnacott. I did 4 years of policy in Illinois (from 98-99 to 02-03), 4 years of parli, and 3 years of NFA-LD. I'm presently an unpaid assistant coach at McKendree College, but am shopping the job market.
PERFORMANCE
Speed is fine. If I can't understand you, you will get a non-verbal warning, or a verbal warning if you're really going to town. I won't punish you if this happens consistently, but if I can't flow you, I'm not very likely to give you the benefit of the doubt in the last rebuttal.
Also, speed is not an excuse to not warrant your arguments. This is not something I think the majority of the community does, but it happens often enough to piss me off. You are not spreading someone out if you make 80 claims in a speech and then point out when they don't respond to 10 of them. You are annoying me, and I will punish your speaks and probably not vote for you.
An effective use of speed would be to provide more reasons why a given claim is so, to examine more in-depth an opponent's arguments, or to engage an argument in multiple ways. This is the kind of speaker I enjoy who will earn high speaks.
If you're going to be a dick, be funny. If you're going to try to be funny, actually be funny. If you're just being a dick, or trying to be funny but aren't, you will make the round uncomfortable for me, and i will cut your speaks.
A word on speaks: I tend to think of them more as 'debater points' and so tend to reward strategic thinking and effective argumentation. I tend to be a bit of a points fairy. You will have to work very hard to get less than a 26 from me, and I usually give out one or two 30's a tournament.
SUBSTANCE
In general, I act as a policy maker/hypo tester in parli. I think the negative must indict the affirmative as an example of the resolution. I'm not down with either counterwarrants or topical counterplans in a policy context. That's not to say, though, that I don't love a good logic chopping grammar throw down, especially in resolutions that don't necessarily call for an action. I hate fact/value debate, but love logic. So, do whatcha know.
While I adore non-traditional debate practices in theory, in practice they tend to aggrivate me for a couple of reasons. First, the lack of stable, textual advocacy makes the round muddled. Second, the debate focuses exclusively on the framework and not on the ideas presented. Third, I am unsure at the end of the round what exactly the ballot is supposed to do. If you think you can overcome these barriers, by all means perform in front of me. Just be aware that with a legacy of bad performance debates, you will be waging an uphill battle.
I would say I have a fairly low threshold to vote on theory, especially counterplan theory. IF YOU RUN A COUNTERPLAN, YOU MUST SPECIFY YOUR STATUS. I don't necessarily need demonstrable in-round abuse to vote on a procedural, but I ultimately consider ground the terminal impact most of the time. So long as something is both predictable and debateable, I'm probably down.
I love to listen to surprising, well-thought-out arguments, case refutation, warrants for claims, knowledgeable debates, ballsy strategic choices, impact comparison that does not use the word 'outweigh' as a warrant, and strategy preemption.
I dislike listening to politics scenarios, consult counterplans, kritiks with floating PICs, 41 minute long fiat debates, and people trying to be funny and failing. Note that this does not mean i will not vote on these arguments, but you'd better be damn confident in them if that's your A strat.
Please feel free to ask me anything in specific, either here via PM or in-round.
PERFORMANCE
Speed is fine. If I can't understand you, you will get a non-verbal warning, or a verbal warning if you're really going to town. I won't punish you if this happens consistently, but if I can't flow you, I'm not very likely to give you the benefit of the doubt in the last rebuttal.
Also, speed is not an excuse to not warrant your arguments. This is not something I think the majority of the community does, but it happens often enough to piss me off. You are not spreading someone out if you make 80 claims in a speech and then point out when they don't respond to 10 of them. You are annoying me, and I will punish your speaks and probably not vote for you.
An effective use of speed would be to provide more reasons why a given claim is so, to examine more in-depth an opponent's arguments, or to engage an argument in multiple ways. This is the kind of speaker I enjoy who will earn high speaks.
If you're going to be a dick, be funny. If you're going to try to be funny, actually be funny. If you're just being a dick, or trying to be funny but aren't, you will make the round uncomfortable for me, and i will cut your speaks.
A word on speaks: I tend to think of them more as 'debater points' and so tend to reward strategic thinking and effective argumentation. I tend to be a bit of a points fairy. You will have to work very hard to get less than a 26 from me, and I usually give out one or two 30's a tournament.
SUBSTANCE
In general, I act as a policy maker/hypo tester in parli. I think the negative must indict the affirmative as an example of the resolution. I'm not down with either counterwarrants or topical counterplans in a policy context. That's not to say, though, that I don't love a good logic chopping grammar throw down, especially in resolutions that don't necessarily call for an action. I hate fact/value debate, but love logic. So, do whatcha know.
While I adore non-traditional debate practices in theory, in practice they tend to aggrivate me for a couple of reasons. First, the lack of stable, textual advocacy makes the round muddled. Second, the debate focuses exclusively on the framework and not on the ideas presented. Third, I am unsure at the end of the round what exactly the ballot is supposed to do. If you think you can overcome these barriers, by all means perform in front of me. Just be aware that with a legacy of bad performance debates, you will be waging an uphill battle.
I would say I have a fairly low threshold to vote on theory, especially counterplan theory. IF YOU RUN A COUNTERPLAN, YOU MUST SPECIFY YOUR STATUS. I don't necessarily need demonstrable in-round abuse to vote on a procedural, but I ultimately consider ground the terminal impact most of the time. So long as something is both predictable and debateable, I'm probably down.
I love to listen to surprising, well-thought-out arguments, case refutation, warrants for claims, knowledgeable debates, ballsy strategic choices, impact comparison that does not use the word 'outweigh' as a warrant, and strategy preemption.
I dislike listening to politics scenarios, consult counterplans, kritiks with floating PICs, 41 minute long fiat debates, and people trying to be funny and failing. Note that this does not mean i will not vote on these arguments, but you'd better be damn confident in them if that's your A strat.
Please feel free to ask me anything in specific, either here via PM or in-round.