Part of the series Policy Debate

Organization

Policy debate competitions Inter-Collegiate policy debate To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... Image File history File links Debatetournament. ... There are several venues of competition for policy debate. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Policy Debate. ...

Format

Structure of policy debate · Resolution Constructive · Rebuttal · Prep Time Evidence · Flow In all forms of policy debate the order of speeches is as follows: First Affirmative Constructive (1AC) Cross-examination of First Affirmative by Second Negative First Negative Constructive (1NC) Cross-examination of First Negative by First Affirmative Second Affirmative Constructive (2AC) Cross-examination of Second Affirmative by First Negative Second... In policy debate, a resolution or topic is a normative statement which the affirmative team affirms and the negative team negates. ... In policy debate, a constructive speech is one of the first four speeches of a debate round. ... In policy debate, a rebuttal speech is one of the last four speeches of a round. ... In policy debate, preparation time (prep time) is the amount of time given to each team to prepare for their speeches. ... Evidence in policy debate is organized into units called cards. ... A flow In policy debate, the flow is the name given to a specialized form of notetaking, which enables debaters to keep track of all of the arguments in the round. ...

Participants

Affirmative · Negative · Judge In policy debate, the affirmative is the team which affirms the resolution. ... In policy debate, the Negative is the team which negates the resolution. ... Judging policy debate can be challenging. ...

Types of Arguments

Stock Issues · Case· Disadvantage Counterplan · Kritik Impact calculus · Topicality Traditional policy debate theory states that the affirmative plan must fulfill certain issues, called the stock issues. ... In Policy debate, a disadvantage (abbreviated as DA, and sometimes referred to as a Disad) is an argument that a team brings up against a policy action that is being considered. ... A counterplan, or counter-proposal, (abbreviated as a CP) is a component of argumentation theory commonly exploited in the activity of policy debate. ... In Policy Debate, a kritik (derived from German kritik, meaning and pronounced as critique, and often abbreviated K) is generally a type of argument that challenges a certain mindset, assumption, or discursive element that exists within the advocacy of the opposing team, often from the perspective of critical theory; it... In policy debate, impact calculus is a type of argumentations which seeks to compare the impacts presented by both teams. ... Topicality is a stock issue in policy debate which pertains to whether or not the plan affirms the resolution as worded. ...

Argumentative Concepts

Offense · Defense · Turn · Drop In policy debate offense refers to argument which has an implication other than or beyond mitigating an argument by the opposing team. ... In policy debate, defense refers to argument which has no implication other than mitigating an argument made by the opposing team. ... In policy debate, a turn is when an argument that was initially made to support a policy action is shown to adversely affect that action. ... In policy debate, a drop refers to an argument which was not answered by the opposing team. ...

In the policy debate form of debate competition, the case is the advocacy established by the affirmative in the First affirmative constructive speech. The case is generally presented as a single, prescripted speech with a coherent story. It is generally accepted that the case is supposed to be the center of any given debate. To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... Debate or debating is a formal method of interactive and position representational argument. ... In policy debate, the affirmative is the team which affirms the resolution. ... In all forms of policy debate the order of speeches is as follows: First Affirmative Constructive (1AC) Cross-examination of First Affirmative by Second Negative First Negative Constructive (1NC) Cross-examination of First Negative by First Affirmative Second Affirmative Constructive (2AC) Cross-examination of Second Affirmative by First Negative Second...

The Structure of the Case

The case, if done in the standard way, is generally organized into sections called "observations" or "contentions", with advantages attached.

Observation or Contention

A typical case includes between two and five observations/contentions, depending on the speed of the intended speaker and the length of the observations/contentions. Traditionally, observations/contentions address one of the stock issues and is labeled accordingly. For example: Traditional policy debate theory states that the affirmative plan must fulfill certain issues, called the stock issues. ...

• Contention 1: Inherency
• Contention 2: Harms
• Contention 3: Solvency

High School debate typically avoids including topicality in the case, whereas college debate might.

More recently, cases have included different names for the observation; for example, a case increasing the number of pilots in the United States Air Force might call the first contention "Air Power." Some observations/contentions are named even more strangely; there is a documented occurrence of a case about wildfire control with two observations: "Observation 1: We didn't start the fire" and "Observation 2: It's getting hot in here," the former dealing with inherency and harms, the latter with solvency. {{alternateuses}} The Old Fire burning in the San Bernardino Mountains (image taken from the International Space Station) A wildfire, also known as a forest fire, vegetation fire, grass fire, brush fire, peat fire (gambut in Indonesia), bushfire (in Australasia), or hill fire, is an uncontrolled fire often occurring in wildland... We Didnt Start the Fire is a song by Billy Joel which chronicles 120 well-known events, people, things, and places widely noted during his lifetime, from 1949 to 1989, when the song was released on his album Storm Front. ... Hot in Herre is a popular song and single performed by the hip-hop artist Nelly, and was released in 2002 as the 1st single on his album Nellyville. ...

Advantages

Advantages are relatively new concepts in debate. They are usually included as subpoints of observations or contentions, but are often independent; some cases are entirely composed of advantages.

Advantages fundamentally act as disadvantages to the status quo. There are two types: policy advantages and kritikal advantages. In Policy debate, a disadvantage (abbreviated as DA, and sometimes referred to as a Disad) is an argument that a team brings up against a policy action that is being considered. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ...

Policy Advantages

Policy advantages are advantages which claim that the plan effects a "policy" (i.e. not philosophical) change for the better, or prevents something that is bad that the status quo all but guarantees (according to the affirmative). For instance, an advantage to a plan increasing the strength of United Nations peacekeeping operations in Kashmir that claims that such an operation would prevent nuclear war between India and Pakistan would be a policy advantage. Kashmir (or Cashmere) may refer to: Kashmir region, the northwestern region of the Indian subcontinent India, Kashmir conflict, the territorial dispute between India, Pakistan, and the China over the Kashmir region. ...

Kritikal Advantages

The kritikal advantage stems from the synthesis of the policy advantage with a negative argument called the kritik. Like the kritik, the kritikal advantage is philosophical: it claims that there is a current philosophical wrong, such as racism, heteronormativity/homophobia, patriarchy, militarism, and so on, which the affirmative plan fixes (in debate jargon, "solves for"). A kritikal advantage might be that a military draft, by causing as if In Policy Debate, a kritik (derived from German kritik, meaning and pronounced as critique, and often abbreviated K) is generally a type of argument that challenges a certain mindset, assumption, or discursive element that exists within the advocacy of the opposing team, often from the perspective of critical theory; it... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article may require cleanup. ... Heteronormativity is a term used in the discussion of sexual behavior, gender, and society, primarily within the fields of queer theory and gender theory. ... Homophobia is the fear of, aversion to, or discrimination against homosexuality or homosexuals. ... Patriarchy (from Greek: pater (genitive form patris, showing the root patr-), meaning father and arché meaning rule) is the anthropological term used to define the sociological condition where male members of a society tend to predominate in positions of power; with the more powerful the position, the more likely it... Militarism or militarist ideology is the doctrinal view of a society as being best served (or more efficient) when it is governed or guided by concepts embodied in the culture, doctrine, system, or people of the military. ...

Unusual cases

Not all cases are in the general form described above. Some avante-garde debaters have invented an assortment of alternative types of case, generally with kritikal debate in mind. The most common form is the performance affirmative, in which the affirmative "performs": raps, performs interpretive dance, sings, or something else, rather than engaging in typical speed reading. Popular West Coast rapper Snoop Dogg performing for the US Navy. ... Interpretive Dance is a style of dance style that seeks to interpret the meaning inherent in music rather than by performing specific preformatted moves. ...