Lincoln Douglas

Debate Guide
By Joanne Park ‘20

Table of Contents
Table of Contents

Part 1: What is LD Debate?

Overview of a Round
How to Write a Case
Cutting Evidence
How to cut a card
Example
Citing Sources
Rebuttals
Framework
Brief Glossary
Mitty LD
 What Do Tournaments Look Like?
The History of Mitty LD

Part 2: Tips and Tricks

Overview
Using Verbatim
Research Tips
Flowing
Cross-Examination
How to Collapse/Weigh
Winning Without Prep
Drills to do

Part 3: Lay Debate

Overview on Lay Debate
Framework in Lay Debate
Affirming in Lay Debate
Negating in Lay Debate
Tricks in Lay Debate

Part 4: Circuit Debate

Preparing for a Circuit Tournament
Before
During
Tips and Tricks
Kritiks
What is a Kritik?
Parts of a Kritik
Responding to Kritiks
Extending
What is Critical Thinking?
Theory
What is Theory?
Parts of a Theory Shell
Example List of Standards
Responding to Theory
Theory Weighing
How to Prep for Theory Outside of Round
Spikes
K vs. Theory
LARP

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 What is LARP?
Tips for Researching LARP
Parts of a Plan
Writing Narrow Plans
Responding to a Plan
Parts of a Disadvantage
Responding to a Disadvantage
Writing the Midterms DA
Parts of a Counterplan
Types of Counterplans
Responding to a Counterplan (SPOT)
Framework
Parts of a Framework
Writing Philosophical Affirmatives
Fiat
What is fiat?
Pre fiat vs. Post fiat

Part 5: Intro to…

Kritiks
Intro to Feminism Arguments
Responding to Feminism Arguments
Intro to the Model Minority Myth
Intro to Capitalism/Neoliberalism
Intro to Deleuze and Guattari
Intro to Baudrillard
Intro to Afro Pessimism
Intro to Habeas Viscus (Weheliye)
Habeas Viscus in Debate
Intro to Critical Security Studies
Framework
Intro to Utilitarianism
Responding to Utilitarianism
Intro to Kant
Kant’s Moral Philosophy
Kant’s Political Philosophy
Responding to Kant
Intro to Virtue Ethics
Intro to Pragmatism

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Part 6: Final Thoughts

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Hi there!

Thank you so much for reading the LD debate bible. As a freshman on MSD, I had very little access to
resources (especially concerning the world of national circuit debate) and I found it incredibly difficult to
learn on my own. I put this together as a master resource (that should be expanded as we gain more
knowledge about LD debate on both the local and national circuits) so that future generations of LD have
a way to understand and access materials teaching them how to do LD. It is organized into five parts:
novice level instruction, tips and tricks, lay debate basics, circuit debate basics, and introductions to
specific circuit arguments.

In no way is this document meant to be the end-all-be-all resource for LD. Rather, it is just a condensed
compilation of quick tips and tricks I have picked up over the years. A lot of these concepts (especially
those concerning fast debate) will require much more explanation and Q&A. In addition, please feel free
to add to this book any additional information you may have learned that are pertinent to the LD Bible.
If this is the paper copy, you can access the editable google doc at https://tinyurl.com/LDBibleEdit.

While I’ve credited specific people throughout the book, special thanks to Tanish Kumar, John Lee, Lukas
Krause, Ishir Vaidyanath, and Jessica Hsu for sending me their notes so they can be compiled in this
book. In addition, most of these notes were compiled from lectures at the Victory Briefs Institute and
the San Jose Debate Intensive.

Joanne Park ‘20

joannepark20@mittymonarch.com

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Part 1: What is LD Debate?

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Want to try LD? Don’t know where to start? This section of the book is meant to be used as a guidebook
for novices (and for varsity members making teaching resources). See page 11 of this book for a glossary
on bolded terms.

Overview of a Round
Affirmative Constructive (1AC) (6 minutes) Affirmative presents their prepared case

Cross Examination by the (3 minutes) Negative asks questions attacking the Affirmative
Negative (CX) position

Negative Constructive (1NC) (7 minutes) Usually split into 3:30 of the Negative’s prepared case
and 3:30 of rebuttal points to the Affirmative’s prepared case (but
can be split any way the debater wishes)

Cross Examination by the (3 minutes) Affirmative asks questions attacking the Negative
Affirmative (CX) position

Affirmative Rebuttal (1AR) (4 minutes) Usually split into 2:00 of responding to the Negative case
and 2:00 of responding to rebuttal points against their own case (but
can be split any way the debater wishes)

Negative Rebuttal (NR, also (6 minutes) Responds to arguments brought up in the 1AR, extends
known as the 1NR or 2NR) any dropped arguments, offers voting issues as to why they have
won the round

Affirmative Rebuttal (2AR) (3 minutes) Responds to arguments brought up in the 1NR/2NR,

extends any dropped arguments, offers voting issues as to why they
have won the round

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How to Write a Case
The case is arguably the most important component of preparation because it sets the foundation for
what the rest of the round will look like. Sometimes, creative or obscure arguments can win you rounds,
but keep in mind that most judges (especially lay judges) want good, solid arguments that you can “sell”
easily.

● Opening Statement
○ Starts off with “I affirm” or “I negate” and followed by the resolution
○ Sometimes started off with a quote or a powerful statement (like a hook)
● Observations
○ Define terms found in the resolution and/or terms that may be relevant to your case
that may be unfamiliar to some people
○ If you want, add in any observations about what the aff/neg should defend or any other
clarifications about the topic
● Framework
○ Value premise: the ultimate value/goal that you uphold and/or achieve in the round
■ Ex. Justice, Morality, Autonomy
○ Value criterion/standard: how you define and achieve your value premise
■ Usually a gerund + noun
■ Ex. Maximizing + well being, Protecting + liberty, Upholding + rights
○ You usually write your contentions first, then find a framework that ties into those
contentions
● Contentions
○ Usually 2-3 contentions per case
○ Consists of a claim, warrant, and impact
■ Claim: basic argument/claim you’re trying to prove
■ Warrant: evidence/reasons why the claim is true, can be analytical (logic) or
empirically (using statistics, studies, and examples)
■ Impact: why the claim matters/implications of the claim
○ The warrant/impact statements are usually justified with cards, or evidence
○ Usually also have a link: A reason why your opponent causes x bad thing or why you
cause x good thing

Cutting Evidence
How to cut a card
● Tag: a brief statement summarizing the content of the card

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 ● Citation: you usually read the author’s name, date, and publication (for circuit rounds, you can
read just the last name and last two digits of the year), but you want the full text citation under
the card
● The actual piece of evidence, copy pasted by paragraphs with nothing omitted in between (you
can’t use ellipses to omit a part of the card altogether)
● It is recommended that you underline/bold important information in the card and, over that,
highlight the information that you want to read during your speech
● You then shrink the remaining text—make sure that none of the information contradicts your
point, because your opponent CAN ask to see the evidence!
● Make sure you understand every part of the evidence as you cut it, regardless of if it is
highlighted or not

Example
[TAG]: Trump passed an executive order LAST TUESDAY that increases restrictions and cuts funding for
welfare. Vox News finds on April 10th, 2018:
[CITATION]: Golshan, Tara. (2018, April 10). Tara Golshan covers Congress, elections, and just about anything in politics that needs
explaining at Vox. Trump wants to slash welfare with stricter work requirements. Retrieved April 16, 2018, from
https://www.vox.com/2018/4/10/17221292/trump-welfare-executive-order-work-requirements

[EVIDENCE]: Trump signed the Reducing Poverty in America by Promoting Opportunity and Economic
Mobility executive order privately Tuesday, ordering secretaries across the government to review their welfare
programs — from food stamps to Medicaid to housing programs — and propose new regulations, like work requirements. The executive order
calls on federal agencies to enforce current work requirements, propose additional, stronger requirements,
and find savings (in other words, make cuts), and to give states more flexibility to run welfare programs. “Since its
inception, the welfare system has grown into a large bureaucracy that might be susceptible to measuring success by how many people are
enrolled in a program rather than by how many have moved from poverty into financial independence,” the executive order reads. The order
calls on the Treasury, Agriculture, Commerce, Labor, Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development, Transportation, and
Education departments to use the next 90 days to submit a report with their recommended policies to the White House. The
order doesn’t
yet set any new policy, but it does reflect a hardline conservative view of the nation’s entitlement system —
one that welfare experts say relies on faulty arguments and could cut off the nation’s neediest from lifesaving safety
net programs.

Citing Sources
Author name (Last name, First name), Author qualifications, Article title, Article date, Publication, Date
accessed, URL

You can use resources like EasyBib or Zotero to cite sources easily, but make sure you include all of this
information (Don’t get lazy, you could lose a round or even get disqualified for incorrect/incomplete
cites!).

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Rebuttals
● Blocks are responses to arguments the other side may bring up (usually in 1NC/1AR)
● An aff argument might be “checks on the government”, the block would be “A2 (answers to)
checks on the government” and list a couple reason why this argument isn’t true
● Ways to respond to the link:
○ No link/Delink: why what the aff/neg does doesn’t cause this
○ Link turn: why you do the opposite of what your opponent says
● Ways to respond to the impact
○ No impact: why the impact does not occur
○ Impact turn: the impact you cause is good (don’t use with link turn)
○ Case outweighs: the impact in my case is more important than yours (use impact
calculus from page 20)
○ Impact defense: the impacts should’ve already happened because _____
● Blocks should generally have evidence (sometimes logical analysis works, but use evidence
mostly)
● Always SIGNPOST. Tell the judge what you’re attacking
○ i.e. "My opponent's first contention is _____. She states in the first subpoint that
________. This is wrong because _______."
● Show WHY the argument is flawed and then IMPACT this: impacting means showing how they
cannot win the value premise now because this argument is necessary for it.
● Formatting Blocks
○ HEADING: “A2 _______”, labels the argument you’re blocking
○ TAG: Functions like a tag on a case, except here, you want the tags to be longer and
much more explanatory so that you can re explain the block in later speeches without
having to read the entire piece of evidence again
○ CITATION AND EVIDENCE: Same as case, except you should only highlight when
absolutely necessary, because you don’t know how many pieces of evidence you’ll need
○ TIP: IT’S BETTER TO READ SMALL BITS OF AN ARRAY OF RESPONSES THAN TO READ
ONE LONG PIECE OF EVIDENCE
■ An array of responses is harder for your opponent to respond to
■ If you’re reading long pieces of evidence to “fill time”, don’t. Instead, use that
time to explain your evidence and warranting to the judge in your own words,
so you can tie it back to your overall position

Framework
● 1AC: Establish a framework with a more general value (morality/justice) and a specific value
criterion that works for your case

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 ○ Most affirmative positions lend themselves to a utilitarian (maximizing well being)
framework or a structural violence (minimizing oppression, protecting equality)
framework
○ Establish two to three reasons as to why this framework is the most adequate under the
topic/most fair for both debaters to preempt NC framework debate
● 1NC: If the affirmative framework greatly contradicts your case, uphold your own framework
and respond to their justifications at the top of the case.
○ Most negative positions lend themselves to utilitarian frameworks or libertarian
frameworks (like autonomy), especially when pertaining to resolutions that call for a
government action or abolishment
○ Respond to each of their justifications (if there are any) and then outline one to two of
your won
● 1AR: Respond to negative framework justifications and extend your own reasons. Justifications
should look like this…
○ “Establishing my framework is a prerequisite to their framework”
○ “My framework encompasses theirs” (theirs is too narrow)
○ “My framework is the most specific” (theirs is too broad)
○ “Their framework justifies x atrocity” (i.e. Util justifies slavery, Autonomy justifies
anarchy, Equality justifies communism)
○ Point out contradictions between value and criterion (Justice ≠ Utilitarianism)

Brief Glossary
● Resolution: A topic statement which the affirmative team affirms (deems the statement true)
and the negative team negates (deems the statement false). For LD, there is one resolution
released every two months by the NSDA.
● Case/Constructive: A prepared speech that presents either the affirming or negating arguments
in a set amount of time that contains evidence
● Card: A piece of evidence, usually “cut” so that certain parts that you want to read are
highlighted, bolded, and/or underlined
● Contention: Another word for argument, you want 2-3 of these in each case, each with evidence
warranting the argument.
● Subpoint: Arguments within a contention (usually used to group arguments together, i.e. a
contention about oppression could have the subpoints of poverty and racism)
● Rebuttal: Arguments/evidence that responds to the opposing side’s argument, usually labeled
as A2/AT _____ (Answer to x argument)
● Voting Issue: Usually brought up in the final speech for each side, voting issues cover why each
side won the debate
● Flowing: Taking notes in a debate round using a piece of paper (usually 8.5” by 14”) with
columns designated for each speech

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● Prep time: Each debater gets 3-4 minutes (depending on the tournament), can be used in
between speeches to prepare rebuttals
● Dropped: When referring to an argument, an argument that was not responded to. When
referring to a round, a round that you lose
● Flights: At a tournament, rounds are usually divided into flight A or B, and the debater only
debates during one of these flights (done when there is a large amount of entries)
● Ballot: Where the judge marks the winner of the round and explains their decision, also known
as an RFD or reason for decision
● Speaker Points: Ranges from 25-30 (usually) judging the debater’s speaking skills
● Lay: A style of debate that is judged by lay people who have little to no debate experience
(usually parents)
● Circuit: A style of debate judged by experienced debaters, usually at a faster speed with much
more complex arguments
● Ought: Commonly used in LD resolutions, implies a moral obligation
● Frontlines: Responses to responses your opponent will bring up (for example, if a common
response to a military readiness argument is cost, you want specific reasons why military
readiness outweighs/is good for cost efficiency)

Part 2: Tips and Tricks

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Overview
To summarize all the other information in this book, here’s one of the greatest debate related speeches of
all time by Scott Deatherage, former director of debate at Northwestern.
https://tinyurl.com/deatheragespeech

If you don’t have an hour to watch the whole thing, I’ve summarized it below:
1. Choose
1. Not every argument is important - the STRONGEST points get the win
2. Choose FOR the judge the coherent package of arguments
2. Offense
1. d
2. Anticipate your opponent's warrants and undermine their credibility before they develop
an explanation
3. Clash
1. The meat of logos/reasoning
2. Two competing, alternative visions
3. In the judge's mind, all the calls are close calls
4. The team that defines the difference between theirs and ours WINS, the tipping point
5. Show the judge why your strategic vision is the best
4. The link
1. You need the most CREDIBLE argument
2. Both teams must work to strengthen the link to the offense
3. The judge is first and foremost a skeptic
5. Control the framework
1. Convince the judge whether it is probability based or magnitude based
2. Critical, especially, in a K debate
6. Cover Smart
1. The debate is about substantive, not technical, debate
2. Good argument choice and clash were key (win the MOST IMPORTANT
ARGUMENTS, don’t try to win all of them)
7. Make every argument count
1. If an argument wouldn't be important in the end, don't spend too much time on it
8. Anticipate and know
1. Know more about their competitor's arguments that opponents
2. What their opponents SHOULD have said
3. Good strategies demand knowledge, reading, understanding - not just tricks
9. Style and substance
1. You need ethos, logos and pathos
2. ETHOS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT - credibility (especially in cross)
3. Be confident
10. Narrate and Judge

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 1. Write the ballot in the last speech
2. Understand the other side's strengths (why they MIGHT have won)
3. Ask why you might lose the debate
11. Teamwork
1. Work with other people - don’t just be focused on individual success
12. Prepare to win
1. Strategizing happens the entire time
2. Use prep time effectively (in and out of round) and focus!
3. Know your strengths and weakness

Research Tips
● Google search tips
○ Proximity search (so x shows up near y)
■ near(______
○ Use www.scholar.google.com
■ If you’re on a college campus, take the opportunity to download a bunch of
documents (especially more general ones concerning philosophy) that you want
to look at later, because colleges often allow more access to articles
○ Specific site search (i.e. if you want all your results from the Brookings Institute)
■ site:_____
○ If you want a specific set of words, then put quotation marks around them
○ Keyword AND keyword
■ Brings you only search results that have both keywords
○ Keyword OR keyword
■ Brings up searches with either keyword
○ *
■ When you don’t know what you are searching for
■ Nuke war causes *
■ Any word can fill the astrix
○ Define: keyword
■ Gives you only definitions for keywords
○ “-keyword”
■ Subtracts keywords out of remaining web results
○ News tab on google orders the articles in order of recency
○ Google alerts—if you’re researching one particular topic area, turn on alerts to get the
most recent news updates
● Good resources
○ www.valuecriterion.com - Lots of good, free backfiles
○ www.circuitdebater.wikispaces.com - past cases and files from very good debaters on
the circuit, especially helpful if you need a specific card for framework, impacts, or
kritiks (especially more nuanced ones with complex literature)

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 ○ hsld.debatecoaches.org/ - of course, the LD debate wiki! Not only should you be
uploading on the wiki, you can often read wikis of other schools (like Harvard Westlake,
Brentwood, or Greenhill) to get an idea of what other schools are reading and to get
ideas for cases and blocks
○ Jsor, LexisNexis, Ebsco, ProjectsMuse, AcedemicSearchPremier, Proquest WorldCat,
● Doing your research!
○ Pay attention to the warrants/reasons in the article - don't just cite the claim (x is
correct), have the reasons why
○ Bottom up research
■ Top down research is deciding a thesis and finding cards to fill the gap, while
bottom up involves doing research first, cutting cards, and organizing those
cards into a thesis
■ Bottom up research is preferable so that you find the best evidence for the
topic, even if it may seem “stock”
○ Keep a reading list for articles on the topic as soon as the topic comes out. Even if you
don’t think you need that link evidence now, you probably will later.
○ Don’t smush all of the evidence you find into your case! The best constructive speeches
are ones that are well warranted without trying to put too many arguments into the
debate.
○ Try and find multifunctional cards that lays out your claim, warrants it, and preempts
any arguments your opponent may make

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Flowing
Flowing, or note taking for debaters, is a way to keep track of the different arguments and how they
interact during the round. The recommended way to flow is with more than one sheet of paper, one for
the 1AC, and one for each of the negative positions. In a lay round, you would only need two (one piece
of paper for each case). But, in a fast round, you would want one for each of the “offs”, or off case
positions (DA, CP, theory, etc.) that the negative can run. Flowing on paper usually looks like this:

1AC 1NC 1AR NR 2AR

Value
Value Criterion a) a) Extend b, Remember why a,
a) b) b) outweighs b, c prove VC is
b) c) c) because ____ true

C1) a) Turn— a) Group a and b, a) Extend the a) X apply what I

Author, Date _________ turn, most said against turn
Author, Date Information from important
Information from card b) Extend Author, because ____ b) explain the two
card Date cards
b) No link— b) The two cards
Author, Date Author, Date c) Extend Author, have no warrant,
Information from Information from Date etc.
card card
Extend impact,
C1 Impact: No impact Extend impact weigh!

a) X apply answer
C2) a) Turn— a) Turn doesn’t a) Extend Author, to turn
Author, Date apply, _______ Date
Author, Date Information from on the turn, b) remember
Information from card b) There is a link, outweighs Author, Date,
card extend because ____ uniquely o/w
b) No link— Author, Date because ___
Author, Date Author, Date b) A2 extensions,
Information from Information from c) Also extend ____________
card card Author, Date Impact outweighs

C2 Impact: No Impact Extend impact

A similar process would be repeated for 1NC arguments, just with one less column (the paper should
start with the 1NC, then 1AR, NR, 2AR, etc). Remember that this is just one example! Not every

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argument looks the same, but when in doubt, write it down. However, no matter what method you
develop for flowing, make sure that it is legible and quick, so you don’t miss any arguments on the flow.

Flowing can also be done on a computer through excel—just search up LD flowing template or find it on
our Dropbox. However, flowing on a computer is not recommended unless you are observing/judging a
round.

Cross-Examination
● Always have a strategy! Asking clarifying question is good, but the entire cross should not be
open ended (ex. What is your second contention?)
● Get concessions out of your opponent - cross x is binding!
● Close ended questions that you already know the answer too - make them agree to something
and bring it up later
● Look at the judge, and be in control but not aggressive
● Answering: make your answers vague and explain your arguments a little bit (not excessively
though), make answers conditional (maybe, in x case)

How to Collapse/Weigh
The following information was compiled from a lecture by Jolie Leung ‘18, PF debater.
● Why do you weigh?
○ Need to explain why your arguments matter the most by extending
numbers/studies/cards (i.e. how many people are in poverty?)
○ Save the biggest voting issue for last to do the most weighing
○ You can group unimportant arguments
● Writing Extensions: prewrite extensions with frontline docs for each of the major
arguments/responses you have
○ Do overviews
○ They say that ______, however, empirically ______. First, xyz from case warrants.
Second, that’s why xyz finds that ______. Finally, xyz from case also empirically finds
that ______.
○ Some rhetoric to use!
■ “This many ppl are in poverty”
■ “The x evidence finds”
■ “This is why the Harvard study finds that”
■ “This is the biggest impact in this round because”
● Good rhetoric
○ Dropped argument
■ The easiest place to vote is on the ______ argument, it was in every speech of
this round and they never once responded

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 ■ They concede the round when they concede ______
○ Impact weighing
■ But second, the easiest place to vote aff is on the ______ argument.
■ This is the biggest impact on the numbers alone. ______ ppl are affected, they
never quantify.
○ End of doing voters
■ You can vote aff on any one of these four arguments. (list the four voters)
○ Terminalize impacts
■ i.e. No access to welfare → poverty → starvation → death
● Impact Calculus
○ Magnitude: How much of an effect will the impacts have?
○ Time Frame: How quickly will the impacts happen?
○ Reversibility: How reversible is the impact? (i.e. extinction is irreversible)
○ Probability: How likely is the impact?
○ Scope: How widespread is the impact?

Winning Without Prep

● Read your opponent’s evidence
○ Do this the more unintuitive the argument is
○ Reference their actual card during your speech
○ Look out for citations and credentials
● Cross apply from your case, just not excessively
○ Look at specific warrants that interact with specific negative arguments
○ Cross apply warrants, not cards
● Watch out for power tagged evidence
● Signpost
○ Make distinctions between offense (reasons why you win) and defense (reasons why
they lose)
○ Number things!
○ Label your arguments (1. Turn, 2. Delink)
● Weigh on the line by line
○ This is the only way to win!
○ Weighing should start from the 1NC
○ If your opponent drops weighing, they’ve conceded YOUR argument is more important
than theirs
● Overviews and Grouping
○ Most people implicitly group by repeating themselves, which is inefficient
○ Example
■ One debater puts three arguments on each of their opponent’s three
contentions

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 ■ Another debater puts two arguments on each of the three contentions + 3
overview arguments
■ The best debater puts one argument on each of the three contentions + 6
overview arguments
■ Each debater made 9 arguments, but in the first scenario the opponent has to
go through three arguments to access a contention, in the last scenario they
have to go through seven
● Don’t be afraid of any arguments!

Drills to do
● Hell 1AC/1NC: Read your case, but people can interrupt with questions or counter arguments at
any time. (Similar to a parli POI, you have to keep talking and ensure fluidity is maintained)
● Explanation Drills: Explain a complex analytic (either a contention or a turn) in as few words as
possible
● Hell 1ARs: Redo a past 1AR, first in 4 minutes, then 3, then 2, then 1 (practice collapsing)
● Rambling Drill: Ramble about an argument for as long as possible without inserting filler words
● Efficiency Drills: Redo a past rebuttal speech, but every time you say an inefficient/unnecessary
word, stumble, repeat yourself, etc., you start over.

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Part 3: Lay Debate

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Overview on Lay Debate
● Lay debate is to incorporate multiple, independent reasons on the flow into an overarching
thesis that advances a clear, concise advocacy that gets to the truth of the resolution using
logical and emotional appeal.
○ Multiple and separate reasons about why you should win (contention, criterion, turns to
the opponent's case)
○ Line by line: you still need to win the flow to win (makes it harder on opponent)
○ Thesis: a single statement you will defend as correct throughout the round (and has
independent reasons why the thesis is correct.
● Ballot stories
○ What the judge should write on ballot: Last 30 seconds of last speech, verbatim
○ Find the couple of arguments that are important on the flow and tell the judge how
everything interacts
○ Boil the complex arguments into simple arguments
● Choosing powerful rhetoric
○ Pick words that convey powerful ideas and emotions
○ Pathos: find the personal connection to the judge on a topic
■ Things that personally and relevantly affect them
■ Ex. Inequality and how it affects their daily lives
○ Ethos (Most important): arguments resonate with a judge based off of who is delivering
the argument
■ Judges aren't voting for an argument—they vote for the person
■ Also be the best person - deserve the ballot (good conduct)
● Judge Psychology
○ Be on the side of "right" (intuition)
○ Decrease cognitive strain on the judge - make the debate super duper clear
■ Use simple language
■ Repetition!
■ Make your message memorable (make yourself remembered!)
○ Perceptual dominance
■ Control the round - be the person who is winning (even if someone's looking in
the window)
■ Watch other debaters that are good and emulate them
■ Ex. Danny DeBois, 2012 National Champion, Josh Roberts
■ Be confident! - It wins everything
■ Reverse decision (choose debater, than the arguments that justify their win → not
argument first, debater later)
○ Control the flow - the more your opponent will suffer technically

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Framework in Lay Debate
● What is framework?
○ A unique part of LD debate, it consists of a value premise and value criterion (aka
standard) that comes at the very beginning of the case
○ Your contentions should link back to your framework
○ Value premise: ultimate goal that you uphold/achieve in the round
■ Most commonly used are justice and morality
■ Others include social well being, individual welfare, autonomy
○ Value criterion: how you achieve/define your value premise
■ A “lens” to look at your value
■ Usually a gerund + noun
■ Ex. Upholding + human rights, Maximizing + well being
● Interacting with other Frameworks
○ Debating values: say “my value is a prerequisite” or “my value encompasses theirs” or
“my value is the most specific” (not both)
○ Debating criteria - “mine precedes theirs” (this matters more), or why they don’t link to
the value, their framework justifies x (ex. Util justifies slavery)
○ If they’re the same/similar - say that your contentions best tie into the framework
○ Point out contradictions or inconsistencies between their value and criterion.
● Good Analogy: Ice Cream
○ Value/Goal of the round is the best ice cream
○ The criterion could be: cost, taste, appearance
○ You could argue that the best price doesn’t mean the best ice cream (contradiction
between value/criterion)

Affirming in Lay Debate

● Casing
○ 1AC should set up the 1AR, 2AR and the groundwork of the debate
○ Bottom up - you let the evidence dictate your position
○ Every card is crucial - it should interact with a couple of NCs so you don't even need new
cards in the 1AR
○ Vague criterions to say that your standard encompasses theirs
○ Simple thesis with multiple ways to win
● 1AR: Logos // Ethos
○ Should always be in control → offensive, not defensive speech
○ Be prepared to turn every single NC
○ 1AR arguments should be multifunctional --> some of the offense should be applied onto
other Neg contentions as well
○ Start with opponent’s case, as long as you have one good argument on your own case,
that’s all you should need to convince the judge
○ Start at slow and then slowly pick up speed from 15-30 seconds

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 ○
Group arguments (find common threads i.e. “They respond with four cards, but their
argument boils down to x, here are two responses”
● 2AR: Crystallization // Pathos
○ You can be persuasive → blame the messiness of the debate on the negative
○ The judge should view the debate through your lens (Your ballot story is the only one)
○ Short overview of the round → answer neg voting issues → aff voting issue →
emotional/persuasive and the ballot story

Negating in Lay Debate

● You should never lose - the 1AR should be impossible
● Casing
○ Needs to be really short (2-3 min.)
○ Read any additional contention as responses to the aff
● Attacking the aff in the 1NC: Quantity over quality
○ Have prep to each specific affirmative
○ Make overviews (most people don't flow them)
■ ex. Ought implies can (the aff has to prove its possible)
○ Three point everything! → always say that "this card does not assume x, or imply y, or
take into account z" (smart way of saying no warrant)
○ Embed your “turns” (they shouldn’t ever be the first/last response)
○ Don't say the word "turn" → Mislabeling makes it harder for your opponent
● 1NR: Quality over quantity
○ Start with an overview - I'm winning xyz
○ Focus down to 2-3 issues (i.e. the NC, and two turns)
○ Start on the aff (pick the voting issues/turns and not all the defense)
■ Be substantive - 45 seconds to a minute on each turns
■ Weigh, develop argument, compare warrant
○ Go to neg case and extend the framework /justification -"easiest place to vote negative
because they conceded x"
○ Preempt the 2AR
■ Sum up the voting issues - you have to tell the ballot story
■ Be very pathos and ethos - talk about gut intuition and truth
■ While x may sound like a good idea… (preempt)

Tricks in Lay Debate

● Aff
○ Very thorough resolutional analysis - what it means to affirm
○ Say it right after the value (Ex. I don't have to give solvency…)
○ "Focus on general principled arguments, not specifics"
○ List a bunch of ways you can do the aff (if neg turns one of them, just say we can use an
alternative way)

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 ○ Hide solvency advocate in the definition (one general, one solvency advocate)
● Neg
● Goal of NC is to generate as much offense and make 1AR hard
● Create as many NIBs (Necessary but Insufficient Burden, or burdens you must prove that
you can’t get offense off of) as possible
○ Constitutionality first → if they violate the constitution they are still constrained
by the constitution, important bc xyz
○ Ought = can → moral actions have to be doable + why res can't be implemented
○ Rights cannot be violated
● Floating counterplans
○ "We can tackle the aff problems in xyz other ways"
○ Hide CPs in turns → "here's another way to solve x”

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Part 4: Circuit Debate

24
Preparing for a Circuit Tournament
The following is cited from an article by Raffi Piliero
Piliero, Raffi. Raffi Piliero debated for Harrison High School for 4 years, clearing at the TOC twice, and finishing as bid leader his senior year. He also won several national tournaments and
several top speaker awards, and now debates for Georgetown University. May 10, 2018. “How to Prep for Tournaments: Before, During and After by Raffi Piliero”, VBriefly. Accessed 14 May
2018

Before
This section will examine both what you should do in the short term before a tournament (i.e., the night
before, the morning of) but also in the more medium to long term before a tournament, in terms of how
to prioritize what prep to do.
1. Set goals. This can help both motivate you before the tournament, but also create good
benchmarks to see improvement.
2. Go through the NDCA Wiki and make sure you’re set on every major broken position. I’d
suggest making some kind of Google Doc that includes both what the major AFF and NEG
positions are for anyone entered in the tournament, as well as a constantly updated list of
things that need to be cut to ensure nothing slips through the cracks.
3. Have specific case negs/strats to the most threatening positions and debaters. While it
wouldn’t be possible to compile extensive files to everyone in the pool, you should have
extensive files for the most common positions, and specific evidence/scripting against positions
you’re most worried about.
4. Be familiar with your prep – this is a super simple and easy thing for most people to alter that
has a substantial impact on both knowing what prep to do and being able to explain arguments
in round. You should be able to delve into what your evidence says beyond just what the tag (or
even the highlighted components say) and be able to talk intelligently about an argument. One
additional suggestion is to highlight all of your own cards—while a bit more time consuming, it
ensures greater familiarity with the evidence set you’re likely to be reading.
5. Be ready for new positions to be broken. The best debaters are proactive, and not just reactive.
You should have a set of generic positions (process/agent CPs, DAs that link to most Affs such as
politics or federalism, NCs, Ks, etc.) that you can pull from if someone breaks a totally new Aff.
Additionally, it’s also good to have tricks up your sleeve and new things to say even if they read
something new!
6. Do speeches and drills. Daily speaking drills are definitely important to ensure that you maintain
clarity and build speed as time goes on in the season, but additional speeches/practice debates
can also be helpful. Doing practice debates with teammates or friends, with someone giving
feedback is extremely useful. This gives the perfect opportunity to try out new strategies
without the pressure of a tournament, and a great chance to hone weaknesses.

25
During
This section will focus on what to do from when you arrive at the tournament to the moment you leave,
and how to maximize your time there.

1. Warm up. Nobody is going to sound their best at 7AM in the morning, and the best way to
counteract that is to do speaking drills when you warm up. You should probably spend 20-30
minutes making sure that you sound as good as possible to get off to a good start early on.
2. Stay on top of what’s happening with new prep. Unfortunately, you’re probably not the only
person who thought to cut a sweet new Aff before the tournament, and when other people are
reading new prep, you’ll want to know. Check the NDCA Wiki constantly during the tournament,
and stay on top of what people are reading.
3. Be productive in between rounds. While waiting for the pairings, you should aim to be
productive, either in terms of getting prep done to any new positions or just making sure your
existing files are good to go.
4. Get ready effectively for each round. When the pairing comes out, the first thing to do is to
figure out the Aff if you’re neg, or past 2NRs if you’re Aff. Then, the rest of the time before the
round should be spent pulling the necessary cards, cutting any that seem missing, and writing
blocks/extensions/scripting for rebuttals to save time in round and to make arguments as
powerfully worded as possible.
5. Use decision time effectively. After the 2AR ends, you could have upwards of 15-20 minutes (or
longer) to do the aforementioned checking of the Wiki, write blocks, or, in an elim, prepare for
the next debate.

Tips and Tricks

● Spreading
○ Spreading, or “speed reading”, is a way of talking often done in circuit debate that
involves reading words at over 250 words per minute! It can often sound unintelligible
and even weird, but here are some ways to ensure that your spreading (and ability to
understand it) are on point.
○ Spreading doesn’t have to sound crazy. Common mistakes done by LD debaters include
double breathing or slurring through words. The easiest way to start spreading is by
reading through your words at a conversational pace and then gradually speeding up to
the point where you can talk without stumbling over your voice.
○ The easiest way to explain spreading is by example. So, go to a debate youtube channel
(Victory Briefs, Premier Debate, Debatedrills) and watch a round to observe how
different debaters spread.
○ This is also true for learning to understand spreading. Try finding a video online that has
both the speech doc and the audio (or a round for which you have the speech doc of,

26
 i.e. TOC 2016 and 2018), and compare what you flowed with what was actually on the
speech doc.
○ Learn by example! Ask varsity members on your team to do spreading drills with you.
Some drills include…
■ Pen-in-mouth: put a pen/pencil horizontally in between your teeth so that the
corners of your mouth barely touch the pen. Find an old case or text to read
through as clearly as possible. This is to improve enunciation!
■ Watermelon drill: read through your case, but after every word insert the word
“watermelon” (or any other silly word you can think of). For example, you would
say “I watermelon affirm watermelon this watermelon resolution
watermelon…”)
■ Backwards drill: read through your case backwards (or from the bottom up), so
the order of your words is all jumbled up
■ Any combination of the above!
● Always signpost
○ External: tell the judge what off case position you’re talking about, what turn you’re
responding to, etc.
○ Internal: break up your offense within your case by putting a header on it. You can even
use catchy taglines (like the “model minority”) for more kritikal arguments (ex. Part one
is______)
● Uploading on the Wiki (https://hsld.debatecoaches.org/)
○ Note: After you have broken a new argument on a particular topic at a circuit
tournament, you must upload your files on the wiki at least 30 minutes before your next
round. This means that if it’s the first tournament on that topic, you don’t need to have
anything uploaded before Rounds 1 or 2, but by round 3 all of your things should be
uploaded
○ Log into the wiki using your tabroom email and password
○ Find Archbishop Mitty High School on the side bar
○ If you haven’t already, select “Add Debater” and add yourself
○ Click on your Aff or Neg page
○ Ensure you have a page for Contact Info
■ Add/Modify entry
■ Add a new round
■ Fill in Tournament/Round/Opponent/Judge randomly (not important)
■ Skip Round report >> Go to 3-Cites
■ Entry Title should be “Contact Information”
■ Add in your email, facebook, etc so debaters can contact you
○ Add each of your files
■ Add/Modify entry
■ Add a new round
■ Fill in Tournament/Round/Opponent/Judge (as much as you can, if you don’t
know just say n/a)

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 ■ Fill in Round Report with a few words showing the strat in the round
■ Fill in Cites, and make a new entry per argument (i.e. theory shell, DA, K)
■ If you want, you can put the word document into Open Source instead of cites
(but cites are usually preferred)
■ Go to Submit, and press “Add Entry”
● Time Pressed Prep
○ See what you don’t have prep to
○ Sort between Ks, Theory Interps, FWs, Plans, etc.
○ Overall strategy is more important than actual cards
○ Know the judges and the opponents
○ Control/funnel what the debate comes down to
■ If you want to have a substance debate, you make everything you’re debating
theoretically legitimate (i.e. specific alternatives, only 7 minutes of turns, etc)
■ Write preempts (i.e. theory stuff) against a bad theory debater, etc.
■ Time allocation—spend very little time on what you want to do (i.e. if you’re a
framework debater, the worst part of the case should be framework and the
best part should be contentions, they’ll end up going for FW and the debate
goes in the direction you want)
■ Cross Ex—get tricky concessions or the opposite (i.e. “I’m reading one
unconditional kritik, what theory interps will you read?”)
■ Specialize in arguments that are easily layerable
○ Spikes
■ Good against FW and util, bad against kritiks
■ Follow current debate trends

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Kritiks
What is a Kritik?
A kritik is an argument that attacks an underlying assumption that their opponent perpetuates that
leads to a negative impact (often targeting minority groups/leading to oppression)

Kritiks are some of the most card heavy positions. They can range from identity politics (critiquing
homophobia, ableism, sexism, racism, etc.) to discursive (critiquing language used by the opponent) to
structural (critiquing militarism, capitalism, colonialism) to postmodernism (from authors such as
Deleuze, Baudrillard, Heidegger).

Kritiks can be run by the negative or by the affirmative (the latter often as a non topical position). They
can also be run alongside performances (including displays of rage, poetry, singing, or anything that
further reinforce the position in a more non-traditional way).

Parts of a Kritik
Each of these parts should have at least one piece of carded evidence.

● Link
○ How the aff/neg links in (triggers) what the K is critiquing
○ Identifies a part of the ideology, impact, or rhetoric of the position that is problematic.
○ Good Neg Ks have general topic links and also aff specific links
● Impact
○ Material implications of the Kritik/why the issue you’re critiquing is bad
○ ex. Cap K - dehumanization because people are seen as means to a product
○ Tip: You can find good impact cards in old backfiles that are concise and may be more
difficult to find with normal methods of research
● Alternative
○ Method by which your position solves/mitigates the impact
■ "embrace", "affirm", "support"
○ The alternative is almost a plan, but usually doesn’t use the state (ex. The USFG) as the
actor because the state is usually what is being critiqued
○ Ex. Model Minority Myth - process of “conscientization”
○ Usually the most nuanced position of a K that should be researched extensively with a
lot of frontlines prepared
● Role of the ballot/judge
○ Functions like a framework and explains how the judge should vote
○ Why your framing is good for the debate space

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 ○ Why the judge should care
○ Ex. “The role of the ballot is to vote for the debater who best performatively and
methodologically deconstructs __________”
■ Performatively - refers to pre fiat impacts
■ Methodologically - refers to post fiat impacts

Note: In an affirmative kritik, it may be preferable to order it as ROTB → LINK → IMPACT → ALT instead
of LINK → IMPACT → ALT → ROTB (a neg kritik) so you can extend the ROTB, which dictates the key
offense in the round

Responding to Kritiks
Below is a 7 part process in responding to Kritiks with the acronym “FPOSTAL”. This should be 2:30-3
minutes, maximum, in the 1AR (The aff should already have some offense against a K built into the 1AC,
in which case you should spend more time on the affirmative. Pre write extensions that have built-in
interactions between the aff and the K).

● Framing
○
Link offense to their ROTB - Have offense under their ROTB in case the judge decides to
use their ROTB
○ But more importantly - Weigh between ROTBs (or between ROTB and criterion)
■ Why your criterion/ROTB matters more - is a better way to weigh
■ Ex. Structural violence vs. Critical Pedagogy - material impacts in status quo
preclude the slow (if any) shift that will happen through critical pedagogy and
discourse
○ Role of the negative—does the criticism fit with that role
● Permutation
○ Test of competition - is the alternative mutually exclusive with the affirmative?
■ Either do both the K and your advocacy (if its a mindset shift)
■ Or use a sequencing perm (do the aff/neg first)
○ Show why your opponent’s method isn’t unique to their side of the debate
○ You should also prove why your advocacy is more important, thus doing both weighing
on your case and mitigating the harms in their K
○ Types of Perms
■ Perm do both
■ Perm do the aff and the alt in all other instances
■ Perm do the aff then the alt (when it’s a K)
■ Perm do the alt (severance, but if they drop severance you WIN)
■ Intrinsic Perm
■ Don’t do perm do the aff with the mindset of the K
■ Best permutations are specific (especially with negative state action)
● Ex. Perm get rid of nuclear weapons in the first step of burning it down

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● Offense (aka Turns)
○ The aff/neg makes the issue worse, or perpetuates another issue that is more harmful
than the one they critique
○ Focus on the link/impact
○ Link turn—we solve the K better
● Solvency deficit
○ Alt doesn’t resolve the criticism
○ Alt doesn’t resolve the case - If there's no way that they can resolve the impact, that’s a
risk to go aff (weigh impact)
● Theory
○ NOTE: Be wary of using theory, especially on identity Ks, unless absolutely necessary. It’s
easy to say that your use of theory “silences” the side running the K. However, if you
must, here are some examples:
○ Topicality
■ GOOD STRATEGY TO USE: If someone runs a random K aff that may or may not
be topical, read a T argument and a generic DA/CP (double bind: if their K is
non-topical then it runs into T but if it is topical, it runs into the DA/CP)
○ Floating PIKs bad
■ PIKs are “plan inclusive kritiks” that can solve for the world of the aff (i.e. saying
that the K is a prereq to the plan to solve for the aff)
■ Set up in cross: “can any part of the aff happen in the world of the neg?”
○ Utopian fiat bad
■ Use against Kritiks that argue for a mindset shift, it’s “utopian” to think that the
mindset of people will automatically change by endorsing their alternative
○ Vague alts are bad
○ Performative contraction—you link back into your own K (theoretical objection for the
same reasons that condo is bad)
■ Do they link into their own K? (be very aware of this when responding to
discursive kritiks that are critiquing a word you used, it isn’t uncommon for
debaters to slip and use the word too)
● Alternative Debate
○ The alt is usually the most vague part of the K
○ Independent DA on the Alt - independent reason for why the alt would be problematic
■ Ex. Anarchy DA to Alt being state bad
■ Turns to the Alt!
■ Can you turn the link and the alternative?
● Ex. Cap K with alt of socialism
● Yes, you can say that the aff decreases capitalism but also that socialism
is bad
○ Aff is a DA to the Alt - Alt doesn’t solve the case, usually used with a permutation
● Link Debate

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 ○ No link - aff doesn't link into kritik
○ Uniqueness overwhelms the link - Whatever they're arguing has no basis because it’s so
deeply ingrained in society
■ Ex. You say aff is capitalist but everything is cap
○ Question specificity of the link -- is it specific to the aff?
■ Use when there are only generic links/moments in cross ex
■ Just because the world is bad doesn’t mean the aff is bad
■ They haven't proven that the aff has doesn’t anything wrong
■ Ex. the burden is not on the aff to prove that they are not anti black, the burden
is on the neg to prove that the aff is anti black

Extending
● “Package” necessary for good K debate (bolded should be in 1NC)
○ Label—name of the link
○ The aff’s relation to the link
○ The impact of the link
○ How the impact of this link outweighs the aff
○ How the impact of the link turns the aff
○ How the impact turns the perm
○ How the alt solves/addresses the link
○ There should be 2-3 link packages per round, 1.5 minutes per link package (2 cards, and
also a third link that may have come from cross examination). You can collapse onto one
link by the NR
● Kicking the Alternative
○ One strategic move you can use on the negative Kritik is to kick the alternative (make
sure you specify it’s condo in CX if asked) and go for presumption in the NR
○ If you win a risk of link + unique impact, that turns the affirmative because it proves the
affirmative hasn’t made a substantial change to the squo
○ Have to be very clear about why the judge should vote on presumption—”if there’s a
risk of x, or if x causes y then you vote negative on presumption”
○ Must prove the structural critique means terminal defense on the aff
○ Link packages come in really handy here
■ You must contextualize link arguments to specific things the affirmative has
done
■ Generic arguments are bad, you need specific links and impacts that function as
independent DAs to the aff
○ Against phil affs, you don’t need any uniqueness for links because the aff is deontologist
and only cares about intentions
● Kritikal Tricks
○ Floating PIK (Plan Inclusive Kritik)
■ Says that the plan can happen in the world of the K

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 ■ Says that you should exclude the one part of the aff that’s problematic
■ Regular PIK makes it explicit in the 1NC that the plan can happen
■ Abusive because the aff has to somehow gain offense of an aff that has no net
benefit at this point
■ Preempt it in the 1AR - paragraph theory about why they shouldn’t get the
floating PIK

What is Critical Thinking?

● Tradition Theories – makes a distinction between subject and object
○ The subject can stand independently outside the object which they are attempting to
theorize
○ there is a world that exists independently of the observer and it simply waiting to be
discovered
○ the subject can suspend cultural, linguistic, social, and historical biases
○ Ex. Realism and Liberalism, Peace and Conflict Studies, Strategic Studies
● Critical Theories – alternatively deny the possibility of a separation between subject and object
○ the subject is embedded and situated in social and political life
○ theories are thus irreducibly related to social life - they are not and cannot be simply
objective descriptions of what is
○ critical theory is concerned with the purposes and functions of social theories
● These understand results in different methodological implications
○ Methodology versus Methods
■ Methodology is an approach to the world – its makes epistemological and
ontological claims about the world as a means of determining how we research
the world
■ Methods are the particular techniques through which we research the world
■ different methods can work under different methodologies
○ Positivism versus Post-Positivism and Interpretivism
■ Positivism says assertions can be scientifically verified and or is capable of logical
or mathematical proofs, world can be neatly broken into“variables” (emphasizes
the verifiability and falsifiability of claims)
■ Interpretivism aims at understanding events by discovering the motivations
human beings attribute to their behavior and the external world - favors
qualitative, case study oriented methods
■ Post-Positivism accepts that biases of the researchers are undesirable but
inevitable, knowledge is not based on a priori assessments from an objective
individual, but rather upon human conjecture (not relativism), Critical Theory
falls within this understanding of methodology

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Theory
What is Theory?
Theory is a “higher layer” of argumentation that proposes rules for debate by pointing out an unfair or
non educational practice by the opposing debater. It’s a “higher layer” because it supersedes more
“substantive” arguments (framework, contention, kritik) and MUST be won to win the rest of the round.
This means that even if you turn all of their arguments, if you don’t adequately respond to a theory shell
run against you, you could still lose. That’s because it determines whether the substantive debate is
skewed in the first place.

Theory doesn’t have to be warranted by a majorly unfair practice. Most times, debaters run theory
arguments for the sake of winning, not fixing a rule violation. This means that you should always be
prepared to have a theory debate even if you don’t think you broke any rules. On the flip side, you can
also prep out strategic theory shells against inexperienced theory debaters (although this is a little rude).

Sound confusing? Don’t worry, most theory is organized into a template called a “shell”, and
writing/responding to theory is as easy as following this template.

Parts of a Theory Shell

A. Interpretation
● The rule/advocacy you are proposing
● Prescriptive, not descriptive (ex. Instead of “PICs abad”, say “Debaters must not read PICs”
● Be as specific as possible - you want to make sure that they can’t claim to “meet” the rule (thus
nullifying the theory argument)

B. Violation
● How your opponent violated the interpretation
● List a few reasons why
○ Find an example in case (ex. If the interp is PICs bad, quote the text of the PIC and point
out how it’s inclusive of the plan/resolution)
○ Get a concession in cross examination (you can straight up ask) → cross is “binding”,
meaning that your opponent is accountable for everything they concede during cross

C. Standards (see next section for a list)

● Why the rule is fair/educational (usually have around three)
● Catchy name + why the rule is important to fairness and education

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 ● Keep concise! Most people run long, explained out standards which takes time away from their
speech. Make sure you’re able to explain the standard for cross examination/later speeches, but
you shouldn’t spend too much time on them.
● This is where the template is important → you can essentially come up with an
interpretation/violation and swap out different standards to match the interp

D. Voters
● Values of the theory debate
● Usually fairness/education (unless T debate)
● Fairness is a voter because debate is a competitive (vote for the better debater not the better
cheater), we should be on equal playing field
● Education is a voter because schools fund debate because it is and educational activity.
Education is something you take away from the debate (portable skills)

E. Theory “Implications” (often included in voters)

● Drop the Debater/Drop the Argument
○ DTD (person who initiates theory)
■ The person who violated the interpretation should automatically lose if they
lose the theory debate
■ Why? (a) Need to deter future abuse, (b) You had to waste time on your shell
instead of doing more beneficial things
○ DTA (response)
■ Only the abusive argument should be “dropped” from the round if they lose the
theory debate
■ Why? Abuse being checked back already because the abusive argument doesn’t
matter, the debate should be centered around substance
● Competing Interps/Reasonability
○ Competing Interps (person who initiates theory or responder)
■ Weighs Interp and Counter Interp, you have to show that your model of the
debate is more ideal than your opponent’s
■ You don’t necessarily need an explicit counter interpretation—there’s always an
implicit counter interp on what the better world is
■ Why? (a) Competing interp good for in depth discussions on what a good round
looks like, (b) Reasonability arbitrary – the judge has to interpret what is
“reasonable”, (c) Reasonability leads to a “race to the bottom” - People can be
as abusive as possible as long as they are “reasonable”, (d) You can always make
exceptions to the reasonability brightline based on the abuse story, so
competing interps is better
○ Reasonability (response)
■ Meeting a threshold - unfairness and lack of education is only bad to a certain
point

35
 ■ Explain how you meet your brightline/how you are being reasonable specifically
■ Why? (a) Leads to a race to the top, (b) There can always be a marginally better
rule, so CI isn’t productive, (c) CI crowds out substance by forcing every round to
be about theory
■ Read a brightline on reasonability!
● Gut check—the judge’s feelings on whether something is good because
they are less biased than debaters (probably a bad brightline because
leads to judge intervention)
● Structural abuse—determine if there is a quantifiable skew in the
burden structure
○ Ex. if someone runs 10 PICs against me, I would have to respond
to all of them so that leads to a quantifiable skew, compared to
someone running one plan, where there isn’t much of a
quantifiable skew
○ Quantifiable—who has more burdens (not about how great the
burdens are)
○ Bad because it’s pretty arbitrary, doesn’t account for education,
treats all burdens equally, and necessitates that every theory
objection including T should have an RVI
● Running a qualified solvency advocate/disclosure/planks
○ This brightline could justify literally anything—you could
disclose a plan that affects one person with a high school
solvency advocate and it meets the brightline
■ Response: weigh the offense of their interpretation against the reasonability
brightline
● The brightline says that the interpretation shouldn’t be included in
debate in the first place
● Reasonability means that you wouldn’t vote on my interp, but you’ve
already agreed my interp is good for debate
■ Note: If education matters and should be maximized, reasonability is only a
constraint on fairness standards (if you’re reading fairness and education
standards and someone runs reasonability with structural abuse, they still don’t
account for the education standards)
○ In round abuse vs. Norm setting
■ In round abuse deals with solving impacts within the round
■ Norm setting is concerned with how this specific theory debate leads to long
term impacts on the precedent of debate
■ Why could in round abuse be more important?
● Jurisdiction: the judge’s authority to vote on theory is because
something bad has happened within this round and they don’t have an
obligation to fix future abuse

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 ● No RVIs/RVIs
○ No RVIs (person who initiates theory)
■ Only the side that initiates the theory should be able to win the round as a
result of the theory shell
■ Why? (a) You shouldn’t win for proving that you’re fair, (b) We should stop the
“chilling effect” on theory where abuse is unchecked for fear that they will lose
to good theory debaters
○ RVIs (response)
■ Both sides should be able to gain offense off of the theory debate (whoever
wins theory wins the round)
■ Why? (a) Theory is a two way street, if you can win I should be able to too, (b)
Deters people from running frivolous theory and winning off of it
● Structuring your shell
○ Be efficient but read the interpretation slowly
○ Consider ditching the interp format, just say “this argument (ex. Condo) is a voting
issue” instead of using the full shell format
○ Add a “to clarify” plank if your interp is complicated and explain exactly what they did

Example List of Standards

● Standards that impact to FAIRNESS
○ Time Skew
■ 7463 - the aff has a time pressed 1AR and neg has the 1NC
■ Aff needs to have outs—giant NC or NR dumps are impossible for the 1AR and
2AR to answer
■ Key to fairness because time is only structural fairness constraint going into the
round
○ Strat Skew
■ Matter of "outs" to win the debate
■ Best example - conditional counterplans
● When you're in prep time, you don't know what to cover because their
strategy is impossible to determine
■ Key to fairness because I need to form a coherent strategy to win the round
○ Reciprocity
■ I have to do x and you don't have to do x
■ Example - NIB (you have to answer it but you can't win off of itN)
● They just have to win that it's incoherent or false
● You have to win that its coherent and true
■ Example - A Priori
● "Resolved = resolved means that it’s already true"
■ Key to fairness because we should have same burdens going into the round
○ Flexibility

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 ■ Debating one side is harder than the other
■ I need to be able to do x because aff speech times short OR aff gets first and last
speech
■ Aff needs options bc neg bias (insert statistic)
● Standards that impact to FAIRNESS and EDUCATION
○ Clash
■ When you cannot engage in an argument
■ Ex. ILaw/Polls frameworks are impossible to debate
■ Key to fairness because you need to prove you're right for the judge to vote for
you
■ Key to education because you can't learn if the arguments don't interact
○ Stable Advocacy (Moving Target)
■ You cannot shift your advocacy in the next speech
■ Ex. The affirmative specifies a new part of their plan in the 1AR that the 1NC
could have never predicted
■ Subset of Strat Skew
■ Key to fairness because you can get out of any turns or moot NC speech time
■ Key to education because debaters must learn how to defend claims
○ Predictability
■ Ex. hyper specific plan texts because the negative couldn’t have predicted the
specific claims made by the 1AR
■ Key to fairness because you can't answer the argument
■ Key to education because of clash
○ Ground
■ The opponent takes away the arguments you can run
■ Ex. PICs take away ground from the aff by conceding that most of the Aff is true
while gaining offense off of one small part
■ Key to fairness because you need to access arguments to win
■ Key to education because we can't be educated by all the other DAs, CPs, Ks,
NCs that are destroyed by the loss of ground
● Standards that impact to EDUCATION
○ Policy Making skills
■ We need to know how to defend past policies and emulate policy makers as
active citizens of the government
■ Ex. Plans good
○ Phil education
■ If their model of debate forces less framework debate, less phil education
■ Ex. AFC bad shell (only letting affirmative choose the framework kills our ability
to discuss philosophy)
■ PF and policy don't really talk about LD style phil (unique to LD)
○ Topic education
■ They destroy discussion on the topic education

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 ■ Links to ground
■ We only have two months to debate this resolution
○ Breadth and depth
■ Breadth - learning a little bit about everything
● Good because more exposure
● We can't get that much depth in a short debate we might as well do a
lot about everything
■ Depth - learning a lot about one thing
● Ex. Plan (about super soldier)
● We'll forget stuff unless we go in depth
○ Real world education
■ Your position is educational because it ignores realities of things
■ Misapplies policies - not real world to advocate for counterplan that fiats ending
wars
■ Too unrealistic to be educational
● Independent Voters
○ Evidence Ethics
■ Key to education and fairness
■ Not justifiable for schools to spend money on an activity where people are just
making evidence up
■ If one person is making up all their card vs researching → key to fairness
○ Resolvability
■ The judge needs to make a decision
■ If the round isn't resolved, nothing is defined
■ Controls the internal link to fairness because you stop the judge from being able
to meet their burden and vote on the round

Responding to Theory
● Counter interpretations
○ Counter interpretations are written as “counter rules” to the interpretation.
○ Use planks (or different conditions) to mitigate offense
■ Think of an exception
■ Ex. we get to do ___ if it’s a new Aff, solves for predictability and you need
access to different prep)
■ Ex. No PICs but my PIC, have a card that says that my PIC is core of topic
literature (solves limits because there’s only one PIC, topic lit)
■ Ex. Disclosure, Solvency Advocate planks
■ Should be specific to the round, if the Aff did ___ abusive thing (turn the
counter interpretation into something you can generate your own
interpretation offense off of)

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 ■ Leverage past interpretations into new counter interpretations (ex. If you run
NIBs bad, they run condo bad, cross apply the NIBs bad argument into the
planks of the condo bad counter interpretation, abuse in the 1AC compensates)
○ Always have offense linking back to both voters if your opponent has both fairness
and education
■ Difficult to weigh between standards, it’s always a strength of link question
○ Impact Turn standards
■ Predictability bad—critical thinking skills, real world education
■ Limits bad—critical thinking with engaging on broader topics
■ Phil ed is bad—people make terrible phil arguments
■ Fairness bad—hard debate is good debate, forces critical decision making skills
■ Use side bias to impact turn standards
● Reasonability
○ Make sure to make arguments about why reasonability > counter interps!
○ Reasonability is the argument that you are “reasonably” meeting the rule so there isn’t
any real abuse—also used if you are making arguments like “cross examination solves”
or why side bias outweighs
○ Most strategic strategy is to construct a short counter interpretation but also put
offense the original shell, then make arguments why reasonability is better than
competing interps
● K outweighs theory
○ See page 49
○ The gist of this argument is that you shouldn’t have to engage with the theory debate on
the line by line because the introduction of theory is exclusionary and leads to the
impacts you talk about in the K
● I Meets
○ Press them on the language they use in their interpretation, make semantic “I Meets”
that you don’t violate their interpretation
○ Make an “I Meet” dump in the 1AR
○ Text of the Interpretation—attacks wording in the interpretation, better for norm
setting and specific interpretations good (stable advocacy)
○ Spirit of the interpretation—attacks the concept behind the interpretation, better for
deterring frivolous I meets
● You violate
○ Reasons why they violate their own shell which would evidently moot the theory debate
○ You can also gain additional offense by saying that they should be held to a higher
standard, they knew the rule was important but chose to violate it anyways
● Metatheory
○ Metatheory is reasons why their way of introducing/debating theory is bad
○ Some examples include “negatively worded interps bad” and “paragraph theory bad”
○ Metatheory can be strategic if there are many theory shells that you have to respond to,
because metatheory will always uplayer theory in the round.

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 ● Truth Testing ROTB
○ The judge has an obligation to vote strictly on the resolution’s truth or falsity, and so
they don’t get access to theory
○ Be wary of this! Tricks debaters often use this to take out theory

Theory Weighing
● Weighing is just risk analysis: severity of something happening x probability of something
happening
● Education vs. Fairness weighing
● Weighing based on the speech
○ 1AR theory vs. 1NC theory, 2NR theory bad etc.
○ Could be challenged based on the circumstance, can’t account for p
● T outweighs Theory
○ Procedural weighing
○ if the affirmative is making a substantive skew that prevents the neg from engaging well,
neg abuse is inevitable
● Out of round/In round
○ How directly is something implicating the outcome of the round?
○ Kind of a reversibility argument—things that happen outside of round can be
compensated for by other practices
○ Jurisdiction (judge should vote on a shell that directly affects the ballot)
● Reversibility
○ Mitigates the strength of link to the initial theory shell
○ You may not have access to ___ argument, but you still get access to ___
● 2NR/2AR
○ Start with your own standards, extend them very in depth
○ Embed comparative weighing between your standard and your opponent’s standards
○ Your weighing should be hyper-specific and embedded in the extensions
○ Sit down on one argument and win on that shell
● Collapsing to theory in the NR/2AR
○ In the NC and 1AR, it’s about super efficient line by line and not dropping anything,
while the NR and 2AR should be about comparison between impacts and
conceptualizing this hyper technical debate in an intuitive way
○ World comparison, be super general and explain why the line by line doesn’t matter
○ Start the NR/2AR with a big picture explanation of the theory debate
■ They don’t have any offense/they screwed up/they missed the big picture
■ All of their arguments can be solved/outweighed/etc. by ___
■ Tell the judge why they shouldn’t vote on something you conceded
(explain why you dropped things)
■ Frame what is most important
○ Always do a ton of weighing from the POV of one argument

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 ○ Strategically concede weighing arguments
■ In the 2AR, if they make an argument like strat skew is important, then collapse
on one internal link to strat skew
■ Explain why new arguments are good with intuitive, in depth explanation “The
issue would be irresolvable without this new weighing” or say you’re responding
to new 2NR weighing
■ New arguments should be intuitive
○ Don’t bother extending interpretation and violations (just say “PICs are bad and a voting
issue”), reference paradigm issues briefly even if they’re conceded
○ NR should be very preemptive and tell the judge why they can’t vote on arguments the
2AR will go for
■ Ex. Don’t give them access to new weighing arguments in the 2AR especially if
they’re initiating theory in the 1AR
■ “This is what they’re going to say, this is why it’s false—look towards these
specific arguments on the flow”
○ 2AR should only go for theory, you won’t have enough time for both
○ Be big picture with examples with what debaters can do in the world of the
interpretation vs. the world of the counter interpretation

How to Prep for Theory Outside of Round

● Theory is essentially a world comparison between you and your opponents’ ideal models of
debate. You have to have a vision of what the perfect round looks like, and be devoted to this
ideal vision.
● Think through different scenarios of actual rounds to brainstorm what sort of theory interps may
come up
○ If I make x argument, what are all the possible scenarios that could come up? How do I
pinpoint the abuse of this particular argument?
○ Think about theory in a casual context
● Writing your theory file
○ Have a list of theory shells to write, give yourself a minute of prep, extemp the shells
until the shells were good, write them into your file, and then edit until they are perfect
○ Write out standard voter section for theory and T and make them the most efficient
■ Write out reasonability vs. competing interps debate (brightlines/responses to
brightlines for the reasonability debate)
■ Write out RVIs good and bad
■ Write out fairness is/is not a voter (especially in terms of the K), and education
is/is not a voter
■ Write out Drop the Debater/Drop the Argument
■ Weighing between voters (T>Theory, Theory>T, NC theory outweighs, 1AR
theory outweighs, etc.)
○ Dump on the side bias debate (list of reasons and weighing between the reasons)

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 ○ Metatheory good vs Metatheory bad
○ Text vs. Spirit of the interp
○ Norm setting vs. In round abuse
○ Fairness not a voter
● Drilling theory
○ Have four speech mini theory debates with friends
○ Give yourself an interpretation and make yourself extemp the shell, do redoes where
you cut down the time of the shell
○ Pull up a backfile theory shell, line by line the interpretation with 30 seconds of prep
until it’s maximally efficient
○ Pull up tricky positions and generate interpretations—practice initiates specific
interpretation
○ Pull up a fair position, generate interpretations, and defend the fair position (theory
debate yourself)
○ Watch theory rounds and redo speeches from the round
○ Have conversations with people about debate norms

Spikes
● Spikes are short, blippy theory arguments usually made in the 1AC that debaters extend in the
1AR/2AR when conceded to win the round. The easiest way to beat back spikes is by responding
to all of them—just in a very time efficient way. As long as you have some ink on the flow, they
won’t be inclined to go for the spike.
● Some examples…
○ Neg must have one unconditional route to the ballot
■ This could mean that you can only turn the aff once, have one unconditional
advocacy, or that you can’t run theory!
○ Side bias claims—statistics show it’s harder to affirm
○ All theory arguments have to be weighed against time skew
○ All neg interps are counterinterps + No Neg RVIs
■ Premised on counter interps being read after interps, “implicit interps” in the AC
■ Whenever neg reads theory, it’s not offense
■ Neg can never win on theory
● Responding to Spikes
○ Flow very carefully—dedicate enough time to reading through the spikes
■ Respond to the case by going over the underview first, and should have at least
3 minutes to go over the case
■ Put overview arguments that give you outs in the NR to recover
○ Thompson article
■ Spikes are exclusionary—difficult to read especially for people of learning
disabilities

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 ■ If you don’t complete an argument with implications in the affirmative, it’s not
an argument, spikes aren’t arguments until the 1AR so you should get new NR
responses to spikes
■ Strat skew—you don’t know how spikes are applied until NR
○ Practice reading responses to common spikes to get more efficient
■ Most spikes are easy to generate theory interps against
■ Read metatheory arguments to flagrantly abusive spikes (i.e. A2 neg only gets
one route to ballot)
■ Read counterinterps to shells you think you might violate even if you’re not sure
○ Turn the time skew argument—gets rid of a lot of their spikes that are justified by time
skew and shows they violate their own shell

K vs. Theory
● Why K > Theory
○ Theory arguments trade off with the dialogue that is important to resolving the impacts
of the K, greater impact than the ground or education they say they are losing
○ Their model of fairness and education is skewed without considering the K
● Why Theory > K
○ Constrains whether or not the criticism is true (If there’s unfairness, I can’t substantively
engage with your K argument so we never know if the K argument is true because it was
procedurally excluded from responding to the K)
○ Theory leads to better norms on the kritik (Ex. If someone runs 10 a prioris in the kritik,
it would lead to bad K debate, theory leads to better engagement in the long term)
● Theory tricks against K
○ Don’t call fairness fairness, just call it “in round competitive equity”—use rhetoric that
doesn’t refer to debate as a game
○ Link your shells to the ROTB
■ You have much more specific offense about how you outweigh
■ “Theory might be bad, but now I’m reclaiming theory in a way that leads to
better engagement”
○ Also engage well with the K substantively
○ Make arguments about agonistic pluralism to take out arguments about why you should
lose for read theory
■ Engaging in debate by using different positions (regardless of whether they’re
right or wrong) is good
■ Just excluding theory from the debate space is bad because you’re procedurally
getting rid of a an argument which is bad for discourse
○ Fair version of the K
■ Explain what a fair version of the K looks like
■ This is important for improving kritikal debate—norm setting
○ Restructure the theory shell like a K or a PIC

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 ■ Both theory and K propose a rule/model debaters should follow
■ “Embrace the advocacy but without the 3 minute theory underview”

LARP
What is LARP?
LARP Debate stands for Live Action Role Playing, or a fancy term for policy style arguments in LD. This
includes plan affs, counterplans, and disadvantages.

Plan affs usually modify the resolution to (a) include the USFG/governmental agency as the actor, (b)
replace words of moral obligation (like “ought”) with words of governmental obligation (like “should”),
and (c) make much more specific (i.e. for a carbon tax topic, a plan aff would list the exact amount or
percent of the tax).

Disadvantages point out a specific problem that could arise when either passing the plan or affirming
the resolution. Common DAs include politics DAs (where affirming uses up political capital needed for a
different issues), election DAs (the affirmative shifts potential election results to something
unfavorable), or economy DAs (the affirmative is bad for the economy). However, these vary from topic
to topic and should be very specific.

Counterplans are negative arguments that should both solve for the advantages of the plan while avoid
the issues of the affirmative. CPs are typically run alongside a DA that the CP solves but the aff does not.
A common type of CP is a PIC (plan inclusive counterplan) which is inclusive of a large portion of the plan
but excludes one minute portion.

A counterplan should be mutually exclusive (cannot work with the Affirmative) either functionally or
textually. Functional competition means that the counterplan, implemented, cannot work with the
affirmative. Textual counterplans add or remove something from the plan.

Make sure you have a solvency advocate for the counterplan that is usually grounded in the topic
literature to avoid theory arguments.

You could also read one card counterplans in the 1NC and read a bunch of 2NR cards to explain the
solvency of the counterplans. This could be a better strategy because (1) they won’t answer the
counterplan as robustly as they should and (2) makes the 2AR hard.

Counterplans can be conditional, dispositional, or unconditional—if you are affirmative debating a

counterplan, make sure to clarify during cross examination. Conditional means the negative can kick out
of (drop) the CP at any time without any repercussions, dispositional means that the the negative can
only kick out under certain conditions

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(i.e. they can’t kick out if the CP is straight turned). Unconditional means the negative cannot kick out of
the CP without repercussions.

Tips for Researching LARP

● Policy Affirmatives
○ 2 pieces of evidence in each advantage (harms evidence + solvency)
○ Ex. Miscalculation argument (nuclear miscalculation leads to war + why the 1AC resolves
miscalculation)
○ Block every single 1NC argument in the wiki in the context of your aff
○ Against any one of their pieces of evidence, you need 2 + 1 responses you can read in
the 1AR (good ethos, makes the NR harder)
● Policy Disads
○ 4 pieces of evidence for each part of the disadvantage shell in the 1NC
○ 5 cards for each part of the disadvantage for your NR (ex. 5 different uniqueness
evidence that you can pick from in the NR)
● Policy Counterplans
○ Counterplan text with very specific solvency advocate
○ Solvency evidence that shows how the CP resolves what the Aff does not
○ Net benefit evidence that shows why the Aff is bad
○ 2+1 responses for each of their responses on the CP

Parts of a Plan
A plan must meet a checklist of the five stock issues that form an acronym (SHITS)
● Solvency
○ Does the plan solve the issue the affirmative is presenting?
○ Does the plan have a solvency advocate (an author) that warrants why the affirmative
plan specifically is the right answer?
● Harms
○ What sorts of issues are addressed by the affirmative?
● Inherency
○ Why is the affirmative unique from the status quo?
○ Is the present system failing to solve the problem?
● Topicality
○ Is the affirmative appropriately affirming the words in the resolution?
○ If the affirmative doesn’t meet the resolution, do they have adequate counter
interpretations prepared to defend the non-topical elements of the plan?
● Significance
○ Why should the impacts of the affirmative be prioritized?
○ Why are the harms the affirmative presents worse than negative impacts? (Do Impact
Calculus)

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Plans can differ in the format, but a typical plan is made up of inherency evidence, the advantages
(Harms + Significance/Impacting), the plan text, and solvency for the plan.

In LD, it is important that you have frameworks that justify why policy making is good in order to tackle
issues. In addition, diversify impacts (one of your advantages should be about SV) or write a “soft left”
aff that has a built in SV framework and impacts to mostly SV. Otherwise, go for util or some other
governmental obligation-type framework arguments.

Writing Narrow Plans

● A narrow plan is a very specific portion of the resolution that the Affirmative will defend.
● Examples include…
○ In the US, national service ought to be compulsory
■ “The fifty state governments of the US ought to require graduates of generally
family medicine residency programs to complete one year of national service as
a prerequisite to receiving license for private practice”
○ Wealthy nations ought to give development assistance to other nations
■ “Wealthy nations ought to provide water and sanitation assistance other
nations”
■ “Wealthy nations ought to provide assistance to malaria prevention to other
nations”
○ Plea bargaining ought to be abolished in the United States
■ “Resolved: The SCOTUS ought to abolish plea bargaining over deportation due
process rights in the US criminal justice system by ruling that those please
violate the rights to effective assistance”
● Why?
○ Prep Disparities—best to select down to a subset of an Affirmative
○ Better policy education, teaches you the specifics of everything
○ Makes it impossible to negate
○ Much more strategic than things like frivolous theory
● How do you start writing plans?
○ Never start with a specific plan in mind—only general thoughts
■ Let the literature guide your thoughts and give you specifics on how these
specific plans function
■ Best solvency advocates with amazing empirics
○ It’s good when negative authors reference your plan as an exception
■ “Developmental assistance is bad EXCEPT for the instance of malaria and water
sanitation”
○ Set news updates about your plan, read every single fact
■ Know which states your plan has inherency is in

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 ■ Know the titles of these court cases
■ Know past instances of the plan being implemented
■ You can roast them on specifics!
○ Need to avoid the 50 States CP
■ Make sure that the federal government is key
■ Need tricks (i.e. the Deportation Aff)
● Most of the advantages from federal prosecutors
● SCOTUS action avoids politics DAs
● Implicit advantage to your agent doing the plan (with a very vague tag)
○ Have a defense of every word in the plan
○ Need to know how the plan is done
■ Specify everything including how it’s enforced, funded, etc.
■ Stops the negative from running a spec shell , you can still go for why specific
education is good
● Responding to T
○ Be shocked as to why they ran T
○ Never undercover T
■ Counter interp with 2-3 standards and implicit weighing, 4-5 responses to every
standard
■ Good reasonability responses
■ Force them to go for a bad DA that doesn’t apply into the Aff
○ Preempt
■ The 1AR will be difficult (ex. 1NC dumps that are T, Midterms, Kant, Process CP)
■ Reasons why the aff is reasonable, Reason why RVIs are good, Reasons why
whole res is bad in the Underview
■ Make it hard for a neg to read the position in the first place
○ Multiple strategies
■ Engage with T theoretically (CI and Reasonability good, A2 Their Standards)
■ Cards like Crenshaw 94 - judge should frame the 1AC policy discussion by
rejecting oppression
● Race based arguments come first
● “X app Crenshaw, the procedural exclusion of advocacies of minority
students is bad”
● Really good way to weigh against T
● Dealing with Negative Cheating in the 1AR
○ Case extensions and A2 most common responses should be scripted
○ Be offensive—impact turn disads!!!
■ You basically create a third advantage in the affirmative
○ 1AR Theory
■ Always go for condo for like five seconds, “conditionality is a voting issue
because 7463 time skew”

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 ○ Effective preemption
■ If you think negs go for politics DA, have 2-3 cards in the aff that says
“probability first”, “big stick impacts are bad”
● Framework Stuff
○ Smith and Curry evidence about material impacts, say the standard is “mitigating
oppression” but it’s actually util
○ Six consequentialism justifications
● A2 Kritiks
○ Preempt the Ks, there should be a section in the aff that starts about how the state
solves
○ Cards like “plan debate K2 specific education”, incentivizes research that pushes one
beyond oneself (good response to kritiks about the self)
○ Cut K cards that defend your aff, beat them on specificity

Responding to a Plan
This section is not super detailed as you should read through the 5 stock issues the affirmative must
prove (see page x), ask yourself the questions, and poke holes in each of the affirmative burdens.

In addition, it is recommended to run either a kritikal argument (most kritiks link well to plan arguments
that utilize the USFG), or a combination of some sort of independent disads and counterplan.

Parts of a Disadvantage
● Uniqueness
○ Something that’s happening in the status quo that the plan will change
○ Evidence should be as new as possible
● Link
○ How the plan will change the status quo
○ I.e. “Passing a carbon tax will flip the midterms election”, “Passing the plan will stop
immigration reform from happening”, “the Aff kills the economy”
● Internal Link
○ How this change in the status quo would lead to the impact
○ Any additional cards that clarify the connection between the aff and the terminal impact
● Impact
○ The ultimate consequence of passing the affirmative
○ I.e. an Impeachment DA could impact to extinction if the internal link scenario talks
about why Trump could increase global warming + global warming leading to extinction

Responding to a Disadvantage
● Uniqueness

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 ○ 1AR: Attack their uniqueness (say the uniqueness isn’t as urgent) and force them to
strengthen their uniqueness evidence in the 2NR
○ 2AR: Go for uniqueness overwhelms the link (the uniqueness is so strong that the link
isn’t enough to trigger it) using lines in their 2NR evidence strengthening their
uniqueness
● Link/Internal link
○ Defense—”no link” (aff doesn’t link into the impacts)
○ Offense—”link turn” (aff actually reverses the impacts)
○ Link differential—define who triggers the link harder
○ Links not unique to the affirmative
○ Straight turn
■ You non-unique the uniqueness evidence (i.e. in response to “Dems win now”
you say “GOP wins now”
■ You turn the link (i.e. in response to “plan flips the election so GOP wins”, you
say “plan flips the election so Dems win”)
● Impact
○ Defense
■ Mitigatory—reasons why the impact is unlikely to happen or why it won’t do as
much damage as the negative says
■ Terminal—reasons why the impact won’t happen at all
○ Offense
■ Impact turn—why the impact happening is actually good/beneficial, contrary to
what the negative says
■ Make sure you don’t pair this with a link turn and double turn yourself!
○ Reasons why the aff solves the impacts independently

Writing the Midterms DA

● Midterm elections are an election that happens every 4 years between presidential elections in
both the House and the Senate.
○ Can change the face of the House and the Senate
○ 2018—Republicans could get a supermajority (over ⅔ of Senate seats), which could
bypass the veto, stop filibusters, select SCOTUS seat, and controls impeachment
● Parts of the DA (5 cards)
○ Uniqueness: Dems win now
○ Link: plan is significant so it flips x (certain voting groups, i.e. base, moderates, Identity
group, one regional state), but x is uniquely key to flipping the vote
○ Internal link: Dems win solves x or GOP win causes x
○ Impact: X leads to extinction
● Example
○ Democrats will win now, momentum because Trump kind of sucks

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 ○ Plan flips because getting rid of nuclear weapons would appease GOP and decrease Dem
turnout
○ GOP gets a supermajority, Trump passes wall/arms teachers/etc.
● Responding
○ Impact turn—i.e. Impeachment bad, impeachment leads to backlash
○ Attack the internal link (usually pretty sketchy)
○ Impact defense—midterms won’t change x
● Reverse Politics DA
○ Uniqueness: GOP wins now
○ Link: Plan flips x and leads to dems win
○ Internal link: Dems win causes x or GOP win solves x
○ Impact: X leads to extinction

Parts of a Counterplan
● Plan Text
○ Should be very specific and clear
○ Can have multiple “planks”, or parts to the counterplan
● Competition
○ Proves that the counterplan is legitimate negative ground because it is different from
the affirmative
○ Mutually exclusive (you physically can't do both)
■ Textual—the wording of the CP text is different from the 1AC
■ Functional—the actions that the CP would take are different from the 1AC
○ Net Benefits
■ Why the negative world is net beneficial
■ Why the negative won’t cause a DA that the affirmative does
■ All counterplans have internal net benefit (why CP is good) or an external net
benefit (why the Aff is bad)
● Solvency
○ Why the CP will solve for the harms outlined by the 1AC
○ Preferable to have a “solvency advocate”, or a specific piece of evidence that outlines
for the specific plan the CP introduces, this shows that the CP is not abusive or
unrealistic and is actually a part of the core topic literature.

Types of Counterplans
● Advantage Counterplans
○ Solve advantages of the Affirmative with a different mechanism
○ Sometimes not mutually exclusive
○ Avoids most theoretical questions

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 ○ Strat: Go for two conditional advantage counterplans and then impact turn both of the
advantages, whichever impact turn they overcover you go for that counterplan and you
kick the other one.
● Agent Counterplans
○ Do the affirmative but with a different agent/actor enacting the aff
○ Ex. the 50 States counterplan, often good with a Politics DA, you always want federal
government key cards to refute the state counterplan
● Plan Inclusive Counterplans
○ Do almost the entirety of the affirmative with a few exceptions
○ Prone to theory arguments
○ PICs are usually legitimate if there is a solvency advocate
○ Strat: go for a process PIC, they are usually theoretically legitimate if you have a good
solvency advocate
● Consult Counterplans
○ Consult x country or x agent before you do the plan
○ Usually picks out of certainty (fiating a plan assumes the plan will happen, but the
consult counterplan says that it would not happen in some conditions)
○ Also prone to theory arguments (stealing the aff ground, etc.)
● Delay Counterplans
○ Delay the plan from happening until x happens
○ “We should delay the aff until after midterms”
● Sunset Counterplan
○ Pass the plan and reexamine it in x amount of time to see if we should repeal it
○ Probably not a good counterplan because it’s so ridiculous
● Analytic counterplans
○ Against non topical affirmatives, if they talk about the topic, PIC by saying we engage
with the affirmative without the topic
○ Ridiculous counterplans that prove theory (i.e. “remove racism” to prove that their idea
of fiat is bad)
○ Don’t be scared of fully analytic counterplans that are just the counterplan text, you
could read 2NR cards if necessary

Responding to a Counterplan (SPOT)

● Solvency
○ Most of the time the Counterplan won’t solve for the entirety of the affirmative
○ Leverage your inherency evidence
○ Research all potential advantage counterplans that could be read against the affirmative
● Permutations
○ Good against things like Word PICs, we resolve the word but we can also get the
substantive advantage of engaging with the counterplan
● Offense

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 ○ Reasons why the counterplan independently is bad
○ DAs to the way in which the CP differs from the plan
○ Read add ons in the 1AR that further justify why the affirmative is good
○ Counterplan links to the net benefits (CP links to the DA)
● Theory
○ Read short paragraph theory arguments that say x is a voting issue
○ Time trade off that’s good for you

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Framework
You probably know what framework is just from learning the basics of lay LD debate. However,
framework in circuit debate functions on a more complex level, and most frameworks are either
utilitarian or involve a complex philosophical concept. Below, we’ll discuss the most common ways in
which frameworks are written and presented in circuit LD. Go to Part 5 to find an introduction to some
commonly run frameworks.

Parts of a Framework
● Value
○ Usually more important on traditional circuit (sometimes not even explicitly mentioned
on the circuit as it is implied to be morality)
○ Something from text of the resolution
● Syllogism
○ A sort of “link chain” for your framework that starts with a general, uncontestable moral
claim and gradually becomes more specific
○ If x is true → y is true → then z (your standard) is true!
● Criterion/Standard
○ Gerund noun (____ing ____)
○ Means based
■ Evaluating the action in and of itself (more deontological)
■ Should have reasons why it cannot be evaluated solely by consequences
■ Examples: "maintaining x", "consistency with x", "upholding x", "protecting x",
"preserving x"
○ Ends based -
■ End result of actions should be judged (consequentialist)
■ Should have reasons why intention does not matter when evaluating actions
■ Examples: "mitigating x", "maximizing/minimizing x"
● Independent Justifications
○ A numbered list of additional reasons as to why your framework should be preferred
(i.e. “governments use my framework”, “this framework accounts for other
frameworks”)
○ Should preferably be preemptive of other types of frameworks (preempt means based if
you run ends based and vice versa)
○ Add any topic specific links to framework that wouldn’t fit under the contention

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Writing Philosophical Affirmatives
● Although most ACs are generated to have multi functional offense, framework debaters want to
be the most predictable debater and focus on their 2AR
● Framework debaters can get away with a LOT more because judges are often confused (you can
BS during the 2AR and win your contention)
● The strongest part of the framework should be the contention so that you force your opponent
to focus on the framework debate and not the contention debate!
● Always write your contention first—find the most true affirmative arguments and then find a
framework that fits the contention
● A good philosophical framework has 4 parts
○ Primary syllogism
■ Place with the best offense differential (how much offense you can generate vs.
how much offense they can generate) to justify your value criterion/standard
■ Should not be turnable, but try and minimize the number of links
■ Start with a very true argument, either (1) the position is contradictory to deny
(i.e. “we ought to make mistakes”) or (2) self evident
■ Shouldn’t be impact justified (i.e. “this is a good thing, I allow us to achieve this
good thing, and thus this is moral”)
○ Standards analysis
■ Clarify what offense goes back to your standard
■ Is the standard aggregative or a side constraint? Does it have an intent
foresight/act omission distinction? Is there an order of deliberation? Are there
procedural requirements?
■ Most important part of your framework! Can be fixed in the 1AR
■ Develop plausibility (intuitive and compelling example that illustrates how your
criterion works)
○ Additional reasons to prefer
■ More arguments that justify your criterion but not impacted out until after the
1NC
■ Link back to a meta ethic but you don’t justify the ethic yet
■ My criterion is a prerequisite to _______
■ Preempt common NCs and truest NCs
○ Preempts (often goes in the standards analysis)
■ Delink from common objections to your standards
■ If your standard is unique from other similar ones, then say that!
■ Should be altering from round to round

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Fiat
What is fiat?
Fiat is latin for “let it be done”. It’s a theoretical norm that permits a debater to assume that their
advocacy/counter advocacy is bound to happen, so that the debate is less about the likelihood of the
action and more about the desirability of the action.

Durable fiat says that fiat doesn’t just apply immediately, but that the aff should continue to stay in
place for the indefinite future—the topic assumes some notion of duration. This is a good response to
negative arguments about why Congress would roll back the affirmative policy.

The negative should also get fiat when discussing a counter advocacy when showing an opportunity cost
(what’s the next best thing you could do instead of the affirmative?). When presenting a CP, you are still
debating the topic—you have to prove that the CP trades off with the affirmative (it’s
impossible/undesirable to do both). The negative shouldn’t just prove that the CP is good, but that it
makes the Aff a bad idea.

The CP could fail to be an opportunity cost because (a) the Aff can perm and you don’t lose the
opportunity, or (b) the CP was never an opportunity in the first place.

Even if you can fiat the CP does happen, you can’t fiat that the CP solves all the impacts—that’s still up
for debate.

Pre fiat vs. Post fiat

Pre fiat (ex. Discursive resistance, mindset shift) refers to a change that is happening within the debate
round itself. For example, by reading a poem attacking sexism, the pre-fiat impact is that you change the
viewpoint of your opponent and the judge

Post fiat refers to impacts that are happening within the world of the debate. For example, on a topic
that abolishes plea bargaining, post fiat would look at impacts of a world with plea bargaining opposed
to a world without.

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