1. Who are the Affirmative and Negative teams?
They are the two sides of the debate. The Affirmative presents the case and the Negative tears it apart.
2. What are stock issues?
They are as follows:
Inherency- What is going on now, the status quo
Harms- The bad things that are happening now or will happen b/c of the status quo.
Solvency- Why your plan will rid us of the harms
Topicality- How your plan falls under the resolution
Significance- usually falls under topicality when the word significantly is in the resoulution. How important the harms are, the signifacance of it all
3. What are the main Affirmative arguements?
Inherency, harms, and solvency are presented in the case along with advantages (good things that will happen if you enact our plan)
4. What are the main Negative arguements?
Negative teams can choose to argue any of the stock issues plus Disadvatages (bad things that will happen if you enact the plan), counterplans (a different way to approch solving the problems of the status quo), or Kritiks (I'll get to these later).
5. What is the resolution?
The basic topic of all the debates for a year. Example-
Resloved: That the United States Federal Government should significantly increase protection of privacy in the united States in one or more of the following areas: employment, medical records, consumer information, and search and seizure. (This is the 2000-2001 resolution)
Every plan that the affirmative presents must fall under the resolution or the negative can play the fun little word game called Topicality.
6. What is the 1AC, 1NC, ect.?
It is the speeches in the debate. The 1 or 2 stands for the person giving the speech (a team consists of 2 ppl, one of them being the "1" and the other being the "2"). The A or N stands for Affirmative or Negative. The C or R stands for Constructive (everyone's first speech, the building speech of the round where new arguements can be brought up.) or Rebuttal (everyone's last speech, the closing speeches where the arguements of the round are analyzied and weighed against eachother.). A debate goes in the following order:
1AC 1NC 2AC 2NC 1NR 1AR 2NR 2AR
7. What is cross-x?
Cross-x is the cross exanimation of the person who just did the speech. It is your chance to ask the person questions. There is a cross-x between every constructive speech.
8. How much time do you have for each speech and cross-x?
All constructives are 8 min. long with a 3 min cross-x between each speech. The rebuttals are 5 min long.
9. What is prep time?
Prep time is the preparation time a team takes before each speech to get their argurements ready and find evidence. Each team has a set amount of prep time (usually 8 or 10 min.)
10. What arguements are on-case? Off-case?
Inherency, Harms, Solvency, and Advantages are on-case.
Topicality, DisAds, Counter-plans, and Kritiks are off-case.
