The Stock Issues

1. The Stock Issues Topicality Harms/Significance Inherency Solvency Advantages/Disadvantages

2. The Affirmative Burden • The Affirmative has the “Burden of Proof” • The Affirmative normally indicts the Status Quo. • The Affirmative Advocates Change. • The Affirmative must show “justification” for change. This can be done through harms, inherency, solvency, or advantages. (Or a combination of these.) • The affirmative plan could simply solve the problem better than the status quo.

3. The Negative Presumption • The negative defends the Status Quo • The status quo is presumed better than change until the affirmative meets the burden of proof. • The negative works to present “reasonable doubt” to reject the affirmative plan. • The negative has a variety of choices to demonstrate that the affirmative plan is not superior to the status quo. • Such strategies include arguing: topicality, significance, harms, inherency, solvency, workability of the plan, disadvantages to the plan, a counter-plan, and a critique of the affirmative ideas or language.

4. The Affirmative Case • The affirmative must present a “prima facie” case in the first affirmative constructive. • A prima facie case is one which includes the stock issues and “on face value” presents a “reasonable” plan to solve for a problem inherent in the status quo. • A prima facie case meets the burden of proof in the first speech by demonstrating a need for change and a possible solution for change.

5. The Case Structure • Introduction • Harms/Significance • Inherency • Plan • Solvency • Advantages • Conclusion

6. Modified Case Structure • Inherency or Justification • Harms/Significance • Plan • Solvency • Advantages • These may be presented in any order. Advantages may come first. Solvency could come first. • The key element is to include the key stock issues on face value. The order may vary from school to school. • The order is best determined by how the issues best “tell the story” to persuade the judge.

7. Plan Texts • Plan text may be presented in paragraph form or in planks. Planks are recommended for novice but are used by many varsity to increase clarity. • A plan should include: • Plank 1: Administration (define who will administer the plan) • Plank 2: Mandates (define the steps or actions necessary to implement the plan) • Plank 3: Funding (how the plan will be funded) • Plank 4: Enforcement: (who will enforce the plan) • Plank 5: Fiat or Legislative Intent: (basically means that the plan should be passed and that the debaters do not need to argue whether or not congress will pass the plan). It is assumed that if it is proven to be a good plan, it “should” pass. • A good plan will include all of these elements, either in plank form or in a paragraph.

8. Structure of the Affirmative Case • As you begin to write the affirmative case you must keep in mind that a clear structure is necessary. • Number and Letter your case the same way you would structure an outline for English class. • For example: • I. Harms • A, • B. • C.

9. Some tips for Good Communication in the Affirmative Case • Don’t abbreviate your “tag” or argument lines. Write clear and concise sentences. • Present credible authors with the author’s credentials. Impressive credentials add to the “clout” or overall credibility of your case. • Remember the affirmative case is a story and must persuade the judge. It should have good transitions and be easy to follow.

10. The Negative Strategy • The affirmative “client” is change, and the negative “client” is the status quo. • Status Quo simply means “the way things are.” • Although the negative team may not claim the status quo is perfect, they should argue that it is better than the affirmative proposed change. • Remember that the negative must only maintain presumption, and demonstrate “reasonable doubt” to win the debate.

11. Some Negative Positions • Topicality: The negative team must always look first to the question of whether or not the affirmative case is topical. • Because the negative looks to topicality first, topicality is considered an “apriori” issue. This means that before all else, they must examine topicality. • Obviously, if the case is non-topical, the rest of the stock issues are irrelevant. The affirmative team must be topical to win. • If the affirmative did not have to be topical, there would be no point in a resolution, and no boundaries to what an affirmative team might argue. Absurd debate would be the result.

12. Structure of Topicality Arguments • The basic point of topicality is to explain to the judge that the affirmative case does not fall within the scope of the resolution. Structuring topicality arguments may help to explain how the affirmative is not topical. • A. Violation: Explain here which word in the resolution the affirmative team is “abusing” or not meeting the proper intent. • B. Definition: Define the negative interpretation of the word. • C. Standard: Explain why the negative team definition is superior to the affirmative team definition. • D. Voter: Remind the judge that topicality is “apriori” and should be considered in the decision of the round (if the affirmative team in non-topical). • If the affirmative team is blatantly topical, do not waste your time arguing topicality.

13. Disadvantages to Adopting the Affirmative Case • A smart negative will run an “offensive” strategy to help outweigh the advantages of the proposed affirmative case. • The most effective “offensive” strategy is called a disadvantage. • A disadvantage is basically the very bad thing that will happen if the affirmative plan is implemented. • It is very critical that when you develop disadvantages that you communicate a clear cause effect story (also called a link story). You must show that the affirmative case will cause something really bad to occur. • This strategy can create a great deal of “reasonable doubt.” • You may advance several disadvantage stories at the same time (as long as they do not contradict).

14. Disadvantage Structure • A. Uniqueness: Explain the state of the status quo, and how it uniquely will not cause the disadvantage. Often the affirmative team’s inherency will support the uniqueness argument by showing that the status quo is not going to implement the plan. • B. Link: Explain that the affirmative case will cause the disadvantage to occur. Often the negative can show through the affirmative mandates that the affirmative will take action that causes the disadvantage. • C. Internal Link: Demonstrate how the affirmative case causes the disadvantage to happen. This step is often left to reasoning or to some “miracle evidence” which explains reasoning. The internal link is the connecting point in the chain of the argument. • D. Brink: Prove how close or how far away the status quo is from the disadvantage occurring. The negative can argue that the status quo is close to trouble and the plan will push it over the edge, or they can argue that the status quo is a long way from trouble and the affirmative plan will be bad enough to put us in big trouble. • E. Threshold: Show just how much “change” or with what force the affirmative plan has to push to cause the disadvantage. There is a relationship between brink and threshold. If we are close to the brink, the threshold can be very small and the disadvantage will still happen. • F. Impact: Describe clearly the ultimate impact of the disadvantage. • Not all disadvantages will have all of these parts. A good disadvantage will have most of them. It is very common for a team to present only the Uniqueness, Link, and Impact. • If that is the case, a smart affirmative will press for answers to the missing parts.

15. The Negative Stock Issue Debate • The negative can and should combine a multitude of negative positions. The key is to not run contradicting positions. • A. Harms • The negative can mitigate harms, make them smaller or insignificant • The negative can deny the harms exist • The negative can claim that the status quo is solving for the harms • The negative can argue that no one can solve the harms, they will not disappear

16. The Negative Stock Issue Debate • B. Inherency • The negative can argue that the status quo is working on the inherency • The negative can demonstrate that the affirmative inherency is a good thing and should not be overcome • The negative can demonstrate that there is no inherency • The negative can challenge the affirmative ability to overcome the inherency

17. The Negative Stock Issue Debate • C. Solvency • The negative can claim that the status quo is solving the problem, or will solve it • The negative can argue that solvency is impossible • The negative can grant that the affirmative can solve but that they may not solve all of the problem (mitigate solvency) • The negative may demonstrate that the affirmative will not only not solve but actually make things much worse (this would be called a solvency turn) • the negative could argue that the affirmative is not solving the root cause of the problem, thus they are masking the real problem • The negative could show that the affirmative is not acknowledging the “alternate causes” of the problem and thus only solve for part of the problem. • The negative may argue that the affirmative plan simply won’t work (for one reason or another) and thus cannot solve. No Funding, no enforcement, no manpower etc. would be examples of workability arguments.

18. The Negative Stock Issue Debate • D. Advantages • The negative could argue that the affirmative advantages will not happen • The negative could argue that the affirmative advantages exist in the status quo • The negative could show that the advantages are not “worth” the risk of the disadvantages.