This next section will teach you the core set of ideas that are behind every debate decision… From Junior High Novice to College Varsity, the same concepts of RISK ASSESSMENT apply. Before I even get to what I mean by that, you need some vocabulary…

Advantage: Positive things caused by the plan (amount of harm the affirmative is able to solve). Disadvantage: Negative things caused by the plan. Magnitude of impact: Size of the impact! (Often measured in terms of lives saved or lost). Probability of impact: Likelihood of impact. Time frame of impact: When the impact occurs. Risk = magnitude X probability.

Give me the answer using risk assessment vocab… use one of the new terms in each of your responses: Why would your Mom be happier to see a friend picking you up in a car than on a motorcycle (knowing that people have died using both types of vehicles)? Assuming that you had to lose a limb, would you rather lose one tomorrow or in 50 years? Why? Why don’t you stay awake at night worrying about human extinction as a result of diseases in Africa? Would you rather trip on the sidewalk or fall off of a 5 story building?

Risk of Advantage > Risk of Disadvantage = AFF Risk of Advantage < Risk of Disadvantage = NEG Finish the sentences using your risk assessment vocabulary: If the plan saves 1 million lives from disease but crashes the US economy and causes global nuclear war… If the plan saves 1 million lives from disease but causes a mild economic recession… If the plan does not solve because the aff dropped a devastating neg solvency argument, but the neg can only prove that the aff causes a tiny disadvantage…

Risk of Advantage > Risk of Disadvantage = AFF Risk of Advantage < Risk of Disadvantage = NEG If the plan stops extinction but causes global nuclear war… If the plan solves but the neg wins that there is very little harm and there is a decent risk that the plan crashes the economy… If the plan saves 1 millions lives but the aff only wins one argument on the DA… (TRICK QUESTION).

Arguments also inter-relate. Debaters who think on relationships between arguments win many more debates than those who do not. Examples: Let’s say that the negative wins that the affirmative causes the US economy to crash. How might that change the implementation of the affirmative plan? Let’s say that the affirmative answers the DA by claiming that nuclear war impacts are over blown and that nations will cooperate rather than fight. How might that be used against them?

The point is that aside from just comparing risks you can also point out that the DA turns the case (DA actually prevents the case from solving) or that the case turns the DA (the case is critical to preventing the DA impact). Pointing out these inter-relationships will REALLY impress your judges.

Overviews! The most important part of the debate is the flow. Almost all of your speech should be spent on line-by-line refutation. BUT, a brief statement before your line-by-line debate about why… Risk of Advantage > Risk of Disadvantage = AFF OR Risk of Advantage < Risk of Disadvantage = NEG …will help you win.

 Let’s use the packet. Pick out one DA and one of the aff cases. Half of the room needs to think like the negative brainstorm why the DA outweighs the case and the other half should think like the affirmative argue that the case outweighs the DA. Write an overview that uses your risk assessment vocabulary.