Introduction to the aff Casey Parsons

Review The aff defends a plan text, which must be topical – in other words, it has to fall under the resolution The aff gives reasons why the world where the plan happens is better than the world where the plan doesn’t The aff has fiat – we assume that the actor at least attempts to implement the plan

Stock Issues The aff has to win five arguments to win the round If the aff loses any of these arguments then they automatically lose the round These are called stock issues, which are: Inherency Harms Significance Solvency Topicality

Inherency Something is preventing the plan from happening in the status quo Essentially barriers to the passage of the plan Possible Examples: Political opposition A lack of funding A lack of interest There’s also advantage inherency – this is what prevents your harms from being solved in the status quo

Harms These are the problems with the status quo that justify doing the plan Possible Examples: The economy doing poorly now Inefficient trade Global Warming

Significance This is a little more tricky – it’s essentially why we care about the problems with the status quo. Most policy debaters call this the “impact” Possible examples: Economic decline Local conflicts escalating Nuclear War Extinction

Solvency There are two accepted “kinds” of solvency Plan solvency, which says that the plan would be successful and is possible Advantage solvency, which says that doing the plan resolves the harms that you isolated

Topicality We already discussed this a little bit – topicality is essentially arguing that defending the plan is the same as defending the resolution The aff doesn’t usually explicitly say this in the first affirmative constructive speech – Topicality is not an issue unless the negative makes it one

Structuring an aff case An aff case is usually composed of: An inherency contention where the aff isolates why the plan won’t happen in the squo A solvency contention where the aff isolates that the plan will work 2-3 advantages that make the aff a good idea. The harms, significance, and advantage solvency are embedded within the advantages

Structuring an advantage The advantage tells us a story of what happens when we don’t do the plan. Let’s consider the highway example used previously. One possible advantage could be the economy: Harms: The economy is in decline now Impact: Continued economic decline leads to global conflict Solvency: Investing in highways boosts trade efficiency and reverses economic decline This is incredibly simplified, but you get the idea

Example Case Outline Plan text: The USFG should invest $100 billion into a modernized highway system in the United States Contention One: Inherency Contention Two: Solvency Contention Three: Advantages Advantage One: The Economy Advantage Two: The Environment