1. Introduction to the aff
Casey Parsons

2. 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

3. 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

4. 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

5. 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

6. 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

7. 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

8. 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

9. 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

10. 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

11. 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