1. Wining the DA
Casey Parsons

2. Review
By now, we have a fairly good understanding of advantages and disadvantages
Both are composed of four essential parts:
Uniqueness (or advantage inherency)
Link
Internal Link
Impact
In addition to advantage solvency on the aff
Now let’s talk about how to win the disad as both the aff and the neg

3. Neg
Choosing your disad – these are the questions you ask yourself before the 1NC
Does this disad link?
Can I read a counterplan with this disad?
How will the aff likely respond?
Seriously you need to be reading a counterplan. Idaho debaters hate counterplans and I still don’t understand why.
After you read the disad in the 1NC, we have to think about how to handle it in the block

4. Neg
Overview
Overview of the disad should have four components. We already talked about the first three:
Magnitude
Timeframe
Probability
But you also need to make an argument called “turns the case.” You should say those exact words. Impacts that turn the case do two things:
They prevent the aff from solving the harms
They make the harms that the aff isolated much worse

5. Neg
After you read your overview, the rest of the block should be spent reading cards
That’s literally the function of the block
Good rule of thumb: spend 60% of your time explaining your arguments
Respond to their arguments by saying “they say x but…” and then read more cards
You should also read what’s called a “link wall”
Extend the links you read in the 1NC, respond to link turns and no-link arguments
Read more links. Your links should be diverse – don’t read six cards that say the same thing, read six different link arguments

6. Neg
The dreaded impact turn – sometimes the aff will do what’s called “straight turn” a disad. This means they do nothing but read impact turns to the disadvantage
Here’s how you should respond:
Isolate the impact turns – they function as little pockets of offense
Read impact defense to the impact turns
Read more impacts – you really want the disad to blow up at this point because the impacts to this disad must outweigh the impact turns

7. Aff
Make diverse arguments – these should be composed of both offensive link turns and impact turns as well as defensive arguments
We’ll talk about defense first. Some defensive arguments we talked about are pretty simple:
Non-Unique – The impact is happening in the status quo
No Link – The plan doesn’t trigger the disad
Impact defense – The impacts are smaller than the neg is making them out to be. This is the most important part of your response.
There are some more complex, and ultimately useful, defensive arguments you can make. We’ll talk about them on the next slide.

8. Aff More complex defense: We’ll talk about offense on the next slide
UQ overwhelms the link – The status quo is so good that even if the DA is triggered it won’t be enough to cause the impact
On the spending DA example: If their UQ claims that the economy is completely untouchable, then there’s a high risk that the link won’t be enough to touch the conomy
Use lines from their UQ cards to make this argument
No Link UQ – Something is about to happen in the status quo that will trigger the link
On the spending DA example: A new expensive bill or a future lack of fiscal discipline would both likely trigger the link
No Impact UQ – Independent of the disad, the impact will still likely occur
Alternative causes to climate change, local conflicts, and nuclear war would all threaten a disadvantage’s impact UQ
We’ll talk about offense on the next slide

9. Aff Offensive arguments:
Link turns – we’ve already covered these, but we’ll go more in-depth
Link turns essentially flip the story of the DA around
Link turns alone are not enough to win offense
A complete link turn requires both the link turn and a non UQ argument – otherwise the offense that you gain is non UQ to the squo and therefore useless
Impact turns
If the DA were to occur, it would actually be a good thing
These are read like mini disadvantages to the disad not happening
Imagine them like small “pockets” of offense
Reading nothing impact turns is called a “straight turn”