TOPICALITY

Speaker: Seth Gannon

• Neg flexibility
o Be unpredictable – don’t go for one thing
o Different affs require different strats
o Have multiple strategies
o Keep T in your arsenal – can be dangerous (be able to go for it)
o Great fallback option when extended in the block
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• Topicality
o Easy to extend
o Enforce rest of your neg strat
o Aff can’t win on T – only has upsides for the neg
o Makes the debate small – self-enclosed
 Read one T violation
o Best way to beat aff is to keep the debate small
o T literature base is small
o Strategic purpose:
 Set up another strategy
 Limits the set of available plans
 Limit the aff to what they have to defend
 Lock aff in on topic, win on it
 Give yourself more options
o problems
 Judge philosophy
• If you do it well, you can convince them
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 Impacting T
 Prefer substance
• Don’t let them make accusations that we’ll go for T because we have substance
• No ad-hominen attacks can make them topical
 Out-teched on T
 Everything is limits
o “T is like the seasons”
 Best in the fall and in the spring
• Topic unclear in fall
o Currently in the process of defining the topic we’ll debate all year long
o Overcorrection to define topic
• In spring – T is already defined meaning aff should know – topical affs
o Hundreds of debates have made the topic clear
o Don’t allow aff to skirt outside – topic has been defined
o Impacting T
 Predictable limits define the topic
 Limits the number of affirmatives
• 10 solid affs o/w 500 sketch affs
 Research
• Better clash
• Aff turn: aff creates more research, research skills o/w in real world
o Neg answer: already enough hours, no marginal benefit to 2 extra hours
 Untopical affs delevel the playing field
 • Allow ample ground
• Debate died in 1970s – because aff won majority of the time
• Neg needs predictability
o Can’t test aff in a intellectual way because it forces us to go for generics
o Better for education – purpose of debate
o The principle benefit of debate – decision making skills
 These skills lie on preparation
 The aff kills preparation, undermines education
• Fairness
o Competitive engine of debate
o Impact to fairness – everyone would quit debate, flip aff at break rounds
 Precision
• Defines back to the heart of the topic
• Best intent to define
• Wins competing interps debate
• Legal precision: Legal debate the closest analogy to T debates
o Debaters go on to be lawyers
 Ground
• Aff avoids core controversy of military deployment
• Great link into fairness, research, predictability, etc.
 1NC shell
• Define more words – increases probability of dropped T violations
• Hidden definitions (non-combat forces, reduce, substantial, etc.)
 T is a voter
• D. t must be a voting issue or aff will read random affs every round
• Link your arguments back to the ballot
o How-to
 Give thorough overview 25-30 seconds, impact it (block)
 Extend interpretations
 We define the topic, they define the topic
 Don’t let the aff wiggle out of T arguments
 Reasonability allows sum total of affs that can be portrayed as reasonable
• Infinite regress
 T only has upside for the neg – getting away with murder
 Pass judgment on reasons of one over the other
• Try to reduce judge intervention – put burden of proof on them
• Not an even playing field – don’t treat as one
• Convict aff for breaking the resolution
• Aff resolution crowds out debate
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o Topical verison of their aff
 Discuss the topical version of aff with ample ground
• If aff is too far outside the resolution, indict them for not being able to find a topical
version
 They only read x untopical aff for competitive benefit
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