| Domestic Policies | |
POLITICS Court Appointments – Federal Court Appointments – State Electoral College Former President – Legacy Hillary Clinton Political Ethics Tax Reform Democrats Republicans Obama Press Secretary (Robert Gibbs) Tea Party Lame duck session State of the Union Address Elena Kagan’s first year Politics – General ECONOMY Consumer Confidence / Saving / Spending Dollar Federal Reserve Federal Spending / Taxation Foreclosures Car Sales Interest Rates Mortgage Rates Oil Prices / Gasoline Prices / Price Fixing Real Estate Bubble / Cooling Housing Market Social Security & Medicare Debt/Deficit Debt Ceiling Stock Market Trade Deficit Unemployment Economy – General SECURITY Airport Security TSA scanners Don't Ask Don’t Tell Lethal Injection / Death Penalty Military Recruitment Numbers Overseas Deployment Patriot Act | Wikileaks Security – General TECHNOLOGY Apple Microsoft Open Source Net neutrality Domain Names / ICANN Google/ Yahoo/ Search Engines NASA Nintendo wii Wikipedia Xbox v.PS3 Internet security Technology – General HEALTH Obamacare repeal Obesity Stem Cell Research Canadian Drugs Cancer Second Hand Smoke Tort Reform Health – General EDUCATION Bullying College Tuition Student Loans No Child Left Behind Home Schooling Test Scores Education – General SOCIETY Gay Marriage Drugs Illegal Music Downloading Immigration MPAA Movie Ratings Sports Death Penalty Society – General |
| Foreign Policies | |
| ASIA China – Economy China – Freedom China – Relations with Japan China – General Dollar v. Yen Dollar v. Yuan India – Economy India – General Japan – Economy Russia Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam Myanmar North Korea – Proliferation North Korea – Relations with Russia, China, Japan, & USA North Korea – Sanctions The Philippines South Korea Thailand Asia - General MIDDLE EAST Afghanistan Afghanistan – drugs Afghanistan – taliban Iran – Israel Iran – Proliferation Israel/ Palestine US – Israel Kashmir Mideast Democracy Pakistan Syria/ Hezbollah Lebanon Yemen Iraq Saudi Arabia proliferation Mideast – General AFRICA African Debt Ivory Coast Kenya Nigeria South Africa – Economy South Africa – Elections | Sudan – Darfur Sudan – Referendum Zimbabwe Malaria Africa – General EUROPE Britain – Minimum Wage EU – Constitution EU – Invitations Euro vs. Dollar European Union Greece France Germany Italy Turkey – EU Pope Benedict XVI Belarus Serbia and Montenegro Europe – General LATIN AMERICA & CARIBBEAN Argentina – Debt / IMF Argentina Bolivia/ United States Relations Brazil Chile Mexico Venezuela Haiti South America – General GLOBAL Debt Relief Globalization HIV / AIDS International Criminal Court Global Warming NATO Nuclear Power United Nations WTO Geneva Convention World Leader Meetings |
Friday, January 28, 2011
Extemp: Topic List - Jan. '11
Thursday, December 2, 2010
Judges Information: Stock Issues at a Glance
Contents:
Resolution
Topicality
Significance
Inherency
Solvency
The Affirmative must present a prima facie (PRY-muh FAY-shuh) case in the first speech if they expect to win the debate. "Prima facie" — a Latin phrase meaning, roughly, "at first glance" — means that the arguments are sufficient to persuade a reasonable person until they are refuted. If the Affirmative fails to provide a prima facie case, the Negative can win just by pointing that out in their first speech. The arguments which must be presented in a prima facie case should reflect answers to basic stock issue questions.
Resolution: The resolution is written by our debate association (STOA). For the 2010-2011season it is: “Resolved: that the United States Federal Government should significantly change its policy toward Russia.” The affirmative team must affirm this resolution by upholding all four of the stock issues.
1.Topicality: Is the plan within the boundaries of the resolution? There are two aspects of topicality. One involves defining the terms of the resolution, the other involves arguing within the boundaries of the resolution.
Definitional Topicality may include some wrangling over the way terms are understood. The teams should give you a reason to prefer one definition over the other. Affirmative teams may define the terms so that they are within boundaries, but a negative team may challenge the legitimacy of those definitions and show they are, in fact, outside of the resolution. A negative team would need to prove a legitimate violation and negative impact to the violation to win on this.
Resolutional Topicality: This has to do with the interpretation of the resolution. The aff team must give a reasonable interpretation and provide a plan that would fall within those boundaries. The burden of proof for topicality is the affirmative team’s responsibility. If they cannot prove they are topical, they should not win.
2.Significance: Is this important? The affirmative team has the burden to prove why we need to change the current policy toward Russia through analysis. They may prove this by revealing the scope or magnitude of a certain problem or (harm) in the status quo, social significance, traditional significance or moral imperative.
Scope: The problem affects a large number of people
Magnitude: Though it may not impact a large number of people, the degree to which it impacts some is severe and proves significance
Social: The problem impacts most of society negatively
Traditional: Argues the status quo has digressed from American tradition. It is based on the idea of precedent.
Moral Imperative: Argues that some moral value is violated by the status quo and must be changed.
3.Inherency: Is the problem caused by current policy? Must prove that there is a link between the problems that exist and the current policy. If the aff team can’t prove it is linked, changing the policy wont solve the problems. This may be shown by Structural, Gap or Attitudinal Arguments.
Structural Inherency: A structural analysis suggests that a specific law, or rule, or fact of life is causing the harms. For example, the Affirmative may argue that people who do not get a good education have low productivity, and thus earn low wages, and thus are condemned to poverty.
Gap Inherency: The Affirmative notes that the present system has identified a problem and is taking steps against it, but those steps fall short of curing the harms. There is a gap between the solution now in existence and the harm that needs to be cured.
Attitudinal Inherency: claims that the problems are caused by people's beliefs, feelings, or opinions. For example, racial prejudice is an attitudinal problem. These attitudes are the underlying reason for the problems and without the aff plan these attitudes cannot be changed. *Note: Neg teams can use attitudinal inherency against the aff team by saying that the plan will not solve the problem because it does nothing to adjust the attitudes of the constituents.
4.Solvency: Will the proposal solve or ease the harms? Arguments should again prove a causal relationship. The Affirmative's goal is to show that the plan will work to solve the specific “harms” they have mentioned in the significance analysis.. Usually this means finding evidence in which an authority supports the specific proposal the Affirmatives are suggesting. They will typically list these as “Advantages”.The ways to prove solvency are usually shown in one of three ways: Elimination, Comparative Advantage or Maximizing Goals.
Elimination of Harms: Aff. Team proves that if their plan is enacted that harms will be eliminated.
Comparative Advantage: Aff team proves that with their plan, harms will be reduced or kept from increasing.
Maximizing Goals: The aff team proves that their plan fulfills the goals of the status quo better than the existing policy and should be the preferred course of action.
**Note: Even if the Affirmative team properly upholds all the stock issues, they may still lose the round if the negative team can prove that disadvantages will come about as a result of the new proposal. The aff team must be able to show that the disadvantages are insignificant in relation to the advantages.
These notes are primarily paraphrased and adapted from Christy Shipe’s book: An Introduction to Argumentation and Debate.
I also referenced this website http://webpages.charter.net/johnprager/IPD/Chapter02.htm
Cathy Cary (PROBE Debate Club)
Resolution
Topicality
Significance
Inherency
Solvency
The Affirmative must present a prima facie (PRY-muh FAY-shuh) case in the first speech if they expect to win the debate. "Prima facie" — a Latin phrase meaning, roughly, "at first glance" — means that the arguments are sufficient to persuade a reasonable person until they are refuted. If the Affirmative fails to provide a prima facie case, the Negative can win just by pointing that out in their first speech. The arguments which must be presented in a prima facie case should reflect answers to basic stock issue questions.
Resolution: The resolution is written by our debate association (STOA). For the 2010-2011season it is: “Resolved: that the United States Federal Government should significantly change its policy toward Russia.” The affirmative team must affirm this resolution by upholding all four of the stock issues.
1.Topicality: Is the plan within the boundaries of the resolution? There are two aspects of topicality. One involves defining the terms of the resolution, the other involves arguing within the boundaries of the resolution.
Definitional Topicality may include some wrangling over the way terms are understood. The teams should give you a reason to prefer one definition over the other. Affirmative teams may define the terms so that they are within boundaries, but a negative team may challenge the legitimacy of those definitions and show they are, in fact, outside of the resolution. A negative team would need to prove a legitimate violation and negative impact to the violation to win on this.
Resolutional Topicality: This has to do with the interpretation of the resolution. The aff team must give a reasonable interpretation and provide a plan that would fall within those boundaries. The burden of proof for topicality is the affirmative team’s responsibility. If they cannot prove they are topical, they should not win.
2.Significance: Is this important? The affirmative team has the burden to prove why we need to change the current policy toward Russia through analysis. They may prove this by revealing the scope or magnitude of a certain problem or (harm) in the status quo, social significance, traditional significance or moral imperative.
Scope: The problem affects a large number of people
Magnitude: Though it may not impact a large number of people, the degree to which it impacts some is severe and proves significance
Social: The problem impacts most of society negatively
Traditional: Argues the status quo has digressed from American tradition. It is based on the idea of precedent.
Moral Imperative: Argues that some moral value is violated by the status quo and must be changed.
3.Inherency: Is the problem caused by current policy? Must prove that there is a link between the problems that exist and the current policy. If the aff team can’t prove it is linked, changing the policy wont solve the problems. This may be shown by Structural, Gap or Attitudinal Arguments.
Structural Inherency: A structural analysis suggests that a specific law, or rule, or fact of life is causing the harms. For example, the Affirmative may argue that people who do not get a good education have low productivity, and thus earn low wages, and thus are condemned to poverty.
Gap Inherency: The Affirmative notes that the present system has identified a problem and is taking steps against it, but those steps fall short of curing the harms. There is a gap between the solution now in existence and the harm that needs to be cured.
Attitudinal Inherency: claims that the problems are caused by people's beliefs, feelings, or opinions. For example, racial prejudice is an attitudinal problem. These attitudes are the underlying reason for the problems and without the aff plan these attitudes cannot be changed. *Note: Neg teams can use attitudinal inherency against the aff team by saying that the plan will not solve the problem because it does nothing to adjust the attitudes of the constituents.
4.Solvency: Will the proposal solve or ease the harms? Arguments should again prove a causal relationship. The Affirmative's goal is to show that the plan will work to solve the specific “harms” they have mentioned in the significance analysis.. Usually this means finding evidence in which an authority supports the specific proposal the Affirmatives are suggesting. They will typically list these as “Advantages”.The ways to prove solvency are usually shown in one of three ways: Elimination, Comparative Advantage or Maximizing Goals.
Elimination of Harms: Aff. Team proves that if their plan is enacted that harms will be eliminated.
Comparative Advantage: Aff team proves that with their plan, harms will be reduced or kept from increasing.
Maximizing Goals: The aff team proves that their plan fulfills the goals of the status quo better than the existing policy and should be the preferred course of action.
**Note: Even if the Affirmative team properly upholds all the stock issues, they may still lose the round if the negative team can prove that disadvantages will come about as a result of the new proposal. The aff team must be able to show that the disadvantages are insignificant in relation to the advantages.
These notes are primarily paraphrased and adapted from Christy Shipe’s book: An Introduction to Argumentation and Debate.
I also referenced this website http://webpages.charter.net/johnprager/IPD/Chapter02.htm
Cathy Cary (PROBE Debate Club)
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