2003 - Oceans Policy Adrift

What is Policy Debate?

Traditional policy debate (TPD) can be defined as a debate in which the affirmative must present a topical plan and defend it as being "desirable relative to the status quo and/or any other competitive alternative" (O'Donnell, no date). The plan is the focus of a traditional policy debate, a notion that makes several general strategies available to the negative in attempting to defeat an affirmative team that has proposed an advantageous plan. The negative can argue that (A) the plan is worse than the status quo in that it worsens existing problems or creates new problems, either of which are greater disadvantages than exist with the status quo; (B) there is no need to adopt the plan because the harms don't exist or the solution doesn't work; (C) an alternative policy option, which is competitive with the affirmative plan, exists that solves the harms identified by the affirmative and/or has less disadvantages associated with it, or; (D) the plan fails to meet the burden of being topical (Speice, 2002). It is important to note that this interpretation of traditional policy debate could also be thought of as plan-focused debate. TPD does not automatically serve to exclude critical arguments, but it demands that all of the arguments that are advanced in a debate by each team serve to prove or disprove the desirability of adopting the affirmative plan. Language critiques and arguments about performance are rarely able to meet this burden, though critiques that question the assumptions of the affirmative’s or negative’s solvency or impact claims, for example, would be relevant, as they may implicate the net desirability of the plan versus competitive alternatives.

TPD is valuable in a number of respects, but the benefits can be grouped into two general categories: gaming and education (Smith, 2001). Gaming refers to the nature of debate as a competitive activity that people engage in because it is fun to play. Education simply refers to the skills that one develops as a debater, including research skills, critical thinking skills, and advocacy skills. Non-traditional debate practices, especially certain types of critique debates, operate to the detriment of these goals in a number of ways.

Gaming: Why is Debate Fun?

As with any game or sport, creating a level playing field that affords each competitor a fair chance of victory is integral to the continued existence of debate as an activity. If the game is slanted toward one particular competitor, the other participants are likely to pack up their tubs and go home, as they don’t have a realistic shot of winning such a “rigged game.” Debate simply wouldn’t be fun if the outcome was pre-determined and certain teams knew that they would always win or lose. The incentive to work hard to develop new and innovative arguments would be non-existent because wins and losses would not relate to how much research a particular team did. TPD, as defined above, offers the best hope for a level playing field that makes the game of debate fun and educational for all participants.

Initially, language critiques and performance critiques have led to the development of the affirmative-inclusive advocacy, more commonly known as a floating PIC (plan-inclusive counterplan). In conjunction with their critique, a negative team will argue that they are able to coopt the affirmative by advocating almost the entire plan and 1AC, except for the questionable language or negative performative aspects. This sort of argument allows the negative to “steal” almost all of the affirmative’s ground, and it requires a departure from the plan-focus of TPD. For example, if the affirmative runs a case that claims a terrorism advantage and the negative runs a language critique of the term “terrorist,” does that mean that the plan is not a good idea? It seems unlikely that this argument indicts the ability of the plan to reduce instances of violence, but many negative teams will argue that the affirmative should lose simply for invoking the offending language in their defense of the plan. The affirmative will rarely be prepared to defend every word and concept of their 1AC, absent the negative defending an alternative that competes with the text of the affirmative’s plan. For example, an alternative to reject the use of the term “terrorism” is unlikely to compete with the affirmative plan, though it may compete with the justification for the plan, as given in the 1AC. Allowing negative teams to advocate such alternatives makes the debate incredibly difficult for the affirmative.

Moreover, the alternatives that negative teams advocate are frequently utopian options that are not grounded in the literature. This is true of nearly all language and performance critiques, as well as a number of other critical arguments that negative teams may advance. Not only are such alternatives utopian, which makes them perfect ideas by definition, but they are also unpredictable. The affirmative could not be prepared to debate utopian alternatives, because they simply do not exist in the literature as competitive alternatives to the affirmative plan. Some may argue that plan-inclusive counterplans fall prey to the same criticism, but there are several significant differences. Plan-inclusive counterplans are specific alternatives that are explicitly written out. They are rarely utopian options, and they compete with the plan. If the negative has the burden of only running arguments that compete with the plan, the affirmative is able to have a stable text that they can rely on as their advocacy. As such, they can prepare to defend that text because they get to choose the wording of it, and it is not nearly as lengthy as an entire speech.

This notion of predictability is one that is important for debate as a game. If one team cannot predict what the other will say, then it becomes futile to attempt to research and prepare for tournament competition. This problem is even more apparent in the case of critical affirmatives. If an affirmative team is able to argue that the performative effects of the 1AC are a justification to vote affirmative, or if the affirmative team can argue that their 1AC should be endorsed as a tool of cultural change, they are essentially asking the judge to vote for portions of the 1AC that are not necessarily linked to the plan.

The plan is a necessary convention in debate because it is a specific statement of topical advocacy that the affirmative is bound to defend, and all negative ground comes from attacks on the plan and it’s justifications. If the affirmative team argues for the judge to vote for them based on statements not related to the plan, it is likely that these portions of the 1AC will not be topical. Allowing teams to advocate non-topical statements as a reason to vote for them makes it impossible for the negative to debate. The affirmative could simply defend a statement such a “racism is bad” or “2 + 2 = 4.” Such non-falsifiable statements make going negative immensely unattractive, as the affirmative would win virtually every debate. Teams that run such affirmatives, or that justify such affirmatives by divorcing the judge’s decision from a topical plan-focus, skew the debate in such a way that it becomes a “rigged game” in favor of the affirmative.

Those who run language critiques frequently argue that discourse is important because it can have real effects on the way that debaters view the world. As such, it is claimed that discourse must be evaluated. As an example, many language critique debaters say that refusing to defend one’s discourse would allow individuals to make racial slurs in a debate without penalty. Making a racial slur is something that is not acceptable in any rational code of conduct, whereas the language used to justify the plan is usually less controversial and not intended to cause personal degradation. In this sense, critiques of offensive language do not necessarily imply that all discourse must be subject to inspection. The plan is still a fixed entity that affords the negative ground and that the affirmative is bound to defend.

In addition to the affirmative-inclusive advocacy, language critiques and performance critiques have led to contention about the role of the judge in a debate. Initially, it is important to note that every debate takes place with at least five participants – four debaters and a judge. The judge’s job is to evaluate the participants’ arguments and render a decision in favor of one of the teams at the conclusion of the debate. While this may seem like a trite observation, the role of the judge has far-reaching implications for the desirability of non-traditional debate practices. In TPD, the judge is asked to evaluate which team did the better debating, and the source of such a determination is the way that the judge answers the yes/no question that is posed by the resolution. The plan serves as an example that proves the resolution true by answering the question of the resolution in the affirmative. The method for making such an evaluation is generally understood as a cost-benefit analysis of the desirability of the policy proposed by the affirmative, made by evaluating all of the arguments for and against the plan, in relation to any competitive policy alternatives (including the status quo).

While some criticize the cost-benefit analysis method of evaluating a debate as subjective (for example, how does one weigh the people that may be saved by a plan against the immorality of the action), the role of the judge is much more clearly defined than in a debate about language and performance. In TPD, the teams are able to make weighing arguments that guide the judge in evaluating competing claims. For example, teams will regularly argue that even if an action is immoral, it is justified in order to save lives. This type of argument fits neatly into the formula for evaluating a TPD because it seeks to weigh the impact of an argument against the plan and the impact of an argument for the plan. Weighing impacts is much easier in a round where the plan is the focus of the debate because the judge must simply determine what the largest impact is before determining whether or not the plan is a good idea. If morality is more important than lives, the plan would be rejected in the above example; if preserving life is more important than acting morally, the plan would be endorsed.

In a round focused on language and performance, the team advocating a critical position will usually attempt to divorce the judge’s decision from a topical plan-focus. The role of the judge is not to make a cost-benefit calculation that seeks to determine the desirability of a policy, but instead the judge is placed into a realm where his or her decision is based on some other criteria. If the plan seeks to answer the resolutional question in the affirmative, how does one evaluate a round in which the plan is not the focus of the debate? There is no obvious yes/no question that the judge can answer when attempting to evaluate which team did the better debating (Smith, 2002).
A number of questions arise when one considers how a judge may evaluate a round in which questions of performance replace the plan as the focus of the debate. For example, does the judge listen the same way as each team does? What if each team interprets a performance differently? What makes one performance better than any other? What if the negative re-reads the 1AC with more emphasis or emotion? What if one team gives their speech more quickly or more slowly that the other? What if a performance that is aesthetically pleasing to one person is offensive to another? These questions all point to the lack of criteria that exist for evaluating a non-TPD round around a single yes/no question (Smith, 2002).

Without clearly defined criteria, judges will be likely to make subjective decisions about which team does the better debating. For example, what would happen if the 1AC spoke of the racism that is inherent in US foreign policy and read narratives to that effect and asked the judge to vote for the performative effects of their speaking out against racism? What if the negative did the same sort of performance, but spoke only of sexism? Both performances are good, so how could the judge ever reconcile those competing claims? What if the judge fundamentally disagrees with the ideas presented in the affirmative’s performance? Should the judge intervene and vote against a performance they don’t like, even if the negative fails to highlight those shortcomings that the judge perceives? There is no method for evaluating two “good” performances against one another, even assuming criteria exist for differentiating between a “good” and “bad” performance.

Moreover, teams that run arguments focused on the effects of language will frequently call on the judge to vote for them as a means of political activism. That is, a team will argue that the judge should vote for their arguments to make a particular political statement that could affect the “real world.” Some judges may feel uncomfortable endorsing a position that they do not personally agree with, even if a team wins their argument. If voting for a certain argument requires the judge to take an overtly political action, they may intervene in the debate and vote against the team who won the argument because they do not agree with the politics of the argument in question. This notion of intervention is related to the lack of criteria for evaluating language and performance critiques. It is not clear if the judge can or should continue to be an objective critic of argument when the team advocating the critique changes the focus of the debate to one of personal preferences.

But why does it matter if the judge has a clearly defined role in the debate? If the judge is unable to determine what the criteria are for evaluating a debate, and subjective decisions will therefore be made about which performance or whose language the judge thinks is most valuable, debate would cease to be an educationally rewarding enterprise. Hard work and research would not be rewarded with competitive success. While the debate would not be slanted in one particular direction (save for that of the judge’s political biases), those that worked hard to research new positions and hone their skills would not be rewarded. In this sense, non-TPD rounds make the game less fun, as the better team would only have a 50% chance of winning any given round, despite the quality of their debating.

The TPD format avoids this problem by establishing clear criteria for evaluating a debate that are known to both teams prior to entering a debate. This predictability stems from requiring the affirmative to advocate and defend a topical plan as the focus of the debate. Accordingly, the negative is able to use the resolution as a guide to predict what the likely affirmative cases will be. The affirmative has reciprocal predictability in knowing that the negative can only seek to argue against their plan by advocating that the status quo or a competing policy option is superior to the plan based on a cost-benefit analysis. This framework for evaluating debates reduces judge intervention. Accordingly, TPD is a better game than non-TPD, because it affords each team a realistic chance to emerge victorious by making the game fair for both teams.

Of course, teams that run critical arguments are generally prepared to defend the fairness of the criteria that they wish the judge to utilize in evaluating the debate. Certainly, there are multiple ways of evaluating performances, even absent direct competition with one another. These methods of evaluating performances could be imported into debate, but the question to ask is whether or not it would be desirable to do so. There are certainly numerous other competitive activities that rely on aesthetic comparisons to determine winners and losers (the fine arts, for example). None of these activities are the same as debate, however, and it makes little sense to abandon TPD simply because another “fair” way of determining who wins a given debate can be articulated. Doing so would allow debate to be transformed into something that is no longer debate.

Education

A second reason that the TPD model is the best mode of engaging in this activity is the educational benefit that it offers participants. Debate is a game first and foremost (if it isn’t, why do we travel to tournaments with the goal of winning as many debates as we can), but debate is also an extremely educational activity. It is this educational dimension of the activity that makes debate stand out as unique when compared to other forms of competition. While it does not seem necessary to explain why education is an important goal of the activity, this section will seek to address two important issues relating to education and TPD. First, it will attempt to explain why “the game” should be preserved above, or on par with, concerns for education. This does not mean that the educational benefits of the activity should be sacrificed, rather it means that we should strive for a game that is competitively fair and educational. Certain members of the community recognize this need, but others wish to place education above the game so that new forms of the activity (such as language and performance criticisms) may sprout and flourish. While this is understandable, unfortunately it overlooks the primary function of the activity: to serve as an outlet for students who seek competition via argumentative clash. Second, this section will seek to explain why the traditional debate model provides the best educational benefits to the participants of the activity. While each of the many forms of debate have their own unique educational benefits, there are several educational goals that are fulfilled by the TPD format, and from an education perspective, make policy debate the best model. These benefits include a range of academic, professional, and social skills.

Education or the Game?

Before moving to a discussion of the specific skills offered by the policy debate model, there is an important question regarding the values of the activity that must be addressed: the game or education (or, how the game and education)? This is a question that most in the community either do not consider or do so from rather individualistic perspectives, such as: what mode of debate allows me to win the most debates, or what mode allows me to discuss the issues that I am most interested in? Instead, what the community needs to do is step back from personal interests and ask what form of debate is best for the community as a whole? For those individuals most concerned with the future of the activity, this must be how questions regarding the structure and direction of the community are approached. We must ask what mode of debate provides the fairest opportunities for both the affirmative and the negative? What model gives the judge the best chance to fairly evaluate the debate, etc? What model of debate does the above while preserving the educational benefits that make this activity unique? Too often when answering these questions, we have allowed personal interests to trump community preferences, and as a result, have allowed education and competition for the community as a whole to be undermined.

While there are those who would argue that education should be of greater importance than competition, there are a couple of reasons “the game” should be treated as an equal value for the activity. There are two reasons such a hierarchy of values is desirable. First, debate is by nature a contest. Second, it is the competitiveness of the traditional debate structure that helps develop many of debate’s educational benefits. Unfortunately, there are many in the activity that wish to undo the competitive dimension of the activity in favor of the educational.

Defenders of the more critical forms of argumentation and presentation often fight for their preferred style of advocacy by claiming that education is of greater importance than the game. While there are critique debaters who do advance arguments about why their arguments speak towards the desirability of the affirmative plan, many of the debaters who advocate critiques do not defend a competing alternative to the plan because they feel that education is more important than the game. These debaters are more concerned with questioning language or using performance to bring more voices to light because such reflexivity is educationally desirable. Forcing the negative to advocate an alternative, it is argued, is bad because it forecloses options, or spaces, rather than opens them. The social and political education possibilities via “in round” advocacy are argued to be of greater value than the maintenance of debate based on competitive equity. Jairus Grove offers an assessment of what he and his partner sought to accomplish with their debates:

Our goal…was to engage the subtle forms of political participation and action (activism) that are often unidentified in our community that we call debate. For instance, how do debaters choose the affirmatives they want to run? Due often to the competitive constraints of debate, affirmatives…are chosen…Our goal was to investigate the form of political participation that we were teaching one another...we felt that the simulated nature of debate marginalized our potential for action both during the debate and in our daily lives. Our goal was to focus on new political possibilities. Kirk and I were afraid that current styles of debating had so limited the potential of debate as a site of political action, that it had been reduced to either a highly reified game or simply a way to inculcate a failing model of representative democracy…we wanted to empower and invigorate an incredible community of individuals...Truthfully, the affirmative or negative arguments being made by the other team were less important to us then why the arguments were being made both in terms of form and content. (2000, p. online)

There are several ways those who utilize language and performance critiques have sought to use education to subvert competitive values. First, instead of viewing fiat as a tool that allows for the evaluations and comparisons that necessary for playing the game, fiat is argued to be an educational illusion that has allowed for debate to serve as a weak form of individual/collective expression and activism (Shanahan, 1993). The non-policy focused debaters ignore the fact that fiat serves important competitive purposes for the activity, and focus on fiat’s imaginary existence. The arguments that justify the lack of an alternative to the plan, the focus on phrase X, or the absolutist “vote neg” stance common with these arguments are grounded on the belief that fiat doesn’t exist: “why vote for the plan, it will never be enacted as a result of the judge’s decision?” Unfortunately, this overlooks the fact that fiat works to contextualize the plan/resolution to the status quo so that each side of the debate can advance arguments about the workability of the competing options vis-à-vis one another.

Second, these critiques often involve attacks against the structure of the activity, or “debate as debate is bad,” to justify a host of new arguments that blatantly seek to destroy traditional debate’s competitive format. Beyond the indicts often thrown at fiat, debaters who utilize these arguments also levy similar charges against other dimensions of the game because of their exclusionary potential. Performance strategies often challenge the notion that the resolution asks a yes/no question, and instead the resolution is performed or is understood “as a vision” to be interrogated. Teams during the past two years have also argued against the current structure of debate by identifying how the policy focus, the use of English, the use of evidence, speed, and other aspects of the game, exclude certain persons from entering the community.
Reality is that this activity is a game. Debate is inherently adversarial. As Freeley has explained, “Debate is the process of inquiry and advocacy, a way of arriving at a reasoned judgment on a proposition…debate provides reasoned arguments for and against a proposition” (1996, p. 3). It is a “fact that the judge is asked to answer a yes/no question” (Smith, 2002, p. online). Clash is in inherent part of the activity. And, clash not only demands argumentative competition, it also serves as the motor for the educational possibilities of the activity. Clash produces detailed, in-depth, argumentation; each side has similar quality and quantity of claims, but it the depth and strength of the warrants that win debates and produce the best knowledge. This motive is also what stimulates the debater’s interest to conduct research.

The structure of intercollegiate and high school debate builds on to this competitive framework. Judges not only answer a yes/no question regarding the resolution/plan, their decision generates a winner and a loser for the event. Judges assign winners, determine who does the better debating, and give speaker points and ranks to determine which teams are excelling more than others in advancing particular claims that provide an answer to the question asked by the resolution. And, the competitiveness of the activity extends across rounds as tournaments promote the better teams to elimination rounds and crown a champion. Participants at tournaments such as the Tournament of Champions and the National Debate Tournament are determined by evaluating competitive success across the entirety of the debate season. Debate, neither in an ultra-generic form nor the specific form that we participate in can be classified merely as discussion or dialogue.

If it were decided that the promotion of education is of greater importance than preserving debate as a game, then the activity would begin to fall apart. Imagine that if instead of having two teams argue over competing viewpoints about a particular resolution/plan that debate instead asked debaters to simply inform the other participants of a different viewpoint regarding the plan. What would the activity look like then? Instead of hearing why the plan was good and bad, or why one policy alternative was better than another, we instead would hear why the plan is good, and why the plan reminded us of a story about one’s childhood. How would the judge evaluate such claims? If the desirability of the plan loses its importance and debate ceases to answer a yes/no question, what criteria should be used to resolve the “debate” (Smith, 2002)? While promoting intellectual development and enterprise are important components of the activity, the promotion of these values at the expense of the value of clash can only lead to the transformation of debate into discussion. In fact, it is not only that such a development spurs the loss of competitiveness, such a turn for the activity risks the loss of debate itself. Teams can begin to argue however they wish, and the “2 + 2 = 4” strategy becomes viable. What comes to matter then is word choice or performance. The result is a loss of depth of the education provided by the activity. Learning loses direction and begins to wander into the realm of acquiring random trivia. The entire purpose of having a policy resolution is rendered moot. Certainly one of the things most debaters enjoy about debate is that it really has no rules, however, if we decide to completely throw away “rules,” even as guiding principles, then the activity becomes something other than debate as an activity premised on fairness and competitive equity.

Does any of this mean that there is no room for experimentation in the activity? Does any of this mean that there is no room for critical argumentation in debate, in policy debate? The answer to both questions is “No.” What this does suggest, however, is that before we adopt, and use, these newer debate practices we need to consider how these tools fit into the overall scheme of the activity and its goals.

Educational Benefits of Policy Debate

Having dispensed with the “impact assessment” portion of this section, it is time to move to a fuller consideration of the educational “impacts” that the TPD formula brings to the table. Not only is the TPD format best for reasons of competition, it is also best for providing debaters an educational benefit to the activity. These benefits are of use to students in the academic, professional, and social realms. In addition to teaching general communication and argumentation skills, TPD helps develop at least three different skills: research skills, logic skills (aimed at both the development of general argument structure and sustained political advocacy), and critical thinking skills (Solt, 1993; Parcher, 1996; Mitchell, 1998; Freeley, 1996). Furthermore, requiring the critique team (presuming they are negative) to at least defend the status quo also is beneficial educationally by serving as a “valuable exercise to build power of critical theory” (Truett, 2001, p. online).

Policy debate is an excellent opportunity for students to develop research skills. Debate topics are sophisticated questions about the state of the United States and the world, and in order to be able to answer these questions effectively one has to be well versed on the subjects that the resolutions cover. This burden is magnified by the use of policy resolutions. The policies of the United States on any issue are sophisticated and complex, both quantitatively and qualitatively. Furthermore, there is a considerably large amount of literature addressing every policy area. In order to understand the policies, substantively and procedurally, and understand how the policies actually function, one must conduct as much research as possible to have the most and best information available to them. Sure, debaters could forgo research, and perhaps there would be those individuals who could still develop solid arguments, but odds are that most debaters would lack the necessary knowledge base to be successful. Debaters would either lack arguments, or they would merely be capable of presenting claims without warrants or grounds.

Why are these researching skills important? First, learning how to conduct research translates in the better academic skills. Better research produces better papers, speeches and presentations, and general knowledge (Freeley, 1996). Experience with research also provides debaters with good models for learning how to write. Learning to do conduct research is also useful for many personal purposes. Furthermore, it is not simply the ability to conduct research that debate teaches; rather it is the ability to engage in research efficiently and effectively. It still ceases to amaze us how poor the research skills are of most non-debaters. It is not that most people cannot do research, but rather how inefficient they are at doing it.

Second, learning how to do policy research, and doing the research is desirable because it provides students with a better understanding of how the American government, and the world, exist and operate. This is useful as academic knowledge, but is of even greater utility in professional and social roles that intersect with the functioning of the American democracy. As has been noted elsewhere, engagement in research not only produces disinterested knowledge, it also can facilitate individual argumentative agency (Mitchell, 1998). The policy analysis focus of research is particularly desirable in achieving this goal. Experience with policy research also can translate into “post-debate” skills. There are many debaters who have gained employment with a variety of private, governmental, and international policy institutions due in large part to their research skills (Parcher, 1996).

Research is an important part of the activity, and in policy debate it is essential. The specific knowledge requirements for this form of debate are intense, and they are magnified by the switch-side nature of the activity. Do other forms of debate require/teach research skills? Yes, but the results are not the same. Language and performance critiques produce shallow debate: they are “ultra generic,” have a lower burden of proof associated with them, and provide vague alternatives.
First, many of these critiques that fail to challenge the desirability of the plan are “ultra generics” that discourage research across a spectrum of issues. While there is considerable literature addressing language choices and performance, there is also always a vast amount of literature that addresses the resolution’s policy area. Reality is such that most individuals do not have the time to dedicate to researching all of these issues. Delving into one area of research will trade-off with another. Additionally, because the language and performance literature is so broad, and not necessarily linked to the policy area of the resolution or the affirmative plan, there is no way to fully research all of these issues, and still have time for policy issues. Consider last year’s mental illness topic, there were so many options regarding language choice and so many performances available for presentation that one could easily have only researched these issues and never made it into the policy literature. Some of the more recently popularized forms of performance have even resulted in the virtual elimination of research.

Second, the lower burden of proof that is asked of these criticisms further undermines research. While it might be true that critique teams could engage in more research the fact is that they don’t because it is generally not needed. Critiques, for some reason, are given a lower burden of proof by many, and therefore are seen as having “the maximum competitive benefit with the least effort” (Truett, 2001, p. online). For language critiques, for instance, the negative does usually engage in some pre-round/tournament research on the subject, but to make the argument apply to a specific team they only need listen to, and read over, the 1AC to extract the words or phrases that can serve as links for the critique. Research into the specific policy area is not required.

A third, and related, reason these critiques undermine research is the lack of a need to defend a political alternative. When combined with the lower burden of proof assigned to these criticisms, this serves as a simple way to sidestep a great deal of topic research. It increases the incentive to utilize these forms of argument. Why bother researching to learn the merits of a particular policy, or the desirability of a certain counterplan, when it requires much less research to develop a performance or a critique that indicts the use of words independent of policy considerations?

This substitution of topic specific literature for critical research undermines policy learning, and critical learning, because the debaters never really learn anything about the issue that the criticism is being applied to. What incentive exists to learn about policies and there differences if the only thing it takes to win a debate is to learn why one word is better than another is. Furthermore, because these critiques don’t require debaters to learn how policies work debaters begin to make absurd claims because the warrants are deemed to be of lesser importance. This has led to debaters making claims such as the ability of the critique to solve all global warming or genocide.

The second set of academic skills that policy debate helps develop is logic skills. Debate teaches how to structure thoughts and argument. It teaches students how to structure thoughts about identifying and addressing problems. The structure of policy debates, and their reliance on evidence, teaches the significance of general argumentative concepts such as claims and warrants. The use of outlining in presenting and flowing arguments teaches students how to apply and understand the role of claims and warrants. Once debaters develop these skills they are better prepared to structure a speech or write an argumentative paper. They understand where to place specific arguments and use evidence within the overall structure of the argument being presented. While critique debating also teaches these concepts, there is a very different understanding, and use of, these concepts between the policy focused and non-policy focused debate camps. By not advocating an alternative, or failing to define the solvency components of the nebulous “rethink” policy (if it is a policy) or absolutist “vote neg” approach, this approach to the activity de-emphasizes the role of warrants in proving the validity of the claims, rendering these discussions shallow.

TPD also provides training in the operation and conduct of advocacy within the American political process. Policy debate teaches students how the policy process functions, how they fit in it, and how goals can be accomplished within it. The requirement that each side in a debate defend competing policy alternatives also provides a better general understanding of what advocacy really is. “To advocate” is to “argue in favor of” (Webster’s 21st Century Dictionary, 1992). Policy debate requires each team to “argue in favor of.” Debate approaches that do not center on the desirability of the plan remove this burden to advocate by inserting an option of negating. While some might say that debate only asks the negative team “negate,” this is a slightly flawed view of debate. Debate does ask the affirmative to “affirm” the resolution and the negative to “negate” it, but it also asks each side to advocate (or affirm) a choice, a policy choice. Defenses of negation theory destroy this role for advocacy because to defend “what is not” is not to defend “what is.” Debate asks the judge to decide which side advocates the most desirable policy option at the end of the round. By failing to offer an alternative “that is,” these critique debaters offer the judge a definitionally hollow concept to endorse, i.e. they are advocating nothing (Cox, 1986). And as was discussed above regarding research, abandonment of the TPD approach risks politicizing the process of debater development, which further undermines advocacy skills.
The third skill set that policy debate helps develop is critical thinking. First, policy debate teaches debaters how to compare and contrast different policies and proposals (Solt, 1993). Policy debate serves an important function in teaching students how to make informed decisions in the modern American democracy. Pre-round preparation, research, knowledge of judge preferences, and understanding the limitations of the debate model all work to help debaters make these decisions.

Second, policy debate teaches debaters how to make these decisions quickly (Coverstone, 1995). In the midst of a debate there is not time to sit back and contemplate what decision to make, if, at the very most, a debater has only eight to ten minutes (if they wish to utilize all of their preparation time) to make a decision and stick with it. This need for decision is magnified as the debates occur at faster speeds of presentation. Debaters have to be focused on the arguments being offered, have to be able to understand them very quickly, and they have to be able to discern which arguments are of the greatest significance for the round. The decisions that are made might not be the best, but debaters are able to make a decision in seconds and then present the reasons for that decision. This occurs in the constructives, rebuttals, and cross-examinations. This ability to make a choice instantaneously is probably the most significant of skills that the policy debate model offers
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Again, why does the TPD model develop these skills best? The policy debate model is unique in that it asks debaters to make decisions about policies that might not be overwhelmingly different. This requires a great deal of attention to the details of the policies so that the differences can be fully identified and assessed. For instance, although agent counterplans are looked down upon by some because they aren’t very different from the plan, there are substantial differences between the plan and counterplan regarding the process of implementation and enforcement, which impacts issues of solvency and fiat. Being able to understand and draw out these solvency warrants is essential in effectively arguing for, or against, the counterplan. These counterplans also force debaters to be more careful in deciding how to word the plan, and counterplan, to develop competition and permutation ground. While non-plan-centric critiques might force some level of similar analysis, there is a rather pointed difference in the degree of critical assessment that occurs between the plan and the critique because there is no real way to define the critical alternative, let alone compare it to other alternatives. As has already been articulated, the lack of an alternative makes the critique definitionally hollow, which impairs effective critical analysis. By substituting a utopian vision for a policy option to compare against the plan, these critiques attempt to avoid a discussion of the critique’s workability by offering a nonfalsifiable alternative. “Every human institution has its flaws; its worth can therefore only be determined in relation to some alternative institutional arrangement” (Solt, 1993, p. online). Critical thinking and listening requires a communicator be able to engage in message analysis and criticism of propositions and justifications (Pearson & Nelson, 2000), and failing to provide a policy alternative impedes this level of policy analysis.

Policy debate’s reliance on uniqueness also helps develop critical thinking skills. Again, an important part of assessing argument validity is engaging in an assessment of all the relevant claims and warrants. An important part of that is the assessment of an issue’s uniqueness. Some would claim that uniqueness is irrelevant and that if something is wrong in instance A then it is also wrong in instance B. While this is true about some things, there certainly is no reason that this would hold true for all potential actions. This rejection of uniqueness is commonly employed by debaters who turn to the forms of critiques being discussed in this article. The irrelevancy of uniqueness is used to explain why the specificity of the link to the plan is of lesser importance, or why the lack of a specific policy alternative is not important. The harms that a criticism identifies are so prevalent and overwhelming that any participation in the system triggers the claims made in the critique (Snider, 1999). Such a belief eliminates the role of risk assessment in evaluating arguments. This is problematic because it places all claims on the same level and removes the importance of acknowledging the differences that exist at the level of warrants. If we were to consider the following two arguments, how would we decide which claim was of greater importance: (1) a recent hurricane has left thousands homeless and starving, and governmental assistance can solve these harms, and (2) deployment of governmental assistance to rectify these harms would be an example of statism which is imperialist. Odds are we would ask what “homeless and starving” and “imperialism” are, and we would ask what the likelihood of the two things occurring is. We would assess impact and likelihood of the impact. By removing uniqueness from the equation, it becomes more likely that the two concerns might be assigned similar weight (or imperialism would be assigned greater weight) and the failure to look to probability means that homelessness and starvation are allowed to continue (the odds of this possibility increases even more if we inject a non-policy alternative, such as “reject the aff,” into the equation).

TPD also fosters critical thinking skills with its emphasis on switch-side debating. By learning to play the devils advocate debaters are better able to handle strategic problems because they fully understand the fact that there are at least two sides to every issue (Parcher, 1996). If the concept of debate as a place for independent policy analysis within a competitive framework takes a back seat to a view that stresses the role of debate in serving as a forum for the advancement/development of personal advocacy, then the value of learning to be a devils advocate is rendered meaningless. Furthermore, preserving debate as a place where arguments can be employed without a sense of political attachment is what allows debate to be the testing ground for new ideas (Coverstone, 1995).

Conclusion

TPD provides the educational benefits that one should expect from the activity, and perhaps more importantly, it provides a model of debate that works to provide the fairest game for its participants. When one considers the values of education and competition, the TPD formula stands out as the clear choice for the approach that provides its competitors with the most of what they want.

One question that might still remain for some is what role does all of this leave for critical forms of argumentation? Well there is no denying that this model of debate does exclude certain styles of argumentation, however, that does not mean that it excludes all forms of critical argumentation. In fact, there are many critical arguments that can, and should, have a role in policy debate. What the “critiquers” need to do is establish specific links and degrees of uniqueness for their links and impacts so the arguments can be assessed against the opposition’s claims. Don’t simply argue that the United States has been imperialist which justifies affirmative rejection via the ballot, demonstrate how the plan is the United States being imperialist. Answer the question: is the affirmative plan a desirable policy option compared to the status quo or other competing policy options?

So, the question now becomes where do we go from here? First, those of us who support TPD need to work to make sure our preference is known. Second, we need to make sure to work to encourage the development of new policy debaters. This is a challenge that falls more heavily on coaches and judges than on debaters. Third, we need to be particularly concerned with the development of novice debaters to make sure that they first learn how to debate before we move them on more critical arguments, or sophisticated counterplans (Yes, while this article is primarily focused on the policy versus critical divide in debate, this concern of “rushed learning” also applies within the policy debate camp). Fourth, judges need to work to make sure they hold policy debate arguments and critical debate arguments to the same standards. This seems to be a particularly important concern, especially when one evaluates differences in speaker point assignment. As this article has demonstrated, despite the seeming decline in policy debate in the high school and collegiate debate worlds, there are several reasons to endorse and reinvigorate the TPD model.

Thanks to Stefan Bauschard for his insights and comments regarding the development of this article.

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