Ace Peak

The affirmative’s job is to prove the resolution true. In a typical team policy round, that means proving that the government should reform its policy. The way we evaluate whether reform should happen is whether it will be better than the status quo. In review, the affirmative must prove the resolution true. Policy resolutions propose change. Change should happen if that change is preferable to the status quo. Therefore, affirmative must prove that change provides, on net, a better world.

Ace Peak — How Omni Reworks the Aff Case I highly recommend reading this entire article!

“There is only one affirmative offensive claim: "The plan is more beneficial than the negative option.""

Ace Peak — How Omni Reworks the Neg Case

Ace Peak — 3 of the 6 “Burden of Proof” Myths You'll Hear at the Next Tournament

Ace Peak — The Other 3 Biggest Burden of Proof Myths (and How to Defeat Them)

Ace Peak — The Most Common Presumption Pitfall: Burden of Proof

Ace Peak — Camp Conversations: Topical Counterplans

“This conversation strikes at the most fundamental level of debate theory. At this level, it is impossible to say something is definitively correct. You can't prove anything because all of it rests on this. It's the Prime Mover of debate. So whether you use resolutionism or planism or parametrics or something else, it is ultimately an arbitrary decision. You can throw out some models for being incoherent or unfair, but at the end of the day, when you do pick a model, you have to say, I choose this because it produces the best debates. No one is wrong for disagreeing. That said, I have a very strong preference for resolutionism because coherent debate is impossible without it.”

“In the resolutionist model, everything is evaluated in terms of the burden of proof. If you make a positive statement that falls outside common knowledge, it needs proof. Since the resolution falls outside, it needs the affirmative team to provide proof in the form of a logical syllogism, AKA a debate case. The entire reason for the existence of the affirmative case is as a form of proof for the resolution. The negative case does the opposite, it is a logical syllogism concluding that the resolution is false. Within that structure, all other arguments have a place and a meaning. They compete against each other. Perhaps most exciting, you can track the impact stream from every argument back to the resolution. Why does this matter? Because of this, therefore that, therefore the resolution is true or false.”