Thanks Nick Matthews!
Here are a few great files from Nick Matthews.
eSeals 1AC 1.0
Hydrogen 1AC
Free Trade Disad
US Dollar Hegemony Disad
T Violations Sample
Heidegger Sample
One thing that is interesting is that Nick sets up his case very differently than I usually teach. The way I interpret his case is: in the eSeals case Nick set it as: inherency, plan, harms and solvency; in the Hydrogen case he set it as: inherency, plan, solvency, harms.
The way I usually teach the first affirmative constructive is inherency, harms, plan and then solvency. The reason for this is that it tells a really clean story. You tell the judge/audience what’s currently going on and why your policy has not been implemented. You then tell then the bad things that’s happening from the status quo. Third, you propose a plan to address the bad things that are happening in the status quo. Finally, you tell the judge why you think your plan will address the bad things in the status quo.
How do you all setup your cases? For me, hearing harms after hearing the plan would be a bit disjointed. I don’t know why I’m hearing about the negative things in the status quo after hearing about your plan to change the status quo.
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Comments
I have noticed what Nick is talking about, the times have changed and so has the format. When i was judging City Champs for the LA metro debate league I saw this a lot, same with all the HS camp files I saw.
I like having the harms – plan – solve for the top and then I have actual advantages. The reason is because I would rather argue significance then solvency so if you can take out the solvency on the advantages I still have solvency for my harms.
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I stick to an advantage format. Inherency, Plan Text, Advantages/Solvency (which are really interchangeable in terms of order). This is a more contemporary take on the 1AC that I imported from high school policy. (More examples on my archived wiki page: http://debatecoaches.org/wiki/index.php?title=2008-2009_CK_McClatchy_(CA)_-_Kelsey_Long_%26_Nick_Matthews )
There’s nothing disjointed about it at all. From a “storytelling” perspective it goes like: 1) There’s no plan now; 2) Here’s the plan; 3/4) Here’s why the plan is a good idea & proof that it works. With the advantage format it makes more sense to read the plan text before explaining why the plan is needed.
Inherency/Harms/Plan/Solvency has kind of fallen out of favor in other policy debate circles, which is why I don’t use it. But really, most 1ACs are functionally the same, minor distinctions in contention order are not particularly noteworthy as long as the general picture is coherent.