 Imagine you're getting ready for a debate. The topic is given and you've been asked to oppose the resolution that the state of California should ban people from owning cats. You start to do your research and find some good data about how cats make good companion animals and also help keep down rodent populations. You prep out your arguments and heads the debate. When you get there, you are perplexed because your opponent has advocated for a ban on caterpillar brand tractors, which they point out is commonly shortened to cats. Situations like these fall into a strategy of what some refer to as squirrel cases. While it seems like it must surely be against some kind of rule of debate, it turns out that things are not that simple. In debate rounds, rules, like most everything, are in fact debatable. This leaves us with the reality that we need a structure to call out other teams that bend and break them. In most forms of debate, this is referred to as procedural argumentation or theory. Today we're going to discuss one of the most common types of debate theory, topicality. We will cover what it is, how to run it, and take a look at a couple variations. In a debate round, the affirmative has a number of burdens. Chief among them is to uphold the resolution. When debating policy topics, the plan becomes the focal point of the debate. For an affirmative to meet their main burden, they must present a plan text that fulfills the topic and action called for by the resolution. Falling outside these limits can be justification for the negative team to accuse the affirmative of being not topical. The concept of topicality is a stock issue in debate which pertains to whether or not the plan affirms the resolution as worded. To contest the topicality of the affirmative, the negative interprets a word or words in the resolution and argues the affirmative does not meet that definition, that their interpretation is preferable, and that non-topicality should be a reason that the affirmative should lose the debate. It's important to keep in mind that the affirmative team has some incentive to propose an obscure plan that the negative will not be prepared to debate. If, while debating on the negative, you feel that your opponents stretched the meaning of the resolution too far, you should use topicality to argue that the affirmative's plan, no matter how well structured or supported, is abusive because it is not a legitimate example of the resolution. In fact, you may have little choice but to make this argument. If the plan is truly unrelated to the resolution, thus preventing you from running the case arguments and disadvantages that you're prepared before the start of the round, topicality exists to limit what the affirmative may talk about so that the negative can have a reasonable chance to argue against the case. Now that you have a working idea of what topicality is, let's get into how to run it. Topicality, like most procedural arguments, has four basic parts. The interpretation, the violation, standards, and voters. Let's talk about each of them. First, the interpretation. When making a topicality argument, the negative team should start by explaining what their interpretation of the resolution was. This is most commonly accomplished by providing a cited definition of one or more words that come directly from the resolution. These definitions could come from either a dictionary or an expert in the topic area. Dictionaries work well for common words, like substantially. However, when words in the resolution have a specific meanings in the context of public policy, it is best to find definitions that are presented by experts in the relevant field. Such phrases are referred to as terms of art, meaning that the way they are used in a particular field or study differs from their common usage. The word democracy, for example, has a very broad meaning in everyday English and could encompass a wide variety of concepts and practices. In the context of the term of art, democracy assistance, however, refers specifically to a type of foreign policy approaches adopted by governments that seek to support the spread of democracy as a political system around the world. It is also important to understand the interpretation is more than just presenting a definition. You need to explain what the resolution requires of the other team. Typically, negative teams will try to narrow the scope of the debate by focusing on a couple words in the resolution the affirmative plan fails to meet. Consider the following resolution. The state of California should substantially increase the minimum wage. If the negative team wanted to argue that the affirmative plan was not a large enough increase to be topical, they would start with an interpretation of the phrase substantially increase from the resolution. Here, simple dictionary definitions like of ample or considerable amount or quantity or size may not be narrow enough to adequately accuse the debater of not being topical. However, if we look to case law, we can find a legal definition. Substantially increase means an increase in wage earning capacity by 50% or more. This narrower definition gives us better ability to specifically claim what the affirmative must accomplish to be topical. In practice, it may sound like this. A is the interpretation. According to the legal definition published by the law insider to substantially increase means an increase of wage earning capacity by 50% or more. To be topical, the affirmative must increase the California minimum wage by at least 50%. Now that you have an idea of how the interpretation works, let's move on to the second component of topicality, the violation. Simply put, the violation is the negative team's explanation why the affirmative plan fails to meet the interpretation they just provided. If you can't simply explain why their plan does not meet your interpretation, then you probably need to look for a new interpretation. Let's go back to our minimum wage example. Let's assume the affirmative plan was to increase California's minimum wage by one dollar. As of the creation of this video, California's minimum wage is currently at $12 an hour. Using our interpretation above to be topical, the affirmative would need to increase the minimum wage by at least $6 an hour to hit the 50% increase of $18 an hour. To explain the violation here, you might say something like, B is the violation. The affirmative fails to pass a substantial increase to the minimum wage by only increasing it by one dollar, which is less than a 10% increase. Next, let's discuss the third point of topicality, the standards. Standards or reason debaters give the judge to prefer one interpretation to another. Standards are where the real meat of a topicality debate should occur. Standards are arguments about the definitions. They describe what kinds of definitions, in general, are best. An interpretation can be best in two senses. It can either be more correct or better for the debate. An interpretation that is more correct than another may be more grammatical, come from a more credible source, or make more sense within the larger context of the resolution. On the other hand, standards that argue the interpretation is better focus on why it would lead to better debate. In other words, these standards evaluate which interpretation would lead to debates that promote the best values such as fairness, education, and even entertainment. In this category, you're likely to use standards such as limits. Does the interpretation restrict the affirmative to a fair number of cases? Ground. Does the interpretation allow the negative access to ample case attacks and disadvantages? And Brightline. Does the interpretation clearly distinguish topical from non-topical cases, thereby minimizing the need for the judge to intervene into the round? Going back to our example, a couple of these standards could work. You might say something like, C is the standards. First, Brightline. Our definition provides the clearest Brightline of what is topical and what is not. Anything over a 50% or $6 increase would be topical. Anything less would not be. Second, prefer legal definitions. This topic directly deals with creating new laws. It is better for the round if we use legal definitions to determine what is a topical action. Our definition comes directly from case law related to wage increases, and thus is a more credible source of how we should define the topic. The final component of a topicality is the voters. In debate, voters or a voting issue is an argument that can determine the winner of a round all by itself. It is sometimes helpful to think of the voters as the penalty for not being topical in a topicality argument. Topicality is a voting issue for several reasons. First, when an affirmative team fails to defend a topical plan, predictable ground is being skewed. By presenting a non-topical plan, the affirmative side gains access to ground that the negative team could not have predicted. Likewise, the work the negative team did to prepare prior to the round is also lost. For example, think back to our opening example of cats as tractors. If the negative team prepped out a disadvantage about rodent management, all the time and effort that they spent getting ready would have been lost, skewing the debate per the aft. Second, when the affirmative ignores the resolution, topic-specific education is lost. Since the plan takes an action that falls outside the limits set forth by the resolution, a portion of the debate that occurs in the round is not topical. Additionally, a non-topical plan inherently excludes the discussion of issues that might have been discussed if the plan was topical. Again, if the affirmative makes the debate about tractors, the specific discussion about cat ownership never takes place. Third, many forms of debate explicitly stipulate that the affirmative must affirm the resolution. In MPDA style, the rules state the proposition team must affirm the resolution by presenting and defending a sufficient case for that resolution. In an FALD debate, the by-law state, the official decision-making paradigm of an FALD is that of stock issues, harm, advantage of goals, inherency, solvency, and topicality. The affirmative is required to propose a plan that meets the four initial burdens. In IPDA, the by-law state, affirmatives are allowed to define resolutions. However, affirmative interpretations and definitions must fit within the resolution and leave negatives fair ground for the debate. Other formats of debate have similar rules. Last, it's important to note that not only is topicality a voting issue, but also that it must always be a prior question in the round. If other arguments are able to supersede topicality, then teams could use such arguments to justify their use of non-topical plans. In round, there are a few ways you can articulate why your topicality argument should be a voting issue. First is fairness, which argues that the affirmative plan is not topical, the negative does not have a fair chance to win the round. In order for a judge to vote on fairness, many judges will want to hear a clear explanation of abuse. The best way to do this is to clearly articulate which arguments they were able to make against the plan and why those arguments are important. If you're not specific, then you are only arguing for potential abuse, which can still work, but it's not as persuasive as when the abuse is clearly articulated. Another argument why topicality is a voting issue is jurisdiction. The jurisdiction argument for why topicality is a voter compares the judge in the debate round to a judge in a court of law by saying that she has no jurisdiction to vote for a plan that is not an example of the resolution. That means that regardless of how good an idea the plan may be, if proven non-topical, the affirmative team has failed to meet their burden of affirming the resolution. So the judge has no choice but to vote negative. Regardless of the way you articulate the voters, keep in mind that the penalty you are calling for is a negative ballot. The affirmative should not be allowed to win the debate if you have proven them to be non-topical. Let's go back to our minimum wage example. Here, the voters might sound something like this. D are the voters. First, we want to argue that topicality is an a priori voting issue and must be evaluated prior to any other argument in the round. We argue that this topicality is a voting issue for fairness. We have clearly articulated that the affirmative plan does not represent a substantial increase to the minimum wage. This creates clear abuse to the negative team. All of our disadvantages were predicated on link stemming from damage caused by increasing the minimum wage more than $6 an hour. By ignoring the substantially increase portion of the resolution, the affirmative team is able to easily no link out of our disadvantages to win the debate. This makes good offense impossible. The judge must vote on topicality because the negative team does not have a fair shot at winning the round otherwise. Now that you have a clear idea how to run topicality, let's wrap up with a short discussion of other considerations. There are a couple of situations that may complicate how you run topicality. First, imagine a round where the affirmative's plan meets every word of the resolution, but also takes an additional action not specified in the resolution. This is called extra topicality, which means that although the affirmative's plan meets the resolution, it also goes beyond it as well. In instances like this, the negative team should run a T that argues their interpretation clearly sets a bright line for what topical actions are called for, then a violation that explains how the extra topical plan exceeds those limits. In the standards, make arguments about why these limits are important and how being extra topical destroys them. Finally, in the voters, the negative must explain why this is unfair to them and hence why extra topicality should be a voting issue. Frequently, the affirmative is able to claim some unfair advantage from the extra topical action that their plan takes. This can work as the articulated or even proven abuse in your fairness argument. It is also possible for the affirmative team to advocate for a plan that is not directly topical, but might lead to topical action in the future. This is called effects topicality. When the affirmative's plan appears to be effects topical, you should approach topicality similarly as how you would when they are extra topical. This means that you need to argue that the plan itself must be topical action, not merely have topical actions as one of its effects. Today, we covered the basics of topicality. We talked about what it is, how you should run it in and around, and how to adjust the argument when it seems that your opponent is effects or extra topical. Remember that in debate, the rules are what you argue them to be. It's totally possible that the affirmative will try to mess with you if you let them. Topicality is your weapon to stop them. Thanks for watching. This video series is written and produced by me, Ryan Guy, with the help of a wide variety of scholarly research and open educational resources. For more information on the references and materials used, see the description page on YouTube. This video is published under a Creative Commons license. Please feel free to share, use, and remix its content.