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If you were given a wobbly tower of blocks, what would you do? How would you fix it? Would you add an extra block? Would you try to fill in the gap? Or could you just start by removing a block and letting the base stand on its own?
The University of Virginia ran a test like this. Researchers asked people to fix Lego structures by adding or removing blocks. In each one there was an obvious piece that didn't belong and ought to have been removed. But people consistently, intuitively, tried to add blocks rather than remove them. The study was published in Nature in 2021, and the lesson is simple: people don't recognize the power of removal.
Today we're going to look at three things: how to pick a case, how to fill a case, and how to tell a case, so the judge knows exactly what you mean by the case you're running.
Part 1: Pick it. Remove, don't add.
How do you pick a case? Let me first ask you a question. If your dishes are dirty, is it easier to throw them away and buy new ones, or to clean them? The better solution is to clean your dishes: remove the dirt and the grime and anything that makes them unusable.
In the same way, 1ACs are easier and more effective when they remove something. They remove the clutter from the bureaucracy that's built up over the last 250 years of American history. That's why my cases throughout my time in debate were consistently things like:
- End cargo preference for food aid
- Ban universal life insurance
- Cut the O&M budget
- End the Foreign Dredge Act of 1906
- End the RFS
Cases like that let judges grasp exactly what you're doing and say yes. Yes, we don't want the buildup of a bureaucracy. Yes, we'd like to make this simpler for Americans, for the government, for citizens. Less taxes, less paperwork. The things that make life unfortunate, like paying taxes and doing paperwork, can go away. You can remove them. You can say: all of this is a bad thing, let's just get rid of it. There's no point to reforming it, no point to trying to fix whatever nitty-gritty issues it has. Just get rid of it and let's move on.
Answer Chesterton's fence
A 1AC must also explain why. The immediate response from negative teams will revolve around Chesterton's fence: the idea that people shouldn't tear down a fence until they know why it's there.
Say you have a fence around your house. Don't tear it down until you figure out whether the neighbors have a dog. Take down the fence, the dog runs away, and you're definitely not going to be in the good graces of your neighbor.
So answer Chesterton's fence in your 1AC. Whatever you're removing (the program, office, legal ruling, act, statute, whatever it is), explain why it existed in the first place. Then you can tell the judge they should tear it down, and why.
That way, when the judge or the other team asks why it's there, you've already answered, and you aren't forced to come up with a random answer on the spot. Let your 1AC be the answer. Let your case be picked because there's a problem in the status quo that needs to be solved, because there's a rule that shouldn't exist in the first place.
Part 2: Fill it
There are two things I want to share under this point. First: how do we get to a 1AC? How do we get to the content that belongs in one? I think of it in four layers.
- Drop doc. This is typically a deranged drop doc. It can be absolute chaos. You put in your ideas, your thoughts, your rhetoric, any quotes you find, any citations you find. Mine is full of random paragraphs (I don't know where they came from), URLs, links, sources, things my partner or friends have mentioned.
- Outline. When I say outline, I don't mean set up your eight points. I mean go through everything you've written into your drop doc and mark out all the good arguments. We have an argument about this, an argument about that. This seems like a really good idea. This one is probably not so good. What is all the content we have? Where can we go with it?
- Cited. Take the best, most effective arguments and put them in a new document. Cite them. Get the evidence for them, the actual paragraph from wherever it came from, and give it a tag if you can. Now you have content you like, that makes really good arguments, and that is also cited.
- The 1AC. From there, we can build the 1AC.
A drill worth running: build 16 minutes of 1AC. Don't worry about putting in only the most perfect stuff. Just build. Then ask: if I only had eight minutes, what would I keep? Now you almost have a 1AC and a 2AC, because you know your top 16 minutes of content. That will shift over time, but it's a really good way to get a 1AC in the first place, one you can then shape with the rules for filling it.
The four NEEDs
Those rules are the four NEEDs: the four things that must be in every single 1AC. If you want to win, if you want a 1AC that is effective, you must include all four: a picture, a statistic, a real example, and an impact.
1. A picture. You should have a story, an analogy, an idea that a judge (or you yourself) can grasp and tell many times. It puts everybody in the same mental headspace, so you can talk about your idea without creating unnatural hypotheticals that don't really apply.
2. A statistic. You need numbers that can be grasped, that you can depend on and hold on to, that really push your agenda forward and show what has to happen to cause the advantages you're claiming.
3. A real example. If you're going to claim that people are dying or suffering, or that there's some kind of injustice in the world, you need an example. You can't just say, "Oh, well, we want to prevent the police state." Well, do we have a police state? No. So that's an invalid case. It doesn't actually help anybody.
If you're going to say there's an issue with paraquat in agriculture policy, show that people are dying: here's a farm where it was used, and here's what happened. Then pair it with the statistic. In the aggregate, here's what happens; in the specific, here's what happens. Use the universals and the particulars, the parts and the whole. That way you don't commit a whole-to-part fallacy or a part-to-whole fallacy, and you show the judge everything at once: by analogy, by statistic, by real example.
4. An impact. The fourth NEED is a massive impact, a massive reason for the judge to vote for you. If you give ideas and reasoning but can't give the judge something detrimental or incredibly beneficial that results from your case, you fall flat. The judge has nothing to vote off of.
You should be able to say: this is our case-wide impact, the universal impact of what we're talking about. And at the same time: this is the impact of this specific argument. Any harm you run, any advantage you run, should have an impact that is tagged in the 1AC and explains to the judge why anything you say matters.
The "so what?" test. For every argument, even for every sentence in the 1AC, ask: so what? What does it offer me? What does it do for me? Is the judge actually more inclined to vote for me after hearing this? If so, why? Then make sure that is very, very clear.
Part 3: Tell it. One story.
How do we tell a 1AC? How do we tell a story and share with the judge what's going on? You get one story. You don't have a lot of time. You will know much more than the judge will ever get to know, much more than you can cram into eight minutes, or even into an hour-and-a-half round. But you can still tell the judge what is most important.
Consider Abraham Lincoln at Gettysburg, one of the most famous speeches in the world. Two minutes. 272 words. And it still made a humongous impact.
Say the best things, not all the things.
What helps you say the best things is a story you've thought through. And I don't mean a story like "Bob and Joe go here and there." I mean you understand the context of the world and the problem you're trying to answer. That goes back to how you pick your case. If you're removing something, why does it exist right now? And what is the result of it not existing in the future?
Every sentence moves forward
The other thing that makes this a reality is keeping in mind that you're always moving forward. Every sentence should be a step forward. That's why you never repeat yourself. You should never be repeating warrants or reasons or anything.
When you read the evidence, the rhetoric after it shouldn't just explain what the evidence said. It should take the evidence and analyze it to draw the case forward and pull us into the next idea. That's why a lot of the time you don't need a whole paragraph of rhetoric after a piece of evidence. You need one line or two lines to get us to the next idea.
You should also add rhetoric around your taglines: before a tagline, after a tagline, and then you get into the source. Even between sources and pieces of evidence, a line of rhetoric can explain things and help the judge move along with you.
The tag test
Every tag should be written to help tell that story. Here's the test: write down all of the tags from your 1AC and give them to somebody else, or just read them yourself. Does it tell a story? Do I understand what's going on? Does it fill in all the gaps? Does it show me something I want to vote for?
You want the judge thinking: I want to vote for this Aff team simply because I can see in their tags that their argument is valid, it makes sense, it pulls on the real world. It has examples, statistics, a real impact. That makes them want to jump on board and get this plan passed.
If your tags don't do that, rework them. Make them clearer. Add some tags. Develop your arguments to the point where they tell that story and drive the judge right into the ideas of your 1AC so they can hold onto it. Because judges are typically not going to make their decision right there in front of you. They go back to the judges' lounge to fill out the ballot. By then, have they forgotten everything? Maybe. But if they have your tags on their flow, they can look back and say, "That story is just so good. I have to vote for that." That's how you win. That's how you really, really win.
Three bonus ideas
1. Read credentials. It makes you sound way more credible, way more real. You've actually done your research. You're using really good sources. It makes you feel much more dominant in terms of your content, and it will boost your speaker points and your ability to sound confident in the round. Instead of saying "John Smith said," say "The founder of such-and-such organization, John Smith, said." That just boosts everything.
2. Be careful with your openers. Don't read a pithy quote. Some teams open with "Benjamin Franklin once said..." No. Don't do things like that. Come up with a specific story, an example, a statistic, or very broadly express the idea or momentum of the world that says why your plan should or shouldn't be passed.
3. Don't write out of fear. Don't write your 1AC out of fear of a negative argument that might crush it. Write it out of confidence that you're right. You can add some spikes (handling arguments you think they might bring up), especially in your mandate, where you can cover for a lot of disadvantages. But don't write your 1AC purely around all the negative arguments you fear. Write it so you can convince the judge in those eight minutes to be so far on your side that no negative argument even matters.
The short version
- Pick it. Think about how people think, and answer the question most people don't want to: how can we remove things to make this better? Then answer Chesterton's fence.
- Fill it. Fill it with all the content you can find, then make sure it has the four NEEDs: a picture, a statistic, an example, an impact.
- Tell it. Tell one story. Wrap it all together. Leave the judge with no concerns, and leave the negative team floundering without any response to your case.
