By the Equality in Forensics Contributor Team

Topicality is an argument’s relation to the topic. It determines whether or not an affirmative advocacy is within the bounds of the resolution.

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Using Topicality

When questioning the topicality of the affirmative’s argument, you can use it as mitigation against their argument in rebuttal. You can then weigh the argument by telling the judge to evaluate your argument first since it is more topical than your opponent’s argument.

Outside of making a general rebuttal response, you can make a more thorough topicality response by creating a topicality shell. Topicality shells could be considered a type of theory shell, but I will explain the structure in this guide.

A topicality shell, like any other theory shell, has four parts: the interpretation, the violation, the standards, the voters, and the implications:

  1. Interpretation: this is how you would start the shell. You, as the negation, read your interpretation of a certain resolutional term and justify that definition to lead into why they don’t meet the interp.
  2. Violation: this explains why the affirmative team does not meet the interpretation of the term.
  3. Standards: the standards explain why the negation’s topical definition is important. It explains why debating the round with the negation’s definition better adheres to the intention of the resolution.
  4. Voters: think of voters as impacts. Voters explain why topicality is important, and why the affirmative violation is a reason for them to lose the round. The voters will almost always be fairness and education.
  5. Implications: either to “drop the debater” or “drop the argument”

The idea behind initiating a topicality response is to challenge the validity of the affirmative’s argument. It answers a prior question in the debate: before we engage with the merits of the argument, we must determine whether the argument is something we can debate in the first place within the bounds of the resolution.

Responding to Topicality