Table of Contents
What is the 1AC?
The 1AC is the first speech of every debate round and is where the affirmative presents their arguments. The affirmative establishes their points of offense for the entire round in this speech. You can learn more about what happens in this speech and who gives it here.
Structure of the 1AC
Cards
Cards are the building blocks of policy debate. You can think of them as the atoms of policy debate. Each speech or file consists of multiple cards that say different things. So what exactly are cards? Cards are just simply how we present our evidence or research in policy debate. You can learn more about cards here.
The Plan
The plan is what the affirmative proposes each round and is the basis of the content debated in the round. The plan always falls under the resolution which provides a broader topic that the affirmative chooses something from. You can think of the resolution as an apple tree and the plan as an apple plucked from it. This also means that each round would be slightly different ensuring that you never get bored of debates.
Inherency
Inherency just means what is happening in the world right now. In debate terms we call it the "status quo". These are usually one or multiple pieces of evidence that shows the plan isn't in place right now because if the plan already exists then there is no point debating about it. Often times, these arguments will also say something bad is happening right now.
Advantages
Each 1AC usually consists of two or three advantages. Advantages are, just like what it sounds like, reasons why the plan is good. This usually consists of how the plan changes the bad things in the "status quo" that has been established above in the inherency portion of the affirmative. Advantages have internal link chains in them that establishes how the plan affects the "status quo" and avoids an impact. For example:
Climate change now -> Failure to solve causes extinction - > Plan solves climate change
Solvency
Solvency is just how the plan solves for the impact in each advantage. If we continue the example we used above, the solvency would maybe say something like "Plan innovates technology which solves for climate change". Pretty simple to understand.
