Basics of Extending a Counterplan

Often times when I am negative, I end up reading a politics DA and a States CP or any process/agent CP that avoids the link. Maybe this alongside an ADV CP -- rarley. Due to this strategy, I often take the CP and some case stuff or framework in the 1NR while my partner takes the DA in the 2NC. After many negative debates, I have come to understand what I have been doing wrong extending a CP and what should actually happen. So, in this post, we will be going over the basics of extending the CP in the block (or in this case the 1NR, but the structure is the same for 2NC).

First,

You should always structure the speech, to the best of your ability, to go line by line on the flow. This will make it easier for you and the judge. You will know that you answered all the 2AC arguments and the judge will not have to spend time looking around their flow to write down your argument. Even if perms were read like separately in the speech, you should still answer them in that order and not all the perms at once.

Second,

I like giving a short overview at the top. This should not be too long but it should explain the story of the CP -- like what it does and how it works. Again, this should not be longer than like 15-30 seconds; more than that, you are just wasting time that you could be using to answer arguments. I always start these o/vs with "CP solves 100% of the affirmative", and then I explain how it solves... "The CP does this and that or maybe achieves the aff through a different process blah blah" (obviously make this specific to the CP you are reading). Maybe a sentence on what the net benefits are is good, especially the impact scenarios.

Third,

Now that the overview is over, you should use what I said in the first step and start going line by line. The 2AC read perms at the top of the CP flow?? Answer them at the top of yours. Did they start with solvency deficits?? Answer those at the top of yours. Again, this honestly just makes it easier for everyone, especially the judge. Since this is just a post about the basic, I will not get into how to answer common 2AC arguments (that will be a later post). Simply, you should have pre-made blocks and answers to these common aff answers:

1 -- Perm Do Both

2 -- Perm Do CP

3 -- Perm do CP then the Plan

4 -- Perm do Plan then the CP

5 -- Perm other issues

6 -- Solvency Deficits

7 -- Turns on the net benefit

8 -- Theory

Again, I will go over all of these in a more advanced post with all the specifics. What I shared up above is just a general structure on what to do when extending a CP. Another key thing to keep in mind is that if something from the 1NC went dropped, you should not read new evidence on the issue -- you should just extend the argument by explaining it from the evidence in the 1NC. The reason for this is to not give the 1AR any breathing room on answering arguments -- reading new evidence opens the door wide open for the 1AR to make new arguments.