Topic papers will be due on April 24, 2021 at Midnight Central time. If you have questions about the process, please feel free to message me. I have also attached a copy of the paper guidelines that the committee has forwarded to help authors writing their area papers.
2021 Guidelines for Topic Area Papers
To be included on the ballot, topic area papers should optimally address the issues listed below. These are considerations that members of the topic committee, to varying degrees, are likely to consider in evaluating papers.
The material listed below should be covered in the first 25 pages. Beyond 25 pages, additional material is optional. The additional material should be efficiently organized: ideally use block/card format with complete citations. Papers must be submitted on the CEDA forums no later than April 24th at Midnight Central Time.
Topic papers should be formatted in Verbatim.
- The topic must be "domestic". The topic rotation defines a domestic topic as one that "relates to issues within the United States." Each topic paper should explain why the proposed resolutions are domestic.
- Domestic topics can be legal, to be clear, many domestic topics could also be a legal topic. However, for the purposes of the rotation, if a topic is chosen this year it will be coded as domestic. Meaning, if a legal-domestic topic is chosen this year, we still have a rotation for another legal topic.
- Provide an executive summary that gives the “elevator pitch” for why the topic should be selected
- Outline the core controversy (what is the major dispute to be debated?)
- Give reasons that this controversy is valuable to debate at this particular time
- Provide solvency advocates for 3-4 core affirmatives
- Outline 3-4 core advantage areas
- Provide link evidence for 2 or more core topic disads, and demonstrate uniqueness for those DA’s
- Provide solvency evidence for 2 or more core topic counterplans
- Provide evidence for critical ground on both sides of the resolution
- Speak to the possible effects of significant uniqueness/inherency issues - e.g. COVID, Stimulus, Infrastructure bill
- Identify core components that you believe should ideally be included under potential resolutions
- Provide 3-4 suggested resolutional starting points
- Include definitions of the words used in resolutional starting points
- Provide definitions for core topic mechanism—proposed resolutions must include definitions
- Authors will ideally include at least one person currently active in college policy debate
- Papers should include a variety of high-quality sources
- Evidence should be as recent as possible
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