In policy debate

Policy debate

Policy debate is a form of speech competition in which teams of two advocate for and against a resolution that typically calls for policy change by the United States federal government or security discourse...

, a turn is an argument

Argument

In philosophy and logic, an argument is an attempt to persuade someone of something, or give evidence or reasons for accepting a particular conclusion.Argument may also refer to:-Mathematics and computer science:...

 that proves an argument the other side has made is in fact support for one's own side. This is as opposed to a take-out which merely argues that the argument the other team has made is wrong. The turn can be used against virtually any argument that includes a link and impact (or something equivalent), including disadvantage

Disadvantage

In policy debate, a disadvantage is an argument that a team brings up against a policy action that is being considered.-Structure:...

s, kritik

Kritik

In policy debate , a kritik is generally a type of argument that challenges a certain mindset, assumption, or discursive element that exists within the advocacy of the opposing team, often from the perspective of...

s, and advantages to the affirmative case

Case (policy debate)

In policy debate, a case, sometimes known as plan, is a textual advocacy presented by the affirmative team as a normative or "should" statement, generally in the 1AC...

.

For example, if the negative said "The plan increases poverty," the affirmative could turn with "the plan decreases poverty" or take-out by proving the plan didn't increase poverty.

There are two types of turns:

• Link Turn
• Impact Turn

Link turns

Example: If the negative

Negative (policy debate)

In policy debate, the Negative is the team which negates the resolution.The negative team speaks second and second to last. They give four speeches:*First negative constructive *Second negative constructive *First negative rebuttal...

 argued the plan would destroy the economy, the affirmative

Affirmative (policy debate)

In policy debate, the affirmative is the team which affirms the resolution.The Affirmative side negates the negative.The affirmative team speaks first and last. They give four speeches:*First affirmative constructive...

 would link turn this argument by arguing that the plan would help the economy.

A link turn requires that the affirmative control the uniqueness, that is whether the disadvantage

Disadvantage

In policy debate, a disadvantage is an argument that a team brings up against a policy action that is being considered.-Structure:...

 will occur in the status quo. In the above example, in order to link turn effectively, the affirmative would need to win a non-unique argument, i.e. that the economy will collapse now. Otherwise, the Negative can kick the disadvantage, arguing it is a moot issue, by saying that economic collapse will not occur in the status quo, so the prevention of a non-existent event carries no advantage.

Impact turns

Example: If the negative

Negative (policy debate)

In policy debate, the Negative is the team which negates the resolution.The negative team speaks second and second to last. They give four speeches:*First negative constructive *Second negative constructive *First negative rebuttal...

 argued the plan would cause the economy to collapse, resulting in war the affirmative

Affirmative (policy debate)

In policy debate, the affirmative is the team which affirms the resolution.The Affirmative side negates the negative.The affirmative team speaks first and last. They give four speeches:*First affirmative constructive...

 could impact turn by arguing that economic decline would actually dampen desire to go to war.

An impact turn requires impact calculus

Impact calculus

In policy debate, impact calculus is a type of argumentation which seeks to compare the impacts presented by both teams.-Basic impact calculus:...

, that is: the reasons economic decline would make war less likely must outweigh the reasons it would spur war. For this reason, Impact Turns are usually run with No Impact arguments.

Very often, kritik

Kritik

In policy debate , a kritik is generally a type of argument that challenges a certain mindset, assumption, or discursive element that exists within the advocacy of the opposing team, often from the perspective of...

s are subject to impact turns on account of their philosophical, rather nebulous impacts; a critique of the state

State (polity)

A state is an organized political community, living under a government. States may be sovereign and may enjoy a monopoly on the legal initiation of force and are not dependent on, or subject to any other power or state. Many states are federated states which participate in a federal union...

declaring that the purported increase in state power that the plan creates is bad because it unduly exercises power and forces citizens into doing things that they would not choose to do otherwise might be impact turned by first mitigating the harm the state does and then saying that other things the state does — such as provide police and fire services — are good.

Distinctions

Note that the line between link turns and impact turns can be rather blurry. For instance, in the above disadvantage, the affirmative could also impact turn by arguing that nuclear war would be an on-face positive event (perhaps in preventing the development of even more deadly weapons in the future). In general, the phrase link turn is used to describe a turn applied directly to what the plan action does, and impact turn to a turn applied to what the negative has asserted is a good or bad thing. Where there is ambiguity, turns in the middle of this hierarchy of causation are often called internal link turns.

Straight turns

A disadvantage (or advantage) is said to be straight-turned when the responding team has answered an argument only with turns and with no defensive argument.

For example: If the affirmative link turned the economy disadvantage above but also argued that economic collapse did not lead to war, the negative could "kick" the disadvantage by granting the impact take-out to eliminate the risk of a turn.

A common negative mistake is to grant a non-uniqueness argument to kick a link turned disadvantage. Since non-uniqueness arguments are critical components of link turns, a disadvantage with only non-unique and link turn responses is actually straight turned.

Double turns

It is a classic debate mistake for an affirmative to read both link and impact turns. In the above example, the affirmative might argue that the plan was key to prevent the economy from collapsing, and that economic collapse would dampen the probability of war. While either of these arguments alone turns the disadvantage, the two arguments together double-turn. The negative can grant these two arguments, and the affirmative is stuck arguing that the plan would increase the probability of a war.