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4 Tips for Defeating Resolutional Objections


This article is part of a series on resolutional objections: a fun segment of LD theory. Check out the previous posts here:

Resolutional Objections Made Easy

4 Tips for Winning with Resolutional Objections


In the last two articles, we discussed how to run resolutional objections to maximize your chance of winning the round. Here’s what to do if someone runs one against you.

1. No whining.

Don’t complain about the case; that just makes you look weak. Maybe the judge feels sorry for you, maybe she doesn’t. Either way, your best bet is to give the round everything you’ve got. Act like a great debater who is in control of the situation.

That said, it’s okay to respectfully talk about the objection as an absurd tactic. The judge should feel like your opponent is weaseling his way out of the round because he’s afraid of arguing against it normally.

“My opponent asks for a general defense of the resolution - my whole case is a general defense! And instead of responding to it, my opponent glossed over it with a single response.”

2. Get all the admissions.

Clarify in cross-examination that your opponent doesn’t disagree with any particular part of your case. Work through them one at a time. Make a meal out of it.

Aff: Did you respond to my value?
Neg: I said I neither accept nor reject it.
Aff: So, just to confirm: you don’t disagree with my value?
Neg: Correct.
Aff: And my value links as well, no disagreement?
Neg: I don’t explicitly disagree with any part of your case, no.
Aff: So you don’t disagree with my contention?
Neg: Correct.
Aff: Just to make absolutely sure I don’t misquote you: you don’t disagree that preventive war saves lives?
Neg: Well, I showed how misguided that whole line of thinking is.
Aff: Does that mean you reject my contention?
Neg: No.
Aff: What about my application, where preventive war saved a hundred thousand innocent people?

By the end of the cross-ex the judge should be laughing because the negative effectively conceded the entire resolution piece by piece.

A warning: don’t push any further than the admission. You may be tempted to ask a question like, “So if my value is true, and my contention is true, isn’t the resolution true?” Your opponent will say: “I’m so glad you asked,” and waste a bunch of your time re-explaining what an objection is.

3. Spend time on your case.

A good negative will devote just a few seconds to your case. That signals to the judge that your case doesn’t matter, and that the whole debate should be about the res objection. You can’t allow that. Try to spend at least a minute reviewing your side of the flow in the 1AR, indignantly reminding the judge that your entire case proves the resolution and is unrefuted.

4. Expose the straw man.

Here’s the biggest secret to defeating res objections: they almost always depend on an implied resolutional analysis. They interpret the resolution in a way that doesn’t make sense, and then defeat the nonsense version. This is a chance for you to use the term Strawman Fallacy: changing an argument into something that is easier to defeat.

Sometimes, the best way to defeat a res objection is to go directly after the thesis. But more often, you should look for a way to sidestep it entirely. Carefully examine the assumptions the negative is making about how to read the resolution. Chances are, you disagree with one of them. Build your defense out of that disagreement.


In the next article, we’ll analyze the current NCFCA LD resolution and explain why objections are so powerful.


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