Tips on Writing an Affirmative Case

• Pick an area of the resolution that interests you. Someday, you may want to use all of the research you will do for writing your case later on, like to do a research project or paper or perhaps for a speech for forensics. The more interested you are, the better you will be able to research about it. With the Education-Reform policy topic, you will likely want to do some basic research to begin with, to familiarize yourself with history, past policies in the area you want to write your case about, and other technical aspects which may apply to your area.

  For example, if you want to write a case.

• Be sure to pay attention to length when writing. You or your partner (whoever will do the first affirmative constructive) will need to be able to read the case out loud, clearly and comfortably, in 8 minutes.

• After you have selected the evidence that you want to put in your affirmative case, be sure both of you are familiar with all of the acronyms and other technical words which may be in your evidence. It’s a good idea to make notes in the margins of what everything means for a while, until you become accustomed to the jargon. During cross-examination, the negative team may ask you what everything you read just meant, and you want to be able to explain it to them. Always be able to paraphrase(short summary) your case because that is a very common question. Even though only one of you needs to read the case during the debate, the other affirmative team person needs to know the ins and outs of the case too or you might get caught napping during cross-ex and that will hurt you in the eyes of the judge and definitely cost speaker points or even a close round.