Drill of the Week – Framework Refutation

Instructions

For this drill, we will be responding to the Hobbes framework last year’s TOC champion Parker Whitfill read on the January-February topic. You can download it from circuitdebater here. Or you can use an NC framework you’ve hit this season; try to pick one that is relatively short and basic for this drill.

Step 1: Flow the framework, either reading it yourself or having a teammate spread it (good for practicing flowing too).

Step 2: Take prep time to come up with objections to the framework. For beginning framework debaters, take up to 2:00. For advanced framework debaters, take up to 1:00.

Step 3: Deliver your responses in under :90.

Points of Emphasis

• Identify higher-order justifications and/or necessary premises. Do any of the justifications precede the rest or otherwise have greater significance? You can bet the 2NR will extend these, so give them more attention. Are any of the justifications necessary for the neg to win the framework? If so, objections to these are more valuable than objections to other parts of the framework.
• Provide independent objections to the framework. For this drill, instead of assuming a particular aff framework, try to come up with independent objections that could be leveraged regardless of your aff.
• Assert the opposite conclusion. The more offensive your responses, the better. A good start for stronger objections is to imagine what the precise opposite claim is, then try to generate a warrant for that conclusion, if plausible.

Extensions & Variations

• Efficiency. Now try to deliver your responses again in under :60. For framework responses, a good start for cutting time is to tag each argument with a short summary of the claim, e.g. “political philosophy collapses to moral philosophy…,” “is-ought fallacy…” or “framework generates absurd conclusions…”
• Framework comparison. Pick one of your favorite aff frameworks and take :60 to generate five points of direct comparison, e.g. justifications your framework meets better, reasons your framework precludes/explains parts of their framework, or objections your framework avoids.
• Now you’re neg. To really get an understanding of the framework, take extra time to re-read the warrants and give yourself :90 of prep for the 2NR. Extend the framework and respond to objections. Now you can see where you might’ve gone wrong in your 1AR refutation.
• Type up a block to Hobbes frameworks. Take some extra time to refine and expand on your initial responses. Now type these up with special emphasis on the more general responses to the framework, and you’ll have a block ready to go for future rounds.

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