Overviews

Ariana Arvanitis, October 9, 2019

Overviews are critical to communicating three things to the judge and to your opponents:

• What the counterplan (CP) does
• Who does the CP
• Why it solves (key reasons such as the net benefit and sufficiency framing)

In this article, I will be using the "50 States CP" as an example versus the "Right to Education" aff (RTE), which were both arguments on the 2017-2018 Education Topic.

The best CP overviews begin with a brief, single sentence that explains what exactly the CP does and who the actor of the CP is. This helps bring clarity to your argument in case the judge or your opponents are confused.

An example summary statement is below:

• The CP mandates that all of the 50 states must grant every student attending public primary/secondary schools a "Right to Education".

In this example, I briefly stated who does the CP (the 50 states) and what it does using the language of the affirmative plan text. By using the same language as the aff plan text, your CP is more specific, thus appearing to apply better and solve on several levels.

As for the solvency statement, you simply want one sentence that articulates why your CP avoids the net benefit (the DA that you pair your CP with as a reason you avoid an impact the aff may cause) and another one or two sentences that make an argument known as "sufficiency framing". This argument emphasizes why it is ok if your CP does not solve the entire aff, but the judge should still prefer it as long as it solves most of the aff.

An example solvency statement is below:

• The CP avoids the net benefit since it is done on the state level, not the federal level. (This assumes that net benefit was a DA that had to do with a federal regulation or issue)
• Prefer sufficiency framing - if we can prove we solve sufficiently, then you should vote negative on the CP. The CP solves a good amount of the aff and good is good enough.

Something extra to note: Although this is just a norm in debate and not a rule, to make you sound more professional when you speak always say the word "counterplan". Everyone abbreviates the word counterplan as "CP", but no one ever calls it the "C.P." during a speech unless they are very new to debate.