Debate Advice: Cross Examination
By: Alexandra Mork
It’s either your favorite or least favorite part of debate: cross examination. For many, CX is extremely daunting; they don’t know what to ask or how to ask it. For some, even more scary is the possibility of saying the wrong thing or not knowing how to answer questions. To help overcome these obstacles, we’ve provided several CX strategies.
When answering questions, the most important thing you can do is know your case. You should feel comfortable answering questions about your arguments because you will always know your case better than your opponent does, and don’t let them make you feel otherwise. To avoid awkward moments in which your opponent asks you a question that you don’t know the answer to, we suggest you look up basic information about the topic you’re arguing. For example, if on the LD September/October topic you have a card that lists examples of leaks that successfully checked government overreach, you should know some background information on those cases. Alternatively, if your authors use language that you don’t understand, you should look up the definitions of the words that you don’t know, so that you’re able to explain your evidence in round.
When asking questions, there are three main strategies that we suggest. The first is clarification questions; rather than merely going through each of their cards and asking for an explanation, clarification questions should be targeted and strategic. For example, if your opponent reads a climate change advantage and you know you want to read a counterplan that solves climate change in the 1NC, you should clarify how the aff solves their advantage. Then, in your speech, you can explain how the counterplan is able to access all of the same internal links to solvency as the aff, and prevent your opponent from creating artificial solvency deficits to your position during the 2AC/1AR. The second main strategy is “reverse pit of doom”: this is when you make your opponent trap themselves. For example, if your opponent reads a consult Russia counterplan (this is a counterplan that says that we should only do the aff if Russia approves the plan. The net benefit would probably be something about why consulting Russia is key to prevent US-Russia War), you should ask them in CX why Russia would say yes. Thinking you’re going to argue that Russia will say no to the plan (which would take out counterplan solvency), your opponent will probably overcompensate and explain why their evidence is great because there’s no chance Russia will say no. Then, if you want to read a theory argument about why consult counterplans are unfair, they will have bolstered your argument because their CX answer proves it’s impossible to answer the counterplan since all authors on the topic agree that Russia would say yes. Another example is if you’re opponent reads an aff with large-scale impacts. You can pretend as if you’re going to read impact defense by asking questions that will encourage them to overhype their impact and make it sound larger than it really is. This will then give you links that you can use if you want to read a security kritik. The third main CX strategy is asking leading, close-ended questions. The best way to do this is to read your opponent’s evidence to try to prove contradictions or alternative causes that their case doesn’t take into account. For example, if your opponent’s evidence suggests that financial incentives are the key to encouraging whistleblowers, but the aff only closes a loophole without creating a financial incentive, then you should ask your opponent how they’re able to reconcile that.
Thank you to Ms. Achten for her lecture on CX that we used to help write this article!