Topicality Topicality is the stock issue that insures that the affirmative team stays within the framework of the resolution. Just like a paper for a class, it has to be on the topic assigned. If you don't debate your side of the topic, you flunk the assignment and lose the debate. Significance and Harms Significance and harms deal with the importance of the problem. Harms can be defined as the results which would occur if the problem were not solved.
Significance evaluates the importance of the harms.
Solvency Solvency is the measure of whether or not, or to what degree, the affirmative's plan solves for the problem it identifies. If the affirmative's plan does not solve the harms, there would be no need to put it into effect. Inherency Inherency refers to the necessity of resolutional action. For instance, if the affirmative team proposes that building landfills in the U.S. would clean up pollution, the affirmative would be non-inherent because there are already landfills in the U.S. Inherency is important because if the plan is already in action, there would be no need to enact it again. This assumption avoids reducing debate to a question of will Congress pass and put the plan into operation.