Like spiked punch, a spiked plan can really surprise your opponents. A spike is an addition to your plan that allows it to gain its advantage or to prevent a disadvantage. For example, if your plan banned coal mining, you could include a spike in your plan to provide a jobs program to prevent the plan from causing large amounts of unemployment. This is a good question. Most theorists agree that if the spike is essential to gain your advantage, it must be topical.
Theorists begin to disagree when the spike avoids disadvantages.
The majority of theorists, however, feel that non-topical spikes are abusive and eliminate opportunities for the negative to present disadvantages. In my opinion, at least two standards should apply to spikes. First, a team should not be able to win solely because a non-topical spike gains an advantage or turns a disadvantage . Second, spikes should give both sides ground upon which to debate. The decision of what is the right amount of ground for both sides should be argued in the debate.