Editing Lincoln–Douglas debate format (section)

=== Plans and counterplans ===
{{Unreferenced section|date=October 2020}}
Lincoln–Douglas debate format borrows from [[Policy debate|Policy format debate]] in order to create plans and counter-plans. A [[counterplan]] (also called a CP) allows the negative side to defend an advocacy separate from the [[status quo]]. A counterplan must:

* Compete with the affirmative's advocacy. The affirmative can disprove this quality of competition using a variety of "perms," short for [[permutation]], which describes the possibility of some sort of combination or [[permutation]] of the affirmative's and the negative's advocacy. A few types of perms include perm-do-both (in which the affirmative attempts to prove that the counterplan and the plan are not mutually exclusive and can co-exist, which means the counterplan no longer disproves the affirmative), perm-do-the-counterplan (in which the affirmative attempts to prove that the counterplan ''is'' the plan, based on how the counterplan or the plan function), timeframe-perm (in which the affirmative attempts to prove that the counterplan can exist in a world after the plan), and textual-based perms (a variety of perms in which the affirmative claims a lack of competition via the specific text of the plan and counterplan).
* Offer a net-benefit to the affirmative. The affirmative can disprove that the counterplan offers a net-benefit by claiming that the plan solves for the net-benefit, that the counterplan does not, or that the net-benefit is not significant.
* Solve either the entirety of or a sufficient amount of the impacts that the affirmative's advocacy solves. If the counterplan does not do either, then the affirmative can simply claim that the counterplan is not as good as the plan.

There are various ways that an affirmative could defeat a counterplan, usually described in the acronym "SPLOT," which stands for "Solvency deficits, Perms, Links to the net benefit, Offense, Theory." Solvency deficits and perms explained above, "links to the net benefit" simply means that the counterplan leads to the reason that it claims is better than the plan, refutation is independent reason(s) why the counterplan is bad, and theory is explanations of comprehending the value of the debate.