Недостатки в дебатах: структура, повороты и защита аргументов.

In policy debate, a disadvantage (here abbreviated as DA) is an argument that a team brings up against a policy action that is being considered. A disadvantage is also used in the Lincoln Douglas debate format.

A disadvantage usually has four key elements. These four elements are not always necessary depending on the type of disadvantage run, and some are often combined into a single piece of evidence. A Unique Link card, for example, will include both a description of the status quo and the plan's effect on it. A traditional threshold DA has a structure as follows:

Uniqueness shows why the impacts have not occurred yet or to a substantial extent and will uniquely occur with the adoption of either the affirmative's plan or the negative's counterplan. For example, the negative team argues that the affirmative plan will result in nuclear proliferation, it would also argue that the status quo will avoid nuclear proliferation. If the Affirmative claims that nuclear proliferation is already occurring, the negative team could argue that adoption of the plan would result in a unique increase in nuclear proliferation. If the plan causes no net change in the rate of nuclear proliferation, the disadvantage is not unique to the plan, and therefore not relevant.

A link turn is an argument that the passage of the plan would prevent the disadvantage's impact rather than causing it. Double turns should be avoided as they are equivalent to refuting one's own plan. For example, arguing both that the plan would increase US military power and that nuclear conflict is desirable would be a double turn. In this case, the negative team could concede both arguments, arguing that since the plan prevents a desirable event from occurring, it should not be passed.

Since turns are reasons why the affirmative's plan is actively beneficial (as opposed to takeouts, which only argue that it is not harmful), the negative must take extra care once one has been read. In particular, if the negative wishes to stop extending a disadvantage but the affirmative has read a turn to it, they must find a way to negate the turn so the affirmative can no longer use it as an advantage to their plan. This process is known as "kicking." Kicking a disadvantage involves conceding an affirmative takeout that applies to the turn. A straight turn is an affirmative strategy that prevents the negative from kicking their disadvantage. It requires the affirmative to read a turn while forgoing all arguments that the negative could use to kick out of it, forcing the negative to continue extending it. The two main forms of straight turns are straight link turns and straight impact turns.

In answering the Link, an affirmative might argue that the link has no threshold, i. e. that the link does not make clear when the impact will happen or even that the impact will happen solely based on what the affirmative plan causes. Or the aff may claim that uniqueness overwhelms the link; that conditions in the status quo are so far away from the threshold that the impact will not happen. This second answer is rarely made because it is a strategic gamble. A disadvantage can also be answered by no longer doing a part of the plan that causes the aff to link into the disadvantage. This is often referred to as a severance perm, because by making this claim the affirmative does all parts of the plan except the part that links to the disadvantage, thus severing out of part of their own plan. This argument is also rarely made, due to the theory arguments it brings up on the affirmative changing its plan in the round in order to avoid the disadvantage. Also if the negative runs a Counterplan in addition to the Disadvantage (which commonly occurs) the affirmative can make a permutation and say that the combination of the counterplan and plan shields the link to the disadvantage. For example: the plan repeals the Hyde Amendment to allow abortion funding through federal sources by using congress; the negative runs a courts counterplan that repels the hyde amendment and runs a politics disadvantage that says the plan will drain the political capital of the president which causes a certain bill not to be passed; the affirmative would claim that the "perm shields the link" because congress would claim that the courts made them repeal the hyde amendment, therefore no political capital would be lost.