General Tips on Case Writing

The case isn’t merely a list of facts and arguments – it is a speech. Be persuasive and keep the judge interested. Take a note from oratory and original advocacy: employ rhetorical strategies such as anaphora, metaphor, simile, analogy – all of these will help the judge relate to your content and stay interested. Anecdotes tend to suck up speech time and don’t ultimately leave an imprint on a judge. You can use anecdotes, just keep them to two to three sentences. Smaller rhetorical moves are something you can repeat throughout the round and don’t absorb as much speech time as anecdotes.

Use only words that you know and would use in regular speech. Using overly academic terms, long words that sound impressive except for the fact you cannot pronounce them correctly or words that you can’t define– these create problems. You will not express yourself clearly. You are not presenting yourself as a professor, so don’t write like you are one. You don’t stand to gain anything by impressing a judge with your vocabulary. Although word choice is vital to a well-written case, inflated vocabulary, or vocabulary for the sake of sounding impressive, does not win debates. Clarity and substance do. Yes, you will use topic specific terms that you may not have known before the topic. These are necessary to the debate. Your case should be easy to understand for every type of judge, from the debater’s mother to the local attorney. Your wording, examples, and explanations should lay out everything in a clear and concise manner.

Format your printed case to help your delivery. Double spacing is easier to read and keep track of your place. Large font, at least 14, also helps with reading. Bold key words and phrases so that you remember to emphasize them. Write out the phonetic spelling of words that you find difficult to pronounce. Remember that the only person seeing your case will be you and your partner. Therefore, you should make the printed copy as helpful as possible. Have at least one copy of your case without your formatting changes ready to give to your opponents if they request to see your case.

Time your speech! There is no reason for your case to run over time or not use the full four minutes. There is no excuse for not timing your case before debating. Timing issues immediately alert the judge to your team’s lack of preparation.

If you assume a persuasive and well-formed case takes a lot of planning and work, you are right. If you assume there is no difference between a case written a week before a tournament and the night before a tournament, you are very, very wrong. You may hear funny stories about this procrastination and perhaps even success stories of teams that do it. In reality, successful procrastinators are few and far between. The best debaters start writing early so that they can revise and rework cases before the tournament ever happens. Strive to do your best preparation for yourself and for your partner. Don’t be fooled by claims that you can debate your best after an all-nighter. Be better than debating with a mediocre case and without sleep.

The most important tip I can give you is that your case should tell the judge what to think and make it easy for him or her to understand the topic. In the frenzy of research and writing, it’s easy to forget all of this is about persuading the judge. Always check your case while writing and while polishing for its judge friendliness and persuasive power.

Your final editing should take a step back and look at your case through the framework of the three philosophies.

1. Introduce all the important information.
2. Frame the round.
3. Relate everything to the resolution.

Use these philosophies as a checklist to make sure that your case is not only made of sound arguments, but that those arguments will lay a solid foundation for the rest of the round.