Part 2: The Arguments

Point #: Tagline
Claim
Warrant with citation
Impact

Arguments are the meat of the case and of the round. You should aim to spend at least three minutes on arguments. Pay attention to your word choice, evidence use, and structure of each argument. Your case will generally have three or four central arguments. It is difficult to provide enough analysis and support to establish more than four arguments. Some teams like to run seven or eight arguments to make the round impossible for the other team to win; it is difficult to refute that many arguments in four minutes. For advice on answering cases written this way, see the Rebuttal chapter. I strongly suggest not writing such a case. You are better off defending a few good arguments than losing a lot of shallow ones. For these reasons, most cases have three or four arguments. One or two arguments tend to not establish a wide enough debate to give you strategic options in the Second Half. You want to have choices for voting issues at the end of the round. Well-written arguments use this structure:

Point #: Tagline
Claim
Warrant with citation
Impact

Sometimes, points will be subdivided. I suggest only using this structure if you have two very distinct points that fit under a general topic. The downside of using sub points is that your opponent may try to collapse them into one point. Because you have grouped two claims the judge may view a rebuttal to one as a rebuttal to both. If you choose to use sub points, use the following structure:

Point #: Tagline
Sub point A: Tagline
Claim
Warrant with citation
Impact

Sub point B: Tagline
Claim
Warrant with citation
Impact
Let’s take a closer look at the argument structure.

Point #

You should always number your points. It clearly organizes your speech and allows you to consistently refer to your arguments throughout the debate. Numbers are clearer than referring to arguments as the “next” or the “last” contention. Some teams call Points “Contentions”, or “Arguments.” All three work, but Point is the most concise option. We want as much clarity as possible in the most concise way. For this reason I prefer “Point One” to “Our first contention is that.” 2 syllables versus 7 syllables leave Point the victor. When you read your case, read it as “Point One” or “Point Three.”

Tagline

A point without a tagline is like a book without a title. The judge needs to be told what they are about to hear. Taglines alert the judge to the central idea of your argument as well as provide an argument title. Taglines should be concise and be clear. A confusing tagline will leave the judge pondering about its meaning while you move on; you will have lost the judge’s attention when you want it on your actual arguments. For this reason, the best taglines are complete sentences. This means the tagline should include a subject + verb + object. The tagline “The Economic Effects” does not provide clarity. It only provides a vague idea of what is coming. The tagline “X Policy will Create Jobs” succinctly describes an actual argument that will follow. The best taglines introduce the impact of the argument and express and complete idea.

Claim

Claim is a fancy word for “explaining your argument.” Given the resolution, what will happen? Given the goal of the resolution, why is the action good or bad? Should we support the resolution? Each argument should directly connect to the resolution and explain why your side of the debate is preferable. The claim should be a few sentences walking through the logic of your argument. Don’t forget to explain the steps in order and in detail for someone without knowledge of the topic to understand. Too many arguments presume the judge already knows information only debaters who have researched the topic know.

Warrant with citation

To prove that your claim is valid, you should provide  credible evidence. A chapter is dedicated to Evidence and the Research chapter is also useful when thinking about evidence. Here evidence will be discussed in terms of case writing. After selecting evidence that proves your claim, you need to integrate it into your case. Evidence will be called a warrant in this chapter.

Practically, you first give the  citation for the warrant and then a quote or paraphrase the material that supports your argument. For the citation, provide a minimum of the Publication Title and the Year of Publication. For example, New York Times article published February 13, 2013. You may also want to include the author’s name if it is a name the judge would recognize; for example, the Dali Lama. An alternate to a Publication title is the Author’s Name and his or her professional title. Next, provide the warrant and integrate it in to your argument. Do not simply copy and paste something from an article. Effective evidence requires an introduction and analysis of how it proves your claim. For the evidence itself, you can either quote or paraphrase the cited source. Quoting is the easiest, but not necessarily the best strategy. Sometimes the article will be written in easy to understand terms and digestible; here you may find quotable sections. However, one or two selected sentences may not capture an effective warrant. Paraphrasing requires more work but is often more effective at supporting your argument.

Example of Paraphrasing from Sample Case:
“Furthermore, Voeten’s findings suggest that the US has a statistically significant positive impact on the creation of democracy when intervention occurs. He predicted that intervention would retard democratic reform, but US intervention was the sole example that showed positive effects (3).”

Evidence can also be historical fact or general knowledge. In many districts PF is becoming a “card war” where debaters must have a card for every claim. It doesn’t have to be that way. Because PF deals with current events, you don’t need to prove the existence of historical or current facts. If your claim depends on general knowledge, you don’t need a citation. The litmus test for needing cited evidence is: if you knew it before research on the resolution no evidence needed. If you did not know it, provide evidence.

When citing statistics and numerical evidence, please limit yourself to one or two numbers. A chain of numbers is impossible for a judge to remember or comprehend. Select the most important statistic. You should illustrate both how it proves your claim and the significance of that number. Always consider how tangible your numbers are. Often, you’ll need to translate the number into a more relatable context. For example, evidence may state that the GDP will rise by X%. This doesn’t mean much. One translation would state how many billions or trillions of dollars that X% would be. This is often beyond the judge’s imagination too. What if you said that that was the equivalent of the economy of California? Or that a GDP increase would increase tax revenue enough to pay for a substantial domestic program? Those are things the judge can imagine because the image is more concrete, yet still illustrate the evidence. Always consider alternative ways to present numbers and find the most persuasive method.

Impact

Impacts are perhaps the most forgotten and misunderstood part of arguments. Many think of impacts as those Policy things that talk about nuclear war and species extinction. Yes, those are impacts, but every argument has some impact. Impacts are not unique to Policy. Impacts explain what the result of an argument is, the effect that argument would have on the world, or even why the argument matters within the resolution. PF impacts are more “real world” than Policy and tend to involves less links within the argument. Policy style and structure allows for the reading of cards to support such impacts, whereas the style and structure of PF lends itself to more immediate effects.        

The PF impact also must cater to the variety of judges that debaters will encounter. The impact not only should explain the effect of the claim, but also should illustrate for the judge why he or she should care about the argument. Make impact relatable and tangible. How would it affect the judge personally? The state you live in? The daily life of an American? Localizing large-scale effects is the most effective way to humanize impacts that are hard to imagine.

Consider having a warrant for your impacts. If you can provide evidence of the impact occurring or evidence that predicts/measures the impact’s effect, include it. If there is no evidence, at least explain the likelihood and magnitude of the impact. You will have to defend the impact as plausible and significant, just as you would a claim. For a more in depth look at impacts, please see the chapter on Impact Calculus. 

Example of an Impact from the Sample Case:
“If this mentality is not adopted, the US risks missing the opportunity to have a successful intervention. As the RAND Corp reported in 2007, “Democratization tends to occur in waves, with a series of clustered openings followed by a period of retrenchment.” This can be seen in Syria, where the US and other actors have been reluctant to intervene (5). Without a posture of intervention, the US will miss the democratic waves and therefore miss the opportunity to put our successful intervention into play when these struggles occur.”