Weighing Mechanisms
– “how” to think about the “what” of the round
I am a huge fan of cooking shows, and after years of watching, I’ve caught on to the “judging” formula. It’s not just about whose dish tastes best. The presentation, difficulty of preparation, as well as the chef’s creativity all factor into the judging process. What’s key is that the judges are given this criteria before they taste anything. If not, who knows what they would base their judgment on! One could decide based on texture while the other could decide based on presentation. A debate round is exactly the same. Without giving the judge a rubric or criteria to assess the round, debaters leave the judging criteria up in the air. This means the judge will decide the round however he or she feels likejudging. This should scare you. As many PF judges have no debate experience, you’ll get judging criteria that range from the best-dressed team to the team that “sounded pretty”.
A weighing mechanism is a rubric you create and provide for the judge. A good weighing mechanism will:
– Tell the judge how to evaluate the round by comparing impacts and issues.
– Tailor the judge’s decision to your case by highlighting your impacts and issues.
– Narrow the resolution to these central issues out of the broad spectrum of arguments possible within the topic.
– Make it easy for the judge to make comparisons by making explicit comparisons.
– Give the judge a sense of consistency by pointing out your case’s core issues before presenting your specific arguments.
– Allow you to collapse your arguments and the debate to the most important arguments in the later speeches.
– Tell the judge why the weighing mechanism should be used
Weighing mechanisms (WM) should arise from your case. Do not think of a weighing mechanism before you decide on your arguments. First, write your arguments and then think about what you want the debate to come down to, or in other words, what arguments you should be winning at the end of the debate. The WM should highlight these arguments and impacts.
Often you know that certain ideas or arguments are at odds in a given resolution. The WM should focus on these ideas because the topic requires debaters to confront them. You want to set the terms of this discussion. Zoffer talks about four “classic” comparisons that are embedded in resolutions:
Lives vs. Money (Topic: Universal Healthcare)
Environment vs. Economy (Topic: Combating climate change)
Long-term evidence vs. Short-term evidence (Topic: Deficit spending)
Empirical (holistic) evidence vs. Anecdotal evidence (Topic: Lobbying)
I would add the following comparisons to this list:
Long-term impacts vs. Short-term impacts (Topic: College education and cost)
Domestic impacts vs. Foreign impacts (Topic: International Aid)
Change vs. Status Quo (Topic: Embargo on Cuba).
When you look at a resolution, certain words will cue you to use a weighing mechanism. In these resolutions, weighing mechanisms are useful and ultimately required for successful debating. Resolutions often include a broad WM that needs to be nuanced to your arguments and case strategy. The following are examples of broad WM that can be found in resolutions.
– “in a democracy,” “democratic values”
These phrases ask you to compare and prioritize various aspects of democracy. For example, you might discuss freedom of speech vs. public safety or national security vs. privacy rights. If you do not define democracy or democratic values specifically and comparatively, the debate will get messy. If a term affects how the resolution is read, you must define and analyze it.
– “on balance”, “does more harm than good,” “have a positive/negative impact”
These phrases ask for a cost/benefit analysis; this means you compare impacts. The impacts are the possible costs, or negative effects, and the possible benefits, or positive effects. Don’t be fooled – this isn’t solely quantitative analysis. A cost could come to safety just as easily as there could be an economic cost. Just because you can quantify an impact does not give it inherent priority. In Framework, define the types of costs and benefits how to measure these impacts. Define what types of impacts should be prioritized throughout the debate.
– “to the United States”
While this phrase obviously prioritizes domestic impacts, there are a lot of different ways that the US can be affected by a policy or decision. Prioritize what type or category of impact is most important.
– “when in conflict”
This phrase signifies that you are not arguing one side wrong. These resolutions are asking about priority, or which side has the better option. These resolutions are about preference. You are imagining, for example, that you have $100 dollars to spend and you can spend it on one of two good options. Which do you choose? In order to answer that question you need to identify the overlapping values between the policies and the values that are unique to each side. Often this involves prioritizing the environment over the economy. Both affect people’s lives, but furthermore each has independent values such as impact on ecosystems and impact on employment. Obviously values can overlap, but they tend to be stronger on one side of the debate.
