Whitman
Debate Research Standards
2008-2009
2. BRACKET EVIDENCE IN ARTICLES
3. CITE, TAG, TITLE, AND SAVE YOUR EVIDENCE
4. INCORPORATE EVIDENCE OTHER PEOPLE GIVE YOU
5. WRITE YOUR POSITION (CASE, DA, CP, K, RESPONSES, ETC.)
7. TAKE THE EVIDENCE TO AARON FOR REVIEW
During the season, you will be
expected to complete research assignments. When you do an assignment, your main
goal is to produce a winning set of arguments.
This means that you need to develop a strategy that will win based on
the evidence you get. To do your research, you need to do the following:
To
do this:
1.
IDENTIFY THE ISSUE YOU NEED TO RESEARCH
You will receive assignments at team meetings
or via the forensic listserv or you might choose an affirmative case to
research
2. FIND
ONLINE ARTICLES
Use the web for on-line articles,
Lexis-Universe articles, and web pages (www.google.com).
Be sure to get trained in how to use these
tools effectively.
3. FIND
PRINTED BOOKS AND JOURNALS
Go to the Library for printed journals and
books
Scan sections of these printed materials. Use
the “Scan to OCR” button inside of Microsoft Word to scan. Ask a senior team
member or staff member for help in scanning.
|
Ethical
Bracketing 1. You should maintain
the meaning of the author (for example, taking out the word “not” or leaving
out “but the United States should not change its policy because of this as it
isn’t a good enough reason”). 2. Absolutely no
fabrication of evidence. 3.
If
the argument you are quoting is not the author’s conclusion, you should note
that on the piece of evidence. If the
article goes on to point out that a fact in the section you bracketed is not
accurate--you should not cut that piece of evidence. |
Select
and copy the beginning and end of each piece of evidence that you find. For example, you’d copy the lines in the
article below:
"In recent weeks, these fears are beginning to
become reality in South Asia. India and Pakistan, long rivals and military opponents,
are currently making the final preparations for what very well could be an
unrestrained nuclear arms race in this region.
This arms race would threaten security of these two free world nations
and of other U.S. friends because of the animosity between the countries and
the lack of security features of their weapons.
Several weeks ago,
I made a speech on the floor of the U.S. Senate disclosing in detail
information I have received regarding a full scale drive by the radical Iraqi
regime to attain a nuclear weapons capability."
NOTE 1: Save time by writing a tag and
underlining your evidence right when you cut the evidence.
NOTE 2: Don’t write on printed
material that you need to scan—doing so causes the OCR to fail and you get
illegible text.
·
A GOOD PIECE OF
EVIDENCE IS USUALLY 3 OR MORE LINES LONG.
·
YOU SHOULD UNDERLINE
EVIDENCE. You read just the underlined sections in your debates. In general,
underline lots for affirmative cases, really developed critiques, etc.
Underline very little for 2AC and 1NC quick response cards.
·
YOUR UNDERLINING
SHOULD MAKE ITS ONE MAIN POINT AND GIVE A REASON AND THEN END. If it goes on, make
another piece of evidence. Here is an example:
In recent weeks, these fears are beginning to become
reality in South Asia. India
and Pakistan,
long rivals and military opponents, are currently making the
final preparations for what very well could be an
unrestrained nuclear arms
race in
this region. This arms
race would threaten security of these two free world
nations and of other U.S. friends because of the animosity between the countries and the lack of security features of their weapons.
Several weeks ago, I made a speech on the floor of the U.S. Senate disclosing in detail information I have received regarding a full scale drive by the radical Iraqi regime to attain a nuclear weapons capability.
·
THE MAIN POINT OF
YOUR EVIDENCE SHOULD MAKE AN ARGUMENT IMPORTANT TO AN ISSUE, CASE,
DISADVANTAGE, ETC.
·
YOUR EVIDENCE SHOULD
MAKE ITS POINT FORCEFULLY. Skip evidence that
includes "maybes," "ifs," and information that your
opponents can use against you.
·
If Your Evidence Uses The Term "It" Or "This" Or
"The Program"—cut more of the evidence to clarify or write in what
the “it” is—making it clear that you wrote the clarification.
·
IF YOUR EVIDENCE DOES
NOT GIVE ANY REASON--RARELY USE THAT PIECE OF EVIDENCE.
·
YOUR EVIDENCE SHOULD
OFFER CLEAR, SOLID REASONS TO SUPPORT ITS MAIN POINT.
|
Note:
Highlight the author’s last name and the year and then click “Cite” or press
the F8 key in MS Word. |
|
Note: All evidence is 10 point TimesNewRoman font except the tag, name, and year are 12 point bold TimesNewRoman font. |
1.
PASTE THE EVIDENCE YOU COPIED INTO A DOCUMENT
Press Ctrl and G at the same time to insert text without pictures & web formatting (note—Jim needs to create this macro for you).
2.
SOURCE CITE THE EVIDENCE
Your evidence source citation should include
the following:
First
Name Last Name, Qualifications, Date and year, TITLE
OF BOOK/JOURNAL, Page number.
So, your citations will look like this:
July Davis, Professor of Politics,
Harvard University, June ’08, JOURNAL OF COMPLEX ISSUES,
p. 227
NO
SHORT CITATIONS like this Smith '08 Why? Because
we want judges to be impressed with the quality of our evidence. Qualified evidence does make a difference.
DO NOT
USE SAME SOURCE AS ABOVE. Why? Because when briefs are cut and paste--the source
"above" no longer is above.
WEB PAGE CITATIONS? Include
the html address and the date you viewed that web page (www.wcdebate.com,
accessed 9/12/8).
NEWSPAPERS: Cite as the
Newspaper rather than the staff person unless there is a specific, more
qualified author in which case, cite the author.
3. TAG
THE EVIDENCE TO MAKE ARGUMENTS
A tag is a short, complete sentence that
states the main point of evidence. Your
tag should:
1. BE ACCURATE
State the main point of the evidence. Try to
use the wording in the evidence itself.
2. BE CONCISE
Use 4 to 9 words; If you want,
add in a 2nd line to the tag giving further explanation.
Save your file every 5 minutes!
NOTE:
Some debaters use long, explanatory tags. This can be fine.
3. BE PERSUASIVE
Make the label an argument worth making in a
debate.
4. USE NO SYMBOLS OR ABBREVIATIONS
They slow down readers and frequently are not
comprehensible.
4.
TITLE THE PAGE WITH A 4 TO 9 WORD TITLE FOR WHAT THE EVIDENCE SAYS
At the top of each page, write a brief title—an argument “Oil revenue good—solves
poverty” or “Oil revenue causes prolif” that
VERY CONCISELY states the argument the evidence on that page makes with a
warrant. HIGHLIGHT THE BRIEF TITLE with your mouse and click the “Block Title”
button in MS Word or press F7 on the keyboard (doing this is important because
it sets up the ability to automatically generate a table of contents).
YOUR EVIDENCE WITH TITLE, TAG, SOURCE
CITATION SHOULD LOOK LIKE THIS:
AT: US-Israel Not In Effect/Your Ev Is Old
( ) The US-Israel FTA is in effect and has no expiration – that’s what the PA is included under
USTR, 2-20-2008, “Israel FTA,” http://www.ustr.gov/Trade_Agreements/Bilateral/Israel/Section_Index.html
The United States-Israel Free Trade Area (FTA)
agreement took effect September 1, 1985 and is designed to stimulate trade between the
( ) The US-Israel FTA gives duty-free status to exports
Mitchell Bard, Jewish Virtual Library, 2008, “Free Trade Agreement,” http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/US-Israel/FTA.html
The Free Trade Agreement (FTA) signed by the United States and Israel in 1985
affords American products the opportunity to compete on an equal basis with
European goods, which all have free access to Israel's domestic markets.
THE FIRST COUPLE OF
TIMES YOU DO YOUR EVIDENCE—PLEASE HAVE YOUR WORK DOUBLE-CHECKED BY A SENIOR
TEAM MEMBER OR AARON.
Talk
with other debaters about any evidence that they cut that will help you
complete your assignment. Incorporate it
into your work.
If
you are doing a case response assignment, skip this step
To
do this step, see the material in this document on “How to write a Case,” “How
to write a Disadvantage” etc.
To
do this:
1.
MAKE
SURE YOU HAVE ALL THE EVIDENCE YOU NEED
You have thoroughly researched at least Lexis, Google,
and the On-Line Catalog.
·
You
have asked other squad members if they have anything on your assignment.
·
You
have used quality evidence from a diversity of sources.
·
You
have sound, believable arguments.
·
You
have answers to all of the key arguments.
ALL OF THEM.
·
Your
evidence has been approved by a senior team member, Aaron or Jim.
2.
PUT
EVIDENCE THAT DOESN’T BELONG WITH YOUR ASSIGNMENT INTO A SEPARATE DOCUMENT OR
GIVE TO ANOTHER DEBATER ON OUR TEAM.
3.
REARRANGE
AND RENUMBER EVIDENCE IN YOUR FILE TO ORGANIZE YOUR WORK.
4.
PUT
YOUR CURSOR ON THE FIRST PAGE OF THE DOCUMENT AND CLICK THE “INSERT TOC”
BUTTON. This will insert a table of contents. Check it to make sure it has
everything in it and that things are organized the right way. Make fixes.
PROBLEM FIXER: If you have fake returns in your document or a page break
without a paragraph return before it, some table of content entries won’t work.
See Aaron or Jim to fix this.
He
will review your work, suggest changes, you will revise it.
Print
the appropriate number of copies of your document. See Aaron/senior team member
for the appropriate number.
Distribute
a copy to each box for each team needing the document.
Expect
to spend several hours each week keeping up with the latest new files.
Filing
means highlighting each page of each and every key file.
Filing
means carefully putting pages into the right folders in your expandos.
Filing
takes time.