Whitman Debate Research Standards 2008-2009

2. BRACKET EVIDENCE IN ARTICLES. 2

3. CITE, TAG, TITLE, AND SAVE YOUR EVIDENCE. 2

4. INCORPORATE EVIDENCE OTHER PEOPLE GIVE YOU.. 3

5. WRITE YOUR POSITION (CASE, DA, CP, K, RESPONSES, ETC.) 3

6. ORGANIZE YOUR WORK.. 3

7. TAKE THE EVIDENCE TO AARON OR ERIC FOR REVIEW... 4

8. PUT THE EVIDENCE INTO THE 000-PENDING FILES FOLDER.. 4

READ FILES EACH WEEK.. 4

RESEARCH

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:

GET THE EVIDENCE YOU NEED

1. GET ARTICLES

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 Google for the web and Lexis-Universe for its articles.

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 OCR Software to scan them in to Word documents. Ask a senior team member or staff member for help in scanning.

2. BRACKET EVIDENCE IN ARTICLES

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."

· 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.

· 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 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.

Ethical Bracketing

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”).

Absolutely no fabrication of evidence.

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.

3. CITE, TAG, TITLE, AND SAVE YOUR EVIDENCE

1. PASTE THE EVIDENCE YOU COPIED INTO A DOCUMENT

Press Ctrl and G (web/other stuff) or Ctrl and H (lexis) at the same time to insert text without pictures & web formatting.

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:

Julie 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 9/12/4).

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

Save your file every 5 minutes!

Use 4 to 9 words; If you want, add in a 2nd line to the tag giving further explanation.

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:

High Food Prices Bad—No Infrastructure

High food prices don’t help developing countries – they don’t have infrastructure to take advantage of export opportunities

Heidi Fritschel, IFPRI Forum, March 2008, “What Goes Does Must Come Up,” Int’l Food Policy research Inst., http://www.ifpri.org/pubs/newsletters/ifpriforum/if200803.asp

More specifically, developing countries need to beef up rural infrastructure and improve market access for small farmers, argues Maximo Torero, director of IFPRI's Markets, Trade, and Institutions Division. Africa in particular lacks the infrastructure that farmers need to get agricultural inputs like fertilizer into rural areas and to get their products out to markets. A study of rural transportation in the mid-1990s found that transport costs in Ghana and Zimbabwe were two to two and a half times greater than those in Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Thailand. With costs like these, farmers often cannot profitably produce for the market, even when prices are high. "Market-oriented reforms alone are not enough to provide complete access to infrastructure in remote, poor rural areas," says Torero. "Public intervention is needed to close this gap."

THE FIRST COUPLE OF TIMES YOU DO YOUR EVIDENCE—PLEASE HAVE YOUR WORK DOUBLE-CHECKED BY A SENIOR TEAM MEMBER OR AARON.

4. INCORPORATE EVIDENCE OTHER PEOPLE GIVE YOU

Talk with other debaters about any evidence that they cut that will help you complete your assignment. Incorporate it into your work.

5. WRITE YOUR POSITION (CASE, DA, CP, K, RESPONSES, ETC.)

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.

6. ORGANIZE YOUR WORK

To do this:

1. MAKE SURE YOU HAVE ALL THE EVIDENCE YOU NEED
Don’t place your files into the expando system until you have a completed set.

· 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.

7. TAKE THE EVIDENCE TO AARON OR ERIC FOR REVIEW

Aaron or Eric will review your work, suggest changes, you will revise it.

8. PUT THE EVIDENCE INTO THE 000-PENDING FILES FOLDER

Make sure you have highlighted and carefully organized the file.

READ FILES EACH WEEK

Expect to spend several hours each week keeping up with the latest additions to the expando system. SERIOUSLY, FILING IS MUCH, MUCH MORE IMPORTANT AND A KEY USE OF TIME IN COLLEGE DEBATE THAN IN HIGH SCHOOL.