Difference between revisions of "Introduction to Circuit Debate"

In circuit LD, there is an important distinction between offensive and defensive arguments. Offensive arguments are a proactive reason why your argument is correct over your opponent's argument. Defensive arguments are just a reason why your opponent's argument is incorrect. Importantly, a defensive argument doesn't prove why your arguments are correct; they simply weaken your opponent's argument.

One might wonder, what is the point of defensive arguments, anyway? It seems like offensive arguments are always better! Defensive arguments do have utility, though. Suppose that you and your opponent have two arguments that are directly contradicting each other. You could read a defensive argument against your opponent, thus weakening their argument. Then, your argument would win. For example, suppose you argue, "Umbrellas are better than raincoats because they block more water." Your opponent argues, "Raincoats are better than umbrellas because they don't get swept away by the wind." Without any other arguments, there would be no way to determine who is winning! However, you could make the defensive argument that, "Umbrellas don't get swept away by the wind that often, only on windy days!" In this case, you could win this debate.

[[File:Evidence Ethics.png|thumb|Fig. 1: An example of properly cut and sourced evidence.]]

In Figure 1, which is to the right, demonstrates an example of good evidence. The citation contains:

* a tag (the bolded sentences at the top)

* the author ("Stilz")

* the publisher ("Project MUSE - Liberal Loyalty")

* the website/book name/page number ("<nowiki>https://muse.jhu.edu/book/30179</nowiki>")

Sometimes, cards will have initials or a name attached at the end of the citation to show who cut them. There is an unspoken "decorum" when it comes to evidence – when you are using evidence that isn't yours, if the cards has the initials of other people you should leave them on. Similarly, even if you "recut" a piece of evidence (which is to highlight and underline the card by yourself), you should keep the original initials (if applicable) and if you were to add your own, you would note that it was "recut," which is often abbreviated as "rct."

Continuing on to the body of the evidence, it contains:

* highlighting (most people use blue, green, or yellow)

* underlining (some people bold or box their underline)

* small/shrunk text

* the entire paragraph: when citing evidence, even if you are only taking specific sentences, you should include the entire paragraph from which you take your evidence.

When people read cards aloud in debates, they read the tag, the author name, and the highlighted parts of the card. Most debaters will use a Microsoft Word extension, [https://paperlessdebate.com/verbatim/ Verbatim], to make cutting cards easier because it has built-in macros that will shrink text, highlight evidence, create tags, and other things that are handy for making sure you have properly cut evidence. There are also various citation creators that automatically create citation blocks for you, like [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/cite-creator/jampigcbgngjedogaoglhpeckidccodi Cite Creator] and [https://cardrdebate.com/ Cardr]. For those that use Google Docs, there is [https://workspace.google.com/marketplace/app/debate_template/712515658695 Debate Template], which replicates some of the features found in Verbatim.

[[File:Miscut Evidence.png|thumb|Fig. 2: An example of miscut evidence.]]

When evidence lacks a source or is framed in a way to say something it doesn’t, it is called miscut evidence. Figure 2 shows an example of miscut evidence. It contains many problems, but some of the main points are that it:

* does not contain the full author name

* lacks author qualifications

* is not properly highlighted/underlined

Bad evidence can lose rounds. In close debates where the judge must compare evidence, not properly citing your authors can lose you the round. Evidence is also an important part of [https://www.vbriefly.com/2022/01/06/why-doc-formatting-matters-by-lawrence-zhou/ judge perception.]

==== Evidence Ethics: Stakes vs Theory ====

When you notice miscut evidence, there are two things you can do: you can stake the round or run theory on them.