Structure of a Shell

Structure of a Shell

See Responding to Theory to learn how to answer shells.

Interpretation/Violation

The interpretation (also known as “interp”) is the norm that debate should have, and the violation is why they fail to meet that norm.

An example of an interpretation is “Interp: Debaters must not run conditional advocacies” which criticizes the use of conditional advocacies in the round.

Interps for non-paragraph theory should be constructed with an actor (typically “debaters”) and should contain words like “must” instead of “should” or “ought.”

Violations are reasons why your opponent fails to meet your interp.

An example of a violation to the earlier shell is “Violation: Their [x] advocacy is a conditional advocacy.”

Violations can run from being just “Vio: They do” to screenshots and more detailed explanations. A good way to check violations if you’re unsure of them being legitimate is to check in cross-ex.

Standards

Standards are reasons why your model of debate (the interpretation) is good and why their model (the violation) is bad, typically justified by fairness and/or education.

When constructing standards, you usually want to point out why their model of debate is bad – why their type of argument is bad for debate. It’s not enough to say that it’s difficult to respond to their argument; you need to explain why their argument makes the round unfair or uneducational.

For example, a standard that said “Conditional advocacies are unfair because I don’t have any responses to their argument” is not persuasive while saying that “Conditional advocacies are unfair because it is impossible to predict which advocacy they are going to collapse to which splits the 1ar” is.

Common Standards

The following are some common examples of standards:

Ground – Ground is the type and quantity of arguments that you have access to. A topic that said “Racism is unjust” would have a lot of ground (arguments) for those affirming, for example, but no ground at all for those negating. Typically, ground is used to justify dropping arguments that have little to no legitimate responses against them, which make them hard to respond to. A common argument against PICs is that they leave the aff no ground since it is difficult to find reasons why they are bad.

Reciprocity – Reciprocity is the argument that your opponent has more routes to the ballot than you do. It is similar to ground insofar as it is about the division of arguments. An irreciprocal practice, for example, would be allowing yourself to run theory but at the same time preventing your opponent from running it. That way, you would have one more route than your opponent would.

Strat/Time Skew – Strat and time skew state that something your opponent did prevented you from answering or gave them a time advantage. If someone were to take ten minutes of prep instead of the usual four/five, then it would create a time skew because they would have more time to prepare than you.

Limits – Limits is an argument about the unfairness of having unlimited positions to run. A non-topical aff, for example, would be unfair under limits because if you didn’t have to follow the resolution you could choose any literature base you wanted.

Predictability – Predictability is how easy it is to predict some positions. It is commonly used with limits to criticize narrow plan affs since they can pick tiny areas of literature to create their affs.

Clash – Clash is an educational impact regarding how arguments are answered. A tactic that relied on hiding arguments in case and not disclosing them would avoid clash since it would prevent people from discussing and debating (“clashing with”) those arguments. Clash can be split up into two types: breadth and depth. Breadth is about debating a large variety of arguments while depth is about closely debating one argument. Breadth and depth are also sometimes used to justify Limits.

Critical Thinking – Critical thinking is an educational skill about how fast someone can think on their feet. This is typically used to justify other skews like Strat/Time Skew. For example, strat skew can be turned by saying that it promotes critical thinking, which is better for debaters since they learn more in the long term.

Real World – Real world education says that an argument is good if it models the real world. For example, arguing for multiple different advocacies could be real world since policymakers propose many different types of bills.

Phil ed/Topic ed – Phil and topic education state that an argument is bad if it reduces the amount of education someone can get on the philosophical and topical level. For example, an argument that said that your opponent shouldn’t be allowed to contest your framework would be bad for phil ed since there would be no debate on the philosophical level.

Accessibility – Accessibility states that an argument that your opponent makes excludes people from the debate space. Making violent (sexist, racist, etc.) arguments would be bad for accessibility because they would push people out of debate.

Shiftiness – Shiftiness is when people can be purposefully unclear about their stance on something in order to shift out of their original position to gain a strategic advantage. An example of shiftiness is lying in cross-ex or being intentionally vague of something.

Voters

Voters explain how the theory shell should be evaluated. Some arguments for the voters include drop the debater (meaning that your opponent loses for failing to meet the interpretation), competing interps, and impact calculus (e.g. why fairness and education should be valued by the judge). Specific voters (such as fairness before education, drop the argument over drop the debater, etc.) are often made as strategic arguments under the theory debate in order to gain advantages while debating.

Drop the Debater/Drop the Argument

Drop the debater says that your opponent should lose the round for violating your interp. This does not mean that the round completely stops after you make the accusation; rather, your opponent will defend their norm and you will pursue your norm (assuming that you go for theory) and if you win your shell and that your opponent should lose for violating it, the judge will use that to make their decision (once the round finishes).

Drop the argument says that your opponent and judge should disregard the argument that you are indicting and effectively “drop” it. For example, if my opponent were to run theory on a counterplan and it was drop the argument, if I conceded the theory argument then I would no longer be able to go for the counterplan.

Typically, people who are running shells will want to say it’s drop the debater so that they can have a strategic route to the ballot, while people who are answering shells will want to say that it’s drop the argument so they don’t lose on theory.

Common justifications

Drop the debater (often abbreviated to DTD) – their abuse was so bad that it completely skewed the rest of the round. DTD – if they lose, it’ll encourage good norms in the future since people will fear punishment. DTD – there isn’t enough time for me to run theory and go for other arguments – by reporting abuse my time is skewed, and DTD compensates for it.

Drop the argument (often abbreviated to DTA) – it’s the most real-world since you wouldn’t give the death penalty to someone for shoplifting just like how you shouldn’t punish me for marginal abuse. DTA – DTD encourages frivolous theory since people can lose the round on minor abuses. Frivolous theory is bad – it delegitimizes real abuse and distracts from substance since nobody will want to go for case. DTA – DTD incentivizes people to go all out on theory because nothing else matters so we never talk about substance.

Competing Interps/Reasonability

Competing interpretations (often shortened to competing interps or CI) and reasonability are ways that the judge should evaluate the theory debate. Under competing interps, arguments are evaluated under an offense-defense paradigm – the side running the shell must prove that their norm is good for debate, and the side responding must prove that their counter-norm is good for debate. The winner of the theory debate is whoever’s norm is best for the round. However, under reasonability, the side who is responding just needs to prove that their model is sufficient enough to use in the round – it is “reasonable.” The winner of the theory debate is whether the defending debater’s actions were reasonable. If they were, the shell is dropped, and if they weren’t, they lose. Typically, reasonability requires what is known as a “brightline.” Brightlines are a threshold that arguments must meet to be sufficient. Brightlines help make reasonability less arbitrary – they quantify exactly what it means to be reasonable in the first place. That way, instead of the judge randomly deciding if they think that the norm the defending debater defends is sufficient, they have a metric to evaluate by. Some examples of reasonability brightlines include “reasonability with a brightline of sufficient defense,” “reasonability with a brightline of link and impact turn ground,” and “reasonability if the education lost on substance outweighs the abuse rectified by voting on the shell.” It is important to note that under competing interps, a brightline is not needed. In the context of theory, abuse refers to the negative consequences of the other debater’s actions on the round. For example, if you run a conditional advocacy and I ran theory on you, the abuse could be that conditional advocacies skewed my time. This is often referred to as an abuse story – the “loss” that one debater suffers.

An example of when reasonability is useful is for the following shell: “Interp: Debaters must not wear formal clothing.” The standards for that shell are that formal clothing affects judgement and is inaccessible to less-privileged debaters. However, it’s obvious that this shell is frivolous – it’s impossible to find a clear distinction between “formal” and “informal” clothing and at some tournaments formal clothing is expected. Under competing interps, the debater who wore formal clothing would actively have to prove an offensive reason why wearing formal clothing (a reason why you are good for the debate round = offense, while a reason why you shouldn’t lose for not meeting their norm = defense) is good. Under reasonability, however, the burden is less severe – all the defending debater must do is prove that it is okay to wear formal clothing, that the theory shell would sacrifice more debate than it would help, or any other form of a brightline. For example, under the brightline “reasonability with a brightline of sufficient defense,” valid arguments would include “formal clothing is expected,” “I can’t know what formal is,” amongst others. If the judge uses competing interps, the winner of the theory debate will be who has proved that formal clothing is good or bad. If the judge uses reasonability, the winner of the theory debate will be whether the defending debater meets the brightline they set and if that brightline is good.

The person running a shell usually wants to defend competing interps – forcing your opponent to prove that they are actively good is much harder than proving that they are sufficient enough for the round. Likewise, the person defending the shell usually wants to defend reasonability. With the earlier example of formal clothes theory, it is easy to prove that wearing formal clothing is “okay” for a round, but it is hard to prove that it is a good norm to set.

Common Justifications

CI – Reasonability incentivizes a race to the bottom of judge intervention – people can push the brightline for what is reasonable lower and lower until it hits rock bottom. CI – Reasonability is arbitrary – nobody knows what a judge considers reasonable which allows for infinite judge intervention. CI – Norm setting – only competing interps can set models for debater because it allows for us to find the best models.

Reasonability – competing interps incentivizes people to run as many frivolous shells as they want because they know that I’ll need to prove offense. Reasonability – competing interps allows for over punishing because you’ll vote on even the smallest amounts of abuse. Reasonability – substance tradeoff – you’ll always choose a more marginal interpretation of what is good for debate because it can win you rounds, but that means we never get to talk about the topic if you’re always running theory.