1. Cutting Cards Evidence in Debate

2. What exactly is a card? A card is another name for a short piece of evidence, and the name is leftover from the days of yore when quotes used as evidence were handwritten on index cards. When it comes to gathering evidence, it takes more than just finding a good quote that backs up your claim. You also have to selectively edit out words and phrases that don't add to your argument while at the same time preserving the original meaning of the passage.

3. Cards Continued While it may seem foreign, this practice is widely accepted because of the benefits it has. Though six minutes may seem like to an eternity for you initially, it really is a very limited time slot during which you can present your arguments. Thus, the more concise your arguments can be, while still preserving their meaning, the more arguments you can provide in defense of your position.

4. Why does it matter? Having numerous, concise, arguments from EXPERT sources is critical for your success in any debate event that you do. (LD, CX, PF, Congress) Imagine a debate round is a gun fight. The more warranted sourced arguments you can read in debate round means that you have more bullets to win the fight with. So basically… cutting cards like a boss and being able to read them in a round is one of the first steps to winning in competitive debate rounds.

5. How to edit out words In selectively editing out words, it is important not to delete them but to instead either reduce their size or put all other words in boldface. This is a precaution taken to ensure that you are accurately representing the evidence and not editing it in such a way as to alter its meaning.

6. Components of the card Tag line- This is your own words explaining the gist of what the card says. For example, a tag line might be “Adolescent medical autonomy solves for teen rights abuses” Source citation Block of evidence (which is highlighted or underlined appropriately)

7. Example of a card Trade sanctions solve for a foreign nations wrongdoings without alienating that nation from the global economy. Franklin Foer [Franklin Foer is a senior editor at the New Republic and a contributing editor at New York]. “Economic Sanctions”. Slate. 9/14/96 The United States has two sorts of sanctions in its arsenal: trade and economic. Trade sanctions remove what the government calls "preference programs"--basic privileges, like Most Favored Nation trade status or Import-Export Bank loans, given toall friendly countries. The United States has imposed trade sanctions on nations that, for example, close their markets to its goods (China), sell arms to hostile regimes (Pakistan), and violate human rights (Myanmar). Trade sanctions are reprimands, tailored to reform a sanctioned country's behavior without completely alienating it. If trade sanctions fail, the president can adopt the more draconian economic sanctions, which do aim to alienate.Economic sanctions can include trade embargoes, bans on cash transfers and loans from American financial institutions, and measures that prevent access to American assets. Because economic sanctions can strangle an economy, they are considered one step shy of war. Indeed, it has become almost a diplomatic necessity to level sanctions prior to military intervention, to show that all other options have been exhausted.

8. Citations An important part of cutting cards is to also have citations. No citation style in necessary is required (BUT I RECOMMEND MLA) but it is important to have relevant information which includes: Author Title Publication Date Author Qualifications if you can find them

9. So I’ve got a piece of evidence, what do I read? The complete tag line. Author Last name, Year of Publication The highlighted/bolded/underlined words you have selected from the card

10. How do I know if I should read a specific line of the evidence or not? This somewhat comes down to personal choice. However, a few pieces of advice here. 1. All pieces of evidence should contain both the claim AND the warrant for why that claim is true. 2. So if that line of evidence states the claim or helps substantiate that claim, then it should probably be read in the debate. 3. If the line of evidence talks about anything other than the argument you are trying to make in the round, it should be omitted. 4. Anything that can be made into an acronym can be highlighted down. For example United States is in the card, you should be reading U.S. North Atlantic Treaty Organization = NATO

11. What NOT to do Do not do anything that intentionally manipulates author intent. (For example, reading everything but the “not” in a line of text to make the argument say the opposite of what the author means.) Power Tagging- Make sure that your tag lines accurately reflect what your author is saying, and do not 1) say something else entirely or 2) increase the magnitude of the argument. (For example, the author says “x is a bad thing” and your tag line reads “x causes extinction”