Effective Responses

June 2020
Ahmad Tousif Jami

To start, let’s dissect what this is about. In my opinion, ​rebuttal means an instance of rebutting
evidence or an accusation. In debates, often it’s not possible to give literal rebuttals; so we give
responses and mitigate it/ compare it/ break it down. This means, ​random direct attacks do not help​.
Further, we often fail to ​take ​full advantage of it (when we do attack correctly)- and we pay the debt by
losing the debate. This is a very common take; and in this write up I will try to theorize it step by step as
to how to do effective responses to an extent that I found to be effective at even determining the results
of a debate. The guideline consists of ​05 tactics and ​4 strategy steps. ​Feel free to google the difference
between strategy and tactics.

05 Tactic(s):
1) Factual Accuracy:
- Question and disprove – conclusion, mechanism.
- Niche examples don’t work
- Intuitive analysis
- Facts/stats

2) Impact Judgment:
- Whether there are other alternatives that gets the job done
- Is this impact really helpful?
- Pointing out the exaggeration of impact

3) Comparative:
- Assuming the impacts are true; compare importance
- Number Game
- Vulnerability Spectrum
- Always incorporate the Trade-offs concerned

4) Strategic Comparative:
- Your worst (guaranteed impact) vs. their best (exaggerated impact)
- Moderate their best case to realistic
- Show why their worst case is more likely
- Show why your best case is more likely to happen

5) Even if:
- Concede to literally everything they show benefits on; then show why your minimum
guaranteed benefit is important
- Must be conclusive and head on
4 Strategy(-ies):
1) Flag post
- What are you responding to
- Specify whether it’s the impact or the mechanism
- If it’s the mechanism, say how that tackles the impact as well

2) Multiple responses when possible

- 2 is decent
- 3 is magic
3) Mention how many arguments you’ll respond to
- Not necessary to mention which ones because that might eat up time
- If it’s time friendly to do- DO.
4) Conclusion
- Why does your response matter in the debate?
- How this helps you win (Impacting the motion)

PLEASE TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF AND YOUR MENTAL HEALTH, THANK YOU!