BASICS OF

CUTTING GOOD
CARDS
 WHY RESEARCH?
 Research wins debates. It feels great to win on an argument that
you have written. You will understand it really well, you will know
exactly where all of the cards are and you will be able to predict what
the other team will read against you. That level of preparation
translates into calm confidence that will win debates!
 Researching is a responsibility of every team member. You can
always decline an assignment to focus on school or family but
consistently avoiding work impacts your travel priority.
 Research takes practice. There is a learning curve. Over time, you
will know what databases or searches to use and what types of cards
are the most useful. Do not be surprised if you have trouble at first.
 Regular work is the key to success. Get in the habit of doing small
amounts of debate work on a regular schedule. You will feel
prepared and will generate an impressive amount of work. Even five
hours a week will really add up.
WHEN DO YOU NEED A CARD?
 Your previous experience with research was
probably a teacher telling you that you had to
have X number of sources for your grade. I want
you to think about WHY and WHEN you actually
need a source to support your arguments.
 Arguments need support from expert sources
when we want to borrow credibility that we do
not have.
WHAT MAKES A SOURCE WORTH QUOTING?
 YES!
 Official qualifications
 Experience in the field
 Recent if the information
required may have changed
 High quality publisher
 Information used in context
 Free from bias (having a
strong opinion is fine
though)
 Supported by other research
 NO!
 Unclear or poor qualifications
 Unclear author
 Out-dated information
 Blog or other random internet
source
 Information warped to fit your
purpose
 Someone who has an incentive
to misrepresent the truth
 Fringe opinion
TOP EXCUSES FOR HAVING A BAD SOURCE
 Do NOT use these. 
 The web page looked/sounded really good.
 The web page cited other people who look qualified.
 I know that there were qualifications but I went back
to find them and the web page seemed to have shut
down.
 This source had a familiar name.
 My dog ate my qualifications.
HOW TO FIND DECENT SOURCES
 It depends on what you are looking for:
 Current events: Lexis database (via library) or Google
News (which is awesome but also contains some
garbage)
 In depth articles: Library databases, books
 Ask librarians or a coach for help
 Side note: You may NOT use Wikipedia—fun general
reading and often OK but not an acceptable academic
source. Consider yourself warned.
COMPUTERS!
 Cards got their name because evidence used to be cut out
and pasted down in actual recipe cards.
 Then, debaters moved to cutting and pasting onto paper
“briefs.”
 Now, we do everything electronically. All files need to be
designed in a Word document. If you find a passage in a
book that you need, either scan and OCR or type it in.
Why? It is much easier to edit blocks if they are
electronic.
 We will also help you to create a Word template that
allows you to automatically create block titles etc.
WHAT MAKE A GOOD CARD?
 No factoids. Cut cards that have specific uses in rounds, not
random bits of information. Always ask yourself “how is
this card going to be useful in the round?”
 Quality is all that matters. Assume 2 things:
 The other team will have a good card that says the
opposite and yours needs to be better.
 The judge is calling for the card.
 Fewer repetitive cards. No more than four pages of the
evidence making the same argument.
 Never cut evidence that is out of context. If an author later
disagrees with the claim in a card that you have cut from
them, it is out of context. Ask yourself—would the author
agree with this tag? Not the whole position necessarily but
the tag? If there is any question, ask a coach, DO NOT turn
it out to the team.
 WHAT MAKES A GOOD CARD?
 Recent evidence helps.
 Never cut evidence off of a debate list-serve, a private e-mail or a
debate related blog. Some teams do this, it is cheating and will hurt
our reputation.
 Qualified evidence is better. Staff writers are OK for uniqueness
evidence and maybe some other simple claims but better qualified
evidence wins more debates.
 Cut cards that are too long, not too short. Ways to ensure that
your evidence represents complete ideas (and therefore arguments)
include the following:
 One sentence cards are useless because they have no reasoning.
 NEVER begin or cut off a card mid-sentence. In fact,always
include the whole paragraph.
 Do not cut cards that start with “however” or “but.” Include the
above paragraph or sentence so that your evidence represents a
complete idea.
CITATIONS
 Complete and accurate.
 Full name of the author, complete date,
qualifications (may need to Google these), title
of publication, page number if available, cut and
paste web address, note database.
 Format: Last name, date in BOLD (rest in
parenthesis).
 ALWAYS collect cites as you go, never plan to
go back and get them later.
TAGGING
 Use strong language—If the author makes a good argument,
maximize the usefulness of the evidence with a strongly
worded tag. This is accomplished by:
 Avoiding vague words like “good,” “equals,” “bad,” or “very.” Use
more specific language. “Very bad” should be replaced by “10 million
deaths” etc.
 Never state a passive relationship between two things, such as “X and Y
are both happening.” Such passive relationships are not useful in
debate; re-tag it to say “X causes Y” or “X prevents, increases or
decreases Y.”
 Stay away from debate jargon. A little is OK, especially with
affirmative DA answers, but tags that are more story-oriented will do
more to catch the judge’s attention.
 Do not over-tag—For instance, if your evidence says a disease
will impact 10% of the population, do not tag the evidence to
claim extinction.
 Shorter tags are usually better.
COMPLETE FILES
 Does your file represent a strategy?
 Have you scouted other teams for cites and
arguments commonly made against your file?
Do you have those issues covered?
 Have you scouted other teams for good cards
that should be part of our file?
BLOCKS
 Make document maps easy to use. Maps should have clearly
labeled sections. For example: a DA could be organized into
uniqueness, links, internal links, impacts and answers to aff
answers.
 Imitate varsity files that coaches tell you are particularly good.
 Use a uniform font. We will use the template defaults.
 Underline ahead of time. Do not waste everyone’s prep by making
the whole squad underline when you could do it once for everyone.
 Organize the cards from best to worst within each block. People
will naturally read what is on the top of the page so put the best
ones up there.
 No font should be shrunken to less than 8 pt font.
SENDING IN FILES + MISC.
 Send files to a coach.
 Title Word docs in the following way: Title
Tournament Year Your Name. So “Foucault AT:
Greenhill 15 Zareen.”
 Also, we NEVER lend evidence to other teams or
borrow evidence from other teams. We do share cites
and also ask for cites but we cut the evidence
ourselves and expect others to do the same.
 And, if anyone ever asks, we do not use college
debate files—we hire college debaters sometimes to
cut files but we only use what we hire them to create.