Starter Guide

Overview

In order to compete successfully on both the national and local circuits, debaters must understand the many concepts that are essential for the basis of argument creation and refutation. Luckily, this guide will simplify and make all of these concepts digestible; taking notes and really trying to grasp these core ideas will make your future debate career much more promising.

Parts of an Argument

There are three main parts to an argument: the claim, the warrant, and the impact. 

The claim is the argument you want to make, or the idea you are trying to get across. Examples of claims are “Dogs are cute,” or “LeBron James is the best basketball player,” or “Kritikal Discussions is the best debate organization.” Claims alone are not a whole argument, as each of these sentences above contains no analysis or warranting as to why they are true. For example, you may contest that LeBron James is the best basketball player, and while you’d be wrong, there’s nothing in the sentence “LeBron James is the best basketball player” that supports that LeBron James is the greatest basketball player.

That brings us to the second part of an argument: the warrant. The warrant is the reason the claim is true—the warrant is the “because.” One might say that Kritikal Discussions is the best debate organization because they make debate accessible to everyone, everywhere. But, even with this warrant, there’s no clear reason as to why we should even care that Kritikal Discussions is so incredibly fabulous, so what's next?

What’s next is the impact; the impact explores the implications, or the “so what?” of an argument. Oftentimes in your English class, your teacher may force you to explain why your essay even matters in the introduction paragraph. That’s how you should view the impact. The impact tells the judge why the argument matters. Alluding to our previous example, one might care that Kritikal Discussions is so incredibly important because it would encourage the audience to want to support the organization. 

Therefore, the full argument, using a claim, warrant, and impact argument structure, would be as follows:

“Kritikal Discussions is the best debate organization (claim) because they make debate accessible to everyone (warrant), meaning that you should support them (impact)!”

Responding to an Argument

There are many ways to respond to an argument. Once someone makes a full argument—claim, warrant, and impact—you need to know how to respond. There are lots of ways to do this, and good debaters know the most strategic ways to respond to all sorts of arguments. Because Kritikal Discussions being the greatest debate organization is simply a truism, let’s use a more contestable claim:

“LeBron James is the greatest basketball player of all time.”

1] The first way you can respond to an argument is by questioning the uniqueness of an argument. These sorts of refutations are known as non-uniques, since they nullify the uniqueness of the argument. For example, a counterargument in this debate topic would be 

“Longevity isn’t unique to LeBron—Kareem played 20 seasons too. Just lasting a long time doesn’t make you the GOAT.” 

This argument uses a counterexample to effectively illustrate how non-unique LeBron’s record is. For a more debate-relevant scenario, consider a negative economic contention on the living wage topic.

“Increasing the minimum wage would cause inflation.”

Responding to the uniqueness of the argument would look something like this:

“Inflation is already high—increasing the minimum wage would only send a slight ripple.”

This weakens their impact by saying it inevitably happens in both worlds, regardless of a minimum wage increase. 

2] The second way you can respond to an argument is by turning the argument. Turns answer the scenario the argument presumes. Turns are great because they are offensive—instead of just pointing out why your opponent is wrong, it generates a new reason as to why you’re right. It’s like an interception in football. 

There are three main types of turns:

1—The Link Turn. These arguments contest whether the result of a scenario will really happen. For example, consider an argument isolated into the following premises:

1. The economy is on the brink of collapse right now (Uniqueness)

2. Requiring a $25 minimum wage for workers pushes us off the brink and causes extreme inflation (Link)

3. Extreme inflation causes geopolitical instability throughout the world (Impact)

The link would contest the link. It would say, “Well, actually, increasing the minimum wage would benefit the economy, not harm it! 

2—The Impact Turn. The impact turn is probably the funniest way to answer an argument. Consider the same premises:

1. The economy is on the brink of collapse right now (Uniqueness)

2. Requiring a $25 minimum wage for workers pushes us off the brink and causes extreme inflation (Link)

3. Extreme inflation causes geopolitical instability throughout the world (Impact)

The impact turn flips geopolitical instability. The impact turn would say, “Well, geopolitical instability is actually really good!” It’s silly, but in technical debate rounds where your ability to matter skillfully matters more than the truth, many debaters win by reading these types of arguments! In fact, one of the cofounders of this institution—Justin Xia—loves spark, an argument that essentially says “nuclear war is preferable to our current state of affairs!”

3—The Straight Turn. The straight turn is a link turn coupled with a uniqueness turn. Consider the same argument yet again:

1. The economy is on the brink of collapse right now (Uniqueness)

2. Requiring a $25 minimum wage for workers pushes us off the brink and causes extreme inflation (Link)

3. Extreme inflation causes geopolitical instability throughout the world (Impact)

A straight turn would say that the economy is actually doing really badly right now (uniqueness turn), and that requiring a $25 minimum wage for workers can solve that by fixing the economy! Now, the reason this is better than a link turn alone is because it creates a necessity. If the economy were on the brink, there would be no real urgency to fix the economy in the first place, assuming that a $25 wage would fix the economy. But, if our economy is collapsing right now (straight turn), then there is an urgent necessity for a minimum wage increase. This type of framing is called try or die framing, arguing that if we don't try, we will die!

3] The third way you can respond to an argument is by de-linking the warrant and the claim. With LeBron, it can look like this:

“Sure, LeBron has high stats—but that doesn’t mean he’s the greatest. Stats don’t capture leadership or clutch performance.” 

With the minimum wage example:

1. The economy is on the brink of collapse right now (Uniqueness)

2. Requiring a $25 minimum wage for workers pushes us off the brink and causes extreme inflation (Link)

3. Extreme inflation causes geopolitical instability throughout the world (Impact)

A de-link can look like this:

“Raising the minimum wage actually has no effect on the economy—alternative causes like tariffs and business confidence matter much more.”

4] The fourth way you can respond to an argument is by using evidence—obviously. These bring in sources to counter your claim. Oftentimes in debate, a lot of the turns and no-links will rely on evidence anyway. Those claims about the minimum wage in the previous examples? You can use evidence to back those claims up—in fact, you should. For the LeBron James example, it would look like this:

“A 2023 ESPN player poll ranked Michael Jordan as the GOAT by a wide margin. Even NBA players disagree with your LeBron argument.”

5] The fifth way you can respond to an argument is by refuting the impact, or arguing that there is no impact to their argument. You agree that the claim and warrant are true, but say it doesn’t matter.

“Okay, maybe LeBron has better stats—but being the greatest isn’t about stats alone. It’s about rings, legacy, and impact on the game.”

With the minimum wage example:

1. The economy is on the brink of collapse right now (Uniqueness)

2. Requiring a $25 minimum wage for workers pushes us off the brink and causes extreme inflation (Link)

3. Extreme inflation causes geopolitical instability throughout the world (Impact)

You could say that geopolitical instability doesn’t matter. You could say that it has always existed, and nothing world-ending has come from it.

6] The sixth way you could answer an argument is by changing the framework, or the standards used to evaluate the argument in the first place.

“The debate shouldn't be about individual stats—it should be about team success and cultural impact. Under that framework, Jordan wins.”

Mastering these 6 types of response strategies will make you a better, more effective, and flexible debater. Remember, all of these types of refutations are compatible with each other (except for the link/straight turn with an impact turn, see Vancouver’s explanation) and should be used in coordination with each other in order to maximize efficiency and persuasiveness. 

Evidence Comparison 

Evidence comparison is a uniquely powerful tool—in fact, in policy debates, it can be used as a tiebreaker when both sides make competing claims with pieces of evidence that directly contradict each other. There are multiple ways in which you can compare evidence, but for you, I have ranked them below:

1. Author credentials

2. Journal/publisher Bias

3. Publish Method

4. Tone 

5. Length

First, author credentials. Easily the best way to compare evidence. All you have to do is consider how qualified the authors are to make suggestions on a specific topic. For example, consider two authors: one a Ph.D in political science and international affairs, and the other a Ph.d in mathematics. Who would you trust more when it comes to US-China relations? Probably the former.

Second, Journal/publisher bias. Was the article published on Fox, CNN, or the Heritage Foundation? The problem with using this kind of comparison is that it assumes that citing articles that are center-leaning is the best and most accurate way to go, but this is oftentimes not the case. Because of this, you need to consider why that bias facilitates a faulty argument implication. For example, if oil companies started funding a website dedicated to climate denial, then you can probably tell why they deny climate change—they have direct financial incentives to do so.

Third, the Publishing method. Is it a think tank, study, report, book, or blog? You can compare the validity of different publishing methods for your evidence comparison—blog articles are generally less trustworthy than peer-reviewed journals.

Fourth, tone. Is the tone objective or fear-mongering? Is it hyperbolic? You can pay attention to the objectivity of your evidence and compare it to your opponent’s evidence. This type of evidence comparison specifically works when you are comparing two short articles, since there is less variance in tone and more specificity in claims.

Lastly, length. This is probably the worst way to do evidence comparison, simply because “length” doesn’t necessarily mean an article is better than another, but sometimes in debates, you should make it seem that way. For example, if an article you “cut” (more on this in the card cutting section) was longer than your opponent's, then the judge should prefer it because it accounts for more variables and the author has thought about the issue more. Generally, only do this if you have no other route to winning the evidence battle, and your evidence is just trash.

Impact Calculus

Impact calculus in debate is extremely important and can win you rounds. In fact, if you and your opponent are at a stalemate where both sides seem to be winning, their scenario will happen; better impact calculus convinces the judge that your world matters more.

But first, what is impact calculus? Impact calculus is just a system of frameworks to think about why your impact should be prioritized over the other teams—it’s how the judge understands whether nuclear war is worse than climate change, or if economic collapse is worse than racial inequality. Here are the main frameworks in which you can do impact calculus:

1. Timeframe – When does the impact happen? Impacts that happen sooner are more urgent. Think about it like this: if someone is going to stub their toe tomorrow vs. break their leg in 40 years, the toe stub is more immediate, even if it’s less severe. So if your opponent says “extinction in 100 years” and you say “nuclear war in 5,” you win the timeframe.

   1. Prerequisite – Timeframe is great when used in tandem with a prerequisite weighing argument. Does your impact prevent theirs from even occurring? This is a great move in policy debates. If you win that your impact comes before theirs and makes it impossible for theirs to happen, then it’s game over for them. It’s like saying, “You can’t have a functioning democracy if climate change floods the entire country first.”

2. Magnitude – How badly does the impact affect each person? Does it kill them? Or does it just place them in an unfortunate situation?

3. Probability – How likely is the impact to occur? This is where people usually get cooked. If your impact is nuclear war but you don’t explain why it’s likely, and your opponent has a smaller but super probable impact (like a 0.1% drop in GDP backed by 5 studies), the judge might prefer their impact. The best impact calculus compares magnitude and probability—e.g., “Our impact may be smaller, but it’s guaranteed to happen.”

4. Reversibility – Can the impact be undone? If your opponent says “economic decline,” but you say “mass extinction,” you can argue that economic problems are reversible with new policies, but extinction is forever. Framing your impact as irreversible makes it scarier and harder to ignore.

5. Scope — How big is the impact? This is the classic “how many people die” question. A global recession is worse than a regional one. A war that kills millions outweighs a protest that disrupts traffic. Obviously, magnitude isn’t everything, but it’s one of the most intuitive ways to frame your impact as more important.

But now, what if you and your opponent both did impact calc, just using two different frameworks? Let’s pretend you argued nuclear war outweighs on reversibility when compared to climate change, and your opponent said climate change outweighs nuclear war on scope. What now? Well, it’s time for meta-weighing. Meta-weighing is when you determine which framework should be prioritized; should we prioritize reversibility or scope? Magnitude or probability? 

Cutting Cards

For information on how to cut cards, I highly recommend watching this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rzVnPccyK4k 

Just remember:

• When giving a speech, you only read the tag, the author's last name and date, and the highlighted parts of the card

• Citations should be in MLA format

• To paste in paragraphs at a time, you can’t paste in parts of a paragraph in a card (that violates NSDA evidence ethics); you need to copy entire paragraphs at a time. 

• Make sure to cut cards in a way that makes the claim and basic reasoning that you want in the first speech you give. For example, if you're giving a speech on why Trump strikes draw Iran to retaliate causing WW3, you only need the basic reasoning that says that Iran will retaliate. Detailed extrapolations are good and necessary in the 2NR or 2AR on the intricacies of Iran's governance and response to attack, but you should keep that for the rebuttal. Leaving it in the constructive leads to inefficient time and word economy as cards become "painted" or have too many highlights and you make less arguments overall. 

Here’s an example of a card (this may look different than the one in the video, both ways of cutting cards are fine, this is just more standard and more of a stylistic choice)

Conclusion

Mastering these basics of argumentation is the foundation for success in any form of debate. If you’re just starting out, remember: debate isn’t just about sounding smart—it’s about thinking critically, communicating clearly, and persuading effectively. Hopefully, this comprehensive guide will help you win some rounds, and good luck!