Electronic Research

During the season, you will be expected to complete research assignments. When you do an assignment, your main goal is to produce a winning set of arguments. This means that you need to develop a strategy that will win based on the evidence you get and to think about how that evidence can be used to persuade a judge to vote for you. To do your research, you need to do the following:

1. Get Articles

2. Bracket Evidence in the Articles

3. Cite and tag the evidence

4. Add in other evidence that other people give you

5. Categorize and Brief the evidence

6. Write a case, disadvantage or case responses (depending on the assignment)

7. Index the remaining briefs

After you are finished, turn in your work for a coach’s approval. Your coach will give you feedback. After reworking your materials, print one copy for each policy team on the squad. Then, distribute a copy to each team in the green baskets in the prep room. After that, you need to file the briefs you get in your basket.

1. GET ARTICLES

To do this:

1. IDENTIFY THE ISSUE YOU NEED TO RESEARCH

You will receive assignments at team meetings or via the forensic listserv or you might choose an affirmative case to research

2. FIND ONLINE ARTICLES

Use the web for Infotrac on-line articles, Lexis articles, Lexis-Universe articles, and web pages.

For further tips on these--see the “Using the Whitman Library” and “How to use Lexis” handouts.

3. FIND PRINTED BOOKS AND JOURNALS

Go to the Library for printed journals and books

Please scan sections of these printed materials. Scan the evidence you want to use with an OCR program (one usually comes with your scanner such Omnipage Lite or you can purchase a program). Scanning saves money AND means you get electronic backfiles that are very easy to access.

Ethical Bracketing

1. You should maintain the meaning of the author (for example, taking out the word “not” or leaving out “but the United States should not change its policy because of this as it isn’t a good enough reason”).

2. Absolutely no fabrication of evidence.

3. If the argument you are quoting is not the author’s conclusion, you should note that on the piece of evidence. If the article goes on to point out that a fact in the section you bracketed is not accurate--you should not cut that piece of evidence.

2. BRACKET EVIDENCE IN ARTICLES

Select and copy the beginning and end of each piece of evidence that you find. For example, you’d copy the lines in the article below:

"In recent weeks, these fears are beginning to become reality in South Asia. India and Pakistan, long rivals and military opponents, are currently making the final preparations for what very well could be an unrestrained nuclear arms race in this region. This arms race would threaten security of these two free world nations and of other U.S. friends because of the animosity between the countries and the lack of security features of their weapons.

Several weeks ago, I made a speech on the floor of the U.S. Senate disclosing in detail information I have received regarding a full scale drive by the radical Iraqi regime to attain a nuclear weapons capability."

Note: Many people find writing a tag for this evidence right away to be a big time saver.

Note: No handwritten evidence is permitted unless you have a coach’s approval.

· A GOOD PIECE OF EVIDENCE IS USUALLY 3 OR MORE LINES LONG.

· If you are a college debater, you should underline the key parts of evidence. DO NOT DO this if you are in high school unless you ABSOLUTELY know it is okay. College debaters just read the underlined section in their debates. In general, underline lots of the material for affirmative cases and critiques, etc. Underline less for 2AC and 1NC quick response cards.

· YOUR UNDERLINING SHOULD MAKE ITS ONE MAIN POINT AND THEN END. If it goes on, make another piece of evidence. Here is an example:

In recent weeks, these fears are beginning to become reality in South Asia. India and Pakistan, long rivals and military opponents, are currently making the final preparations for what very well could be an unrestrained nuclear arms race in this region. This arms race would threaten security of these two free world nations and of other U.S. friends because of the animosity between the countries and the lack of security features of their weapons.

· THE MAIN POINT OF YOUR EVIDENCE SHOULD MAKE AN ARGUMENT THAT SUPPORTS OR REJECTS AN ARGUMENT IMPORTANT TO AN ISSUE, CASE, DISADVANTAGE, ETC.

· YOUR EVIDENCE SHOULD MAKE ITS POINT FORCEFULLY. Skip evidence that includes "maybes," "ifs," and information that your opponents can use against you. If Your Evidence Uses The Term "It" Or "This" Or "The Program"--You Need To Write In Parentheses What "It" "This" Or "The" Refers To

· IF YOUR EVIDENCE DOES NOT GIVE ANY REASON--DO NOT USE THAT PIECE OF EVIDENCE.

· YOUR EVIDENCE SHOULD OFFER CLEAR, SOLID REASONS TO SUPPORT ITS MAIN POINT.

3. PASTE, CITE AND TAG EVIDENCE

Note: Highlight the author’s last name and the year and then click “Cite Bolder” in MS Word.

Note: All evidence is 10 point times font except the tag, name, and year are 12 point bold times font.

To do this:

1. PASTE THE EVIDENCE YOU COPIED INTO A DOCUMENT

2. SOURCE CITE THE EVIDENCE

Your evidence source citation should include the following:

First Name Last Name, Qualifications, TITLE OF BOOK/JOURNAL, Date and year, Page number.

So, your citations will look like this:

July Davis, Professor of Politics, Harvard University, JOURNAL OF COMPLEX ISSUES, June ‘02, p. 227

DO NOT USE THIS KIND OF SOURCE CITATION: Smith '01

Why? Because we want judges to be impressed with the quality of our evidence. Qualified evidence does make a difference.

DO NOT USE: Same source as above Why? Because when briefs are cut up--the source "above" no longer is above.

3. TAG THE EVIDENCE TO MAKE ARGUMENTS

A label is a short, complete sentence that states the main point of evidence. Your label should:

1. BE ACCURATE

State the main point of the evidence. Try to use the wording in the evidence itself.

2. BE CONCISE

Use 4 to 9 words; If you want, add in a 2nd line to the tag giving further explanation.

NOTE: Some debaters use long, explanatory tags. This can be fine.

3. BE PERSUASIVE

Make the label an argument worth making in a debate.

4. USE NO SYMBOLS OR ABBREVIATIONS

They slow down readers and frequently are not comprehensible.

YOUR EVIDENCE WITH LABEL AND SOURCE CITATION SHOULD LOOK LIKE THIS:

Iraq would use post-sanction windfall for WMDs, not its people

DANIEL BYMAN is Policy Analyst at the RAND Corporation, Foreign Affairs, January/Feb, 2000

The greatest difficulty is in shoring up sanctions, which are necessary to block Saddam's WMD programs. Sanctions fatigue is acute. Critics in the region -- and, increasingly, at home -- regularly denounce the humanitarian cost of sanctions. To counter, sanctions' defenders need to more vigorously and more frequently point out the obvious: Saddam has spent what limited money he controls on arms and lavish rewards for his followers, not on the well-being of the Iraqi people; money earmarked for humanitarian purposes often goes unspent; the regime smuggles humanitarian goods out of Iraq to sell on the black market; and Iraqis living in the parts of northern Iraq under U.N. control fare far better than those under the Baathist thumb. If sanctions were removed, there is little reason to expect that Saddam would spend the new revenue on the Iraqi people and every reason to believe that he would blow it on Iraq's WMD programs.

4. ADD IN OTHER EVIDENCE

Talk with other debaters about any evidence that they cut that will help you complete your assignment. Incorporate it into your work.

5. CATEGORIZE AND BRIEF THE EVIDENCE

· To do this, paste evidence that makes the same general argument onto the same page.

· At the top of each page, write a brief title—a complete sentence that states the argument the evidence on that page makes. HIGHLIGHT THE BRIEF TITLE with your mouse and click the “Block Title” button in MS Word.

· BE SURE TO USE PAGE BREAKS BETWEEN EACH BRIEF. OTHERWISE, WHEN YOU PRINT, IT WILL BE TROUBLE.

6. WRITE THE CASE, DISADVANTAGE OR COUNTERPLAN

If you are doing a case response assignment, skip this step

To do this step, see the material in this packet on “How to write a Case,” “How to write a Disadvantage” etc.

For very large assignments that are likely to be put into Expandos (a file “accordian” with 21 to 31 sections), subdivide the briefs into sections for the expandos, then create an index on a piece of paper horizontally to go on the front of the index; the page numbers will usually be A, B, C depending on which section of the expando they go in.

7. INDEX REMAINING BRIEFS

To do this:

1. MAKE SURE YOU HAVE ALL THE BRIEFS YOU NEED
Don't do an index before your briefs are really done--it's a waste otherwise.

· You have thoroughly researched at least the Green Screen On-Line Catalog, Government documents and Lexis.

· You have asked other squad members if they have anything on your assignment.

· You have used quality evidence from a diversity of sources.

· You have sound, believable arguments.

· You have answers to all of the key arguments. ALL OF THEM.

· Your briefs have been approved.

2. PUT BRIEFS THAT DON’T BELONG INTO A SEPARATE DOCUMENT OR GIVE TO ANOTHER DEBATER ON OUR TEAM.

3. MOVE THE BRIEFS INTO THE ORDER YOU WANT

4. DOUBLE CLICK THE HEADER (where the page number is). REPLACE “FILE TITLE” WITH THE NAME OF THE FILE ON EACH PAGE SUCH AS “CUBA SANCTIONS GOOD.”

5. CREATE A TABLE OF CONTENTS AT THE BEGINNING OF YOUR DOCUMENT
Put your cursor at the beginning of the document and Click the “Table of Contents”

6. TAKE THE EVIDENCE TO TO YOUR COACH FOR REVIEW
They will review your work, suggest changes, you will revise it.

8. PRINT FILES AND DISTRIBUTE TO TEAM MEMBERS

Copy or move the completed file to the Printed Assignments Folder. INCLUDE YOUR INITIALS IN THE FILE NAME PLEASE. Print enough copies of your assignment for each team and distribute them to other team members.

Note: Read, highlight, and file the briefs you get from other students.