Evidence Ethics Theory
- Evidence and Evidence Ethics Because most circuit LD rounds require a lot of evidence, it is important to make sure your evidence is accurate and cited properly. There is generally a norm in the community for what constitutes a piece of evidence that is cited "correctly." When citing evidence, debaters usually have a short summary of the evidence called the "tag" (which they write themselves); the source; and finally the card (which is the name for the body of evidence), which is highlighted and underlined in certain places in order to emphasize its important parts. 1: An example of properly cut and sourced evidence.(/file-evidence-ethics-png) In Figure 1, which is to the right, demonstrates an example of good evidence. The citation contains:
- a tag (the bolded sentences at the top)
- the author ("Stilz")
- the date ("'09")
- the author qualifications ("Anna Stilz is Laurance S. Rockefeller Professor of Politics and the University Center for Human Values at Princeton University. Her research focuses on questions of political membership, authority and political obligation, nationalism and self-determination, rights to land and territory, and collective agency")
- access date ("12-18-2021"), although this is not necessary
- the publisher ("Project MUSE - Liberal Loyalty")
- the website/book name/page number ("https://web.archive.org/web/20220313040014/https://muse.jhu.edu/book/30179")
Sometimes, cards will have initials or a name attached at the end of the citation to show who cut them. There is an unspoken "decorum" when it comes to evidence – when you are using evidence that isn't yours, if the cards has the initials of other people you should leave them on. Similarly, even if you "recut" a piece of evidence (which is to highlight and underline the card by yourself), you should keep the original initials (if applicable) and if you were to add your own, you would note that it was "recut," which is often abbreviated as "rct."
Continuing on to the body of the evidence, it contains:
- highlighting (most people use blue, green, or yellow)
- underlining (some people bold or box their underline)
- small/shrunk text
- the entire paragraph: when citing evidence, even if you are only taking specific sentences, you should include the entire paragraph from which you take your evidence.
2: Miscut Evidence(/file-miscut-evidence-example-png) When people read cards aloud in debates, they read the tag, the author name, and the highlighted parts of the card. Most debaters will use a Microsoft Word extension, Verbatim, to make cutting cards easier because it has built-in macros that will shrink text, highlight evidence, create tags, and other things that are handy for making sure you have properly cut evidence. Recently, there has been the creation of Card Mirror, which operates similarly to Verbatim without relying on Word, which can be useful for debaters without an institutional subscription to Word. There are also various citation creators that automatically create citation blocks for you, like Cite Creator and Cardr. For those that use Google Docs, there is Debate Template, which replicates some of the features found in Verbatim. When evidence lacks a source or is framed in a way to say something it doesn’t, it is called miscut evidence. Figure 2 shows an example of miscut evidence. It contains many problems, but some of the main points are that it:
- does not contain the full author name
- lacks author qualifications
- is not properly highlighted/underlined
Bad evidence can lose rounds. In close debates where the judge must compare evidence, not properly citing your authors can lose you the round. Evidence is also an important part of judge perception.
Evidence Ethics: Stakes vs Theory
When you notice miscut evidence, there are two things you can do: you can stake the round or run theory on them.
A stake (also known as a challenge), in evidence ethics, is when you completely stop the round and ask the judge to evaluate whether the evidence is legitimate or not. If you are correct and prove your opponent’s evidence to be miscut, you win the round and (usually) get 30 speaks, while your opponent loses and (usually) gets 0-20 speaks. However, if you are incorrect and their evidence is properly cut, then you will lose the round and get 0-20 speaks while your opponent will auto-win. Unlike a theory debate where both sides can dispute the validity of a norm, stakes immediately stop the round and end it.
Running theory is the lower-risk version of staking the round. Instead of asking your judge to cease the round and examine the evidence, you run it as a theory shell. If they prove there is no violation or that their violation is not severe enough to be the reason they lose, they win the shell. Unlike a stake, that does not mean that they win the round – it means that the judge evaluates a different layer of the debate. Usually, running theory instead of staking the round is used for a strategic advantage: some "evidence ethics" shells include bracketing, missing a sentence from a paragraph at the beginning/end of it, and missing author qualifications.
For a more in-depth discussion on how to run theory on evidence ethics, see here.
It is important to note that running theory is for less severe violations – if your opponent links to a website that no longer works, used brackets, got the wrong date on their evidence, etc., this could be grounds to run a shell. However, if your opponent is fabricating evidence or paraphrasing in a way that masks the original intent of the author, this should be an evidence ethics challenge,
Before challenging the round or running evidence ethics theory, check your judge’s paradigm. Different judges will have different thresholds for voting on evidence ethics violations: some are completely unwilling to vote on it while others will vote on marginal abuse. There is no point in running a challenge if the judge will not vote on it. If you are unsure of their stance on evidence, ask them!
