In earlier units, you have learned that in whatever debate format each debater bears all the three burdens: burden of proof, burden of refutation, and burden of rejoinder. This unit will explore the processes of refuting and rebuilding cases. One of the defining characteristics of the debate is clash. Specific disagreement is what judges look for in deciding who did the better job of debating. The center of that clash experience is to analyze and refute your opponent’s argument. Just as the primary task of the Government is to construct a case to support the motion before the house, the primary job of the Opposition is to refute or disprove that case. Refutation of the Government case, construction of an Opposition case,or a combination of the two, are the basic strategies available to the Opposition team.

As a skilled debater, you may adopt the following three steps to make a well-targeted refutation by restating what the last debater said, refuting their claims, grounds, and warrants, and replacing the argument with your own, with sound reasoning and well supported by adequate evidence, to show the impact that your argument has on the debate.

The ultimate objective of debate to seek truth and settle problems requires the debater to launch a well-targeted refutation and attack of the Government case, rather than disagree with every minute detail the government utters. Let us assume that the Opposition intends to challenge all the stock issues in a policy debate. A standard generic opening might be: “As the Leader of the Opposition, I feel highly obliged to argue that the harms cited by the Prime Minister in the opening speech are merely isolated exceptions to the usual smooth functioning of the status quo. Our current policy is flexible enough to correct most problems already. Incontrast, the Government plan will not readily repair these harms, and will cause such disastrous side-effects that rejecting the motion is the only rational choice. ”

Sound organizational habits and principles enhance any debate presentation, but organization is more important for the Opposition when refuting the Government’ s case.The ideal way is to structure your speech for maximum impact following the basic Restate-Refute-Replace step in your refutation.

The ideal way is to structure your speech for maximum impact. You can employ the following techniques to proceed a point-by-point refutation.

1. Restate the argument made by the last speaker. Call the panel of judges ’ and audience’ s attention by labeling the argument provided by the opponent by signposting, like “ let us go to the harm No. 1 of the status quo, identified by the Prime Minister in his first constructive speech. ”

2. Signpost and label your arguments. The first technique, signposting, requires you to tell the judge how many responses you will present.

3. Explain your reasoning.

4. Provide your evidence.

5. Show the impact that your argument has on the debate; tie it to the stock issues.Then proceed with your next argument.

Since the Government must win several issues in order to win the debate, the Opposition is in the position to win if one of the stock issues is devastated. If the Opposition can prove there is no significant need for the Government’s plan, the Govermment’s plan or that the inherency is nonexistent, or harms are exaggerated or may disappear in the future, or the plan cannot solve the problem, or the plan will entail more disadvantages, then the Government’s case will be toppled.

The Government will try and establish specific scenarios, stories, or logical conclusions to reinforce their general claim about the resolution. The Opposition may present counter evidence, and blur the link between the Government’s evidence and its argument , thus to rip apart the Government’s reasoning.

Evidence is explicit information provided by the debater to back up or to justify claims. It is essential for the Opposition team to undermine this evidentiary support by addressing major inadequacies in the Government’s evidence. Here are some simple techniques which should be kept in mind.

● Watch out the Incongruity between Claims and Evidence.

Often the claim which the Government uses the evidence to support is much broader and stronger than the actual wording of the evidence. Opposition debaters should be monitoring the actual words of Government evidence as closely as possible, and then launch challenges against important pieces of evidence which seem particularly vulnerable or important. You may attack the inference linking evidence to claim, or to attack the contextual assumptions that undergird the whole argument.

● Strength of Evidence.

A single and striking case can demonstrate that certain outcomes are possible, but cannot demonstrate that such outcomes are typical or probable. The qualifiers contained within the evidence are essential to analyze and identify. You should watch out hasty generalization all the debate through.

● Recency and Its Relevance.

The latest evidence possible is highly preferred in settling social problems. Lack of recency on the part of Government’s evidence should be pointed out and criticized only if events are likely to have changed since the evidence first appeared. You are expected to attack the recency of your opponents’ and defend yours. No mature and wise debater will be scared in front of piled irrelevant evidence to the point made. You are struggling all the way through debate to rip apart the warrant between the claim and evidence of your opponent’s reasoning and defend yours.

● Source Qualification.

What matters in a well-informed debate is not whether you provide evidence, but where you got it, whether these sources are trustworthy, and whether the source is qualified. You may have a better map about where you need to head for strong evidence and what you should watch out in the debate by reading Checklist for Evaluating Evidence in Unit 12, Research.

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