Organizing your evidence Cutting Cards Organizing your evidence

What is a card? What does it mean to cut cards? This goes all the way back to when policy debate first started: debaters would actually use scissors to cut evidence from magazines and glue the lines they wanted onto note cards. Even though we have laptops and printers and don't have to get quite as arts-and-crafty with developing our evidence, the terminology stuck. The evidence that we read in round is in the form of "cards," and when we're "cutting cards," it means that we're highlighting and underlining what we want to read out loud in round from our evidence.

What does a card look like?

1. Tagline -- This is a summary of what your card says. 2. Source -- This is where the evidence is from. In round, you only have to read the last name of the author/the organization who wrote it and the date it was written. Normally you only say the year or you can just say the month and day if your evidence was written in the current year. (For example, "van der Woodsen 7" would mean it was from 2007, "Waldorf 2/1" would mean it was written the first of February of this year.) Write down the full credentials of your source as well. You usually don't need to read those credentials in your first speech, but you may need to explain why your authors are credible during cross-ex and when you're explaining why your evidence is better than your opponent's in later speeches. 3. Body -- This portion shows the entirety (or a large portion) of the article. The underlined portion is what's important. The highlighted potion is what you read out loud in round.

✪ Tip: Note how there are bullet points directly underneath the tag of this card. These are the warrants of the card, or the big take-aways from the card. This is a really great way to make sure that you understand what your evidence is saying and this helps you refer back to your evidence and answer cross-ex questions specific to a card. It's much easier to read this than to re-read your entire card.

Find evidence to cut.  Copy and paste the section you are cutting from. Try to include the entire article, or if it's a long section of writing, copy and paste the beginning of the paragraph you are cutting from to the end of the last paragraph you are cutting from. If your evidence if referring to a specific example of an instance that requires context, you can include a paragraph or two before what you're cutting, even if you don't actually read it 3. Underline the important bits. These are the parts that help you make your argument. 4. Condense the text. Usually, articles are in a multiple paragraph format. You don't want that. It'll be a lot easier to read if it's all combined, because it saves paper and reduces the amount of times you have to turn a page. So, go against what every one of your English teachers said, and make the article one huge paragraph. 5. Shrink the text that isn't underlined. This will help you focus on just the important stuff. 6. Highlight the most important things that you want to read in your speech. This will also help you save time reading.

Verbatim Verbatim is a program for paperless debating. This program is super helpful when it comes to cutting cards and I strongly urge you to get it. (It's free anyways, and everything is better when you don't have to buy it.) It'll help you format everything and better organize your evidence so you can see what you have and what you need.

What do you want to keep: What do you NOT need to read: 14 pt font, underline, and highlight yellow What do you NOT need to read: 8 pt font