Responding to Arguments: A Student Perspective
In debates, mastering the ability to respond to arguments is your golden ticket to success. In World Schools Debate specifically, responding to each and every argument is crucial because it prevents the other team from calling you out and collapsing on an argument that you did not focus on at all.
In my speeches, the majority of my refutation will usually fall under one of two categories: link level and impact level. Link level refers to challenging the premise that the argument is based upon, while impact level challenges the importance of the argument.
Link Level Refutation:
On a purely link level, there are a few ways that you can respond to an argument.
Relevance: Ask yourself if their argument is relevant to the motion. Is it possible that it is a stretch? Are the stakeholders mentioned truly important in that specific debate?
Assumptions: Call out any assumptions that their argument is based upon. That is to say, prove why the assertions they make are false and how that leads to the rest of the argument also falling.
Characterization: Contest their characterization of a certain actor, institution, or group of people. Break down their incentive analysis and structural reasoning and prove why it is false.
Impact Level Refutation:
Impact level refutation goes past their warranting and attacks the impacts they are trying to reach. In my opinion, this is probably the most important form of refutation because I am essentially telling the judge(s) that even if the other team’s links and warranting are correct, their impacts are not. Even further, this type of refutation is also considered weighing, which is comparing different arguments and their impacts.
Probability: State that their impact is unlikely to happen in the real world and explain reasons why that is true. The best way to go about this is to mentally take a step back and just gut-check yourself to see if the argument is likely and true. There are a few specific ways that you could prove a low probability, including but not limited to:
Incentive Analysis: Does the actor they rely on have conflicting incentives? If so, you can prove why their impact is going to be a lower priority.
Structural Reasons: This specifically refers to the capacity to do something. Are there laws, systems, regulations, or rules that would prevent their argument from happening frequently?
Uncommon: If their argument is true, force them to prove why it has not happened yet or why it has not happened at the scale that they want it to.
Severity / Intensity: This refers to how harmful something will be to the stakeholders they mention and aims to point out to the judge that their impacts are blown out of proportion. There are a couple arguments that you could use to minimize the intensity of their impacts, including but not limited to:
Existing Protections: What are some protections that exist in the status quo that can mitigate the harms that they talk about? This takes them at their highest ground and says that even if you bite the bullet and take on the harm, there is a way to overcome them.
Short Term v.s. Long-Term Analysis: This response also takes them at their highest ground. Even if the harms are intense in the short term, you can prove how they eventually decrease and are replaced with benefits in the future.
Scope: This refers to how many people are benefited on their side or negatively impacted on your side. If you can prove that you help a larger group, it gives you a more straightforward path to the ballot. There are many ways you could prove this, including but not limited to:
Structural Discrimination: Prove that a group of people on their side do not gain the benefits because they have been structurally discriminated against.
Uniqueness: Talk about how their good or bad impacts happen on both sides of the house and, therefore, should not be a reason to vote for their side. Essentially, you need to prove that something is not caused by either side; rather, it already exists in the status quo.
Remember, this may seem complicated at first, but you will always get better with practice. Happy Debating!
