Olivia Sundberg

ca@scottisheudc2018.com

A checklist for winning: 7

argumentation mistakes to avoid
This guide (which makes the most sense when paired with our YouTube video) should help you
develop your arguments without drastically changing your methods. Especially when preparing for a
large international, you will want to spot the reasons you have been taking those unjustifiable 4 ths, so
going through this list might help. Two pieces of advice:

● This is a non-exhaustive list of some of the most common mistakes I have seen at all levels.
Sit with your partner, try to think of examples where you have made these mistakes, and then
avoid making them and call out teams when they do.

● To identify your key weaknesses: think back over the last two or three tournaments you
attended round by round and write down the motions and the results you took . Try to
remember when you realised you were winning or losing. Was it a surprise when the call
came in? Was it when your case was being rebutted? Was it during your speech when you
realised you were running out of time? Was it before going up to speak when you realized
you’d missed the key clash? Was it at the end of prep time when you knew you had a bad
case? Was it the moment you saw the motion? This will tell you the key area to focus on.

1. Describing where an argument exists, without making it

What:
● Starting an argument, but stopping before you explain it fully. In particular, stopping
when you think you have reached a self-evident conclusion which really isn’t one.
● Stopping at value-neutral outcomes. Need to explain why it is good or bad.
● Labelling an important question, but you’re letting it do the work for you and requiring
judges (or closing half) to fill in the gaps.
● “You didn’t spend long enough on an argument, or you didn’t have enough analysis”. This
means you were missing a micro-argument inside this argument, a justification for the
premise.
● People often call this impacting. It is in fact the step before impacting - having an outcome. ‘x
will happen. x is bad. the fact x is bad is relevant for the motion.’

Examples:
● Narratives: “We should not have unlimited immigration, because it will lead to a backlash and
more people will become racist” – what harm does this lead to?
● Narratives: “This policy will send a message that Putin’s actions are illegitimate” – what is this
message and what action does it lead to?
● Narratives: “This policy will give a platform to the LGBT movement” – what does this achieve?
● Principles: “We should allow unlimited immigration, because borders are arbitrary” – why is
arbitrariness bad?
● Principles: “This policy is unacceptable, because it will lead to the same crime receiving
different treatment and punishment” – EUDC Semi Final; why is this harmful?
● Value neutral outcome: “This policy will allow more small businesses to develop and compete
with large multinational corporations in the developing world” – why are small businesses
better?
● Generic outcome: “This policy will help improve the economy”
● Generic outcome: “We should make voting compulsory because it will increase democratic
participation” – why is democratic participation good or important?
 Olivia Sundberg
ca@scottisheudc2018.com

How to avoid it:

● Narratives: Always explain why an argument will lead to a practical change / a shift in
perceptions that leads to practical outcomes / is the only way a marginalised issue or group
can get exposure.
● Principles: Explain why that is a principle we share, something we find morally abhorrent,
why is a principle worth upholding. (Alex’s workshop is great!)
● Value neutral or generic outcomes: Explanatory. Need to explain one step further - why is this
bad.
● All of these require specificity. Give me a concrete individual or clear group of people that
you can describe or I can touch. What about the context makes them vulnerable or
otherwise relevant? How do they benefit or suffer - tell me in a sentence of causation and
then explain it. What is the currency of that harm or benefit? How long or severe is the
impact? Does it lead to further consequences?

2. Showing that something is possible, but not probable

What: Providing structural means for generating answers that benefit your own side / case. Have you
assumed something will lead to something else and not provided any analytical, structural or basic
causation to the argument? You want to find structural reasons for the argument that shows why this
will happen, often enough to have an impact.

Examples:
● “What if the government is corrupt? They can use this policy to their advantage!” – but will
they?
● “Building social housing in high wealth areas will allow rich people to befriend poor people
that otherwise they rarely meet, thus reducing discrimination” – but will they?
● “We should ban gambling because poor people lose a lot of their money and get stuck in
poverty” – but do they?
● “We should censor the media in times of war because the body bag syndrome will make
people pull out of wars they should stay in” - but why will they pull out and why should you
stay more often than leave?
● This is where example tennis happens.

How to avoid:
● Characterisation!
● Find structural explanations. Look at the words in the motion, details about your context.

3. Exaggeration and generalisation

Examples:
● “We should ban religions from influencing politics, because religious people are irrational”,
“We should give welfare as vouchers rather than money, because otherwise poor people will
spend it badly and stay in poverty”, “This policy will help LGBT people/women” – who are
these people, why are they a group?
● “This motion will end poverty / will lead to World War 3 / will end the Israel-Palestine Conflict /
will end sexism” – you sure about that?
● “We should unify the European Union history curriculum. Right now, there is so much tension,
racism and Euroscepticism in Europe, that we need to foster a sense of unity. This can fix it.”
- problem-solution size mismatch
 Olivia Sundberg
ca@scottisheudc2018.com

What: It is tempting to go for the biggest possible impact. Be mindful when choosing your
arguments.

It is also tempting to generalise and claim you help large and easily categorised groups. If you are
talking about a group of people (e.g. prisoners, voters, women, minorities, LGBT, conservatives,
refugees, ISIS fighters, the poor) - you need to explain to me what makes a group a group. They
probably share common interests – what are they? Where are they homogenous and where are they
not? Even conservatives want to conserve different things. Feminists (and other movement-ists) have
very different priorities, experiences, and ideals of equality. Poor people are poor for different reasons
and have different priorities - but they do have financial struggle in common. Identify what makes
them a group and then make your argument; this might limit the group you are talking about to a
smaller subset and this is good.

Choose and justify your characterisation: why do they do things now - what do they want,
what do they need, why do they do things? Why then will they do things differently. The team
that describes groups in the most nuance and specificity wins. Also remember to tell us how big your
group is, how big the harm/benefit to that group is, and how they will act in response, so that judges
know why this group matters and so they can weigh it against others. Equally – don’t go for the
biggest possible impact, but for the more plausible one.

How to avoid:
● Don’t be afraid to sacrifice other groups. Explain why they are helped in other ways or not
affected.
● Pay attention to moving pieces - what other factors influence the problem you outline, and
will remain regardless of the motion? You want to highlight what specifically the motion will
change, and describe your impacts accordingly.
● Be careful about how you differentiate people. Not all groups are the same size or
importance - more than 50% of men find that abortion rights haven’t helped them. Not all
religions have extremists and moderates. Not always do you have “on the fence, extreme
one way, extreme another way”. Again - try to look at the words in the motion. Adding
even one level to differentiate them can be helpful, and creativity is rewarded in debating.
● Also true with principled arguments where you end up taking unnecessary burdens. For
example - Israel and voting rights.

Lastly: don’t just toss in “vulnerable people”. Why are they vulnerable and what does this do
for their situation?

4. Leaving your arguments unprotected

What:
Often arguments rely on a premise that is not justified at all and the entire case relies on.
Be careful about it because you are easy to attack. So search for things that could be
problems and try to pre-empt them.

● You must expect the other side – and start fighting on that clash. Always ask yourself in
prep time – what is the other side going to say, where is the disagreement going to happen?
You can start fighting and minimise it. “Spying. Social housing.” / Sacrificial lamb.
● Pre-empt attacks on your argument, push yourself for more detail and one more why. If
you had to attack your argument – how would you do it? That’s the crucial link to develop. Ask
yourself why things are true, what POI you would ask. How speaker scales work.
● Insulate with “even if” - terrorism harder. / create an illusion of safety or support for
LGBT people. That is assertive, so it has to be very obvious or you need to explain why that
is enough to win the debate.
● Does this argument lead to further benefits or harms? Empower poor people – also helps
the economy. Health, motivation and quality of life – also affects productivity. Harm big banks
– trickles down to people at the bottom. Get more people to be racist – they then vote for
racist politics and change national discourse. A key premise - milk it.
 Olivia Sundberg
ca@scottisheudc2018.com

● Add, rebuild, reconstruct after rebuttal. Teamwork and picking up on it is super important.
This is the purpose of DPM, DLO and Summary speakers. Don’t repeat everything but
develop key parts. For example: building the second part of your ‘even if’ argumentation.

5. Engaging at a shallow level

What:
● Rebuttal can be mitigatory, it can shed doubt, and it can be decisive. Be aware of what
you are doing. Responses that are only mitigatory are logically not enough. It sheds doubt -
‘what aboutery?’ (You are saying it could be mitigated, not mitigating it). Don’t expect rebuttal
to be decisive but aim for it - only works fully if your opponent makes a mistake.
● “We should not increase inheritance tax, because rich people will still make their children rich
while they are alive” – why does inheritance tax make it worse?
● “OG say that social housing will help integration but they never prove why rich people will
ever talk to poor people” – maybe, but why won’t they? Answer, don’t ask.

What you want to do:

● Win within their own terms: Are you engaging in the comparative they are making? Can you
help their people more than they do? Is this substantive? Very often your own material is
responsive.
● Attack where the argument is going, not where it has gone. Take them at their best.
● Engage on several responses: three reasons why something is not true. Even if you don’t
believe this…
● Explain why the argument is not true and is not important compared to yours

6. Argument interactions
Arguments don’t exist in isolation, and something you say as a bonus can harm you. You need
to be aware of the implications of your argument. There are a lot of moving parts, and people
who win debates are the ones with the best understanding of how they interact.

● Internal inconsistencies. “People don’t care; people do care.” Often happen in

characterisations. One argument requires one premise and another requires the opposite. It
can be resolved in even ifs, but you need to be careful. EG: History debate, or female James
Bond. Reduce the same proportions.
● Concessions for the other side - The most powerful arguments use premises the other side
has conceded. Unnecessary burdens can come and bite you - so often more specific cases
can be advantageous.
● Some examples: Strobe street light argument. Documentaries raise awareness and
backlash think pieces, but they also raise more racism. All these arguments are tricky
because they suggest that bad things are good things, in inherently counterintuitive ways.
“They make it a wasteland but they call it peace”. You’re so focused on solving the conflict
that you forget the reason for solving the conflict and the people on the way.
● Another example: “This creates the illusion of solving a problem, without solving it fully, but it
reduces political capital to deal with the problem in full” - These are arguments that are
inherently easier to rebut than to make. Don’t feed the other side things they can use to
laugh at you. You need to be aware of the harm that you are creating and the impact that
you are inflating being bad for your side.
● You will have to compare these with benefits and the trade off to your argument so be careful.
 Olivia Sundberg
ca@scottisheudc2018.com

7. Not thinking like a judge

● Focus on the logic. Before the debate, what sentence, if I convince the judge, means I win
the debate? What is a case, rather than a list of arguments.
● Ask yourself which arguments are strongest. Track the debate: Is your argument such that
it relies disproportionately on one single premise?
● How do the arguments play out? What do you need to do to win? It is a comparison: which
arguments are biggest, are you only mitigating or are you defeating? Strong arguments:
attack them, defeat them. Choose your extension accordingly.
● Judges are subjective humans who are happy to be swayed.
● This means: impacting matters. Tell the judges how to judge. It can also be useful to also
tell judges what they can and cannot credit.
● This means: Clarity matters. Teamwork is important. Having a team line you mention
often is good. In whip, don’t let new material distract the judges, and win with what has
been said so far.

We hope this guide made sense! Please get in touch if you have any questions on
ca@scottisheudc2018.com.

Best,

Olivia Sundberg