“Analysis”

Training Session 6 Feb 2015

Why do I need analysis?

• Most of the things debaters say are true (or at least plausible)• Therefore both sides are saying competing

true things• Quality of analysis is how the judges decide

which true thing they prefer

What does “more analysis” mean?

• Making the judges believe what you say.–They have to believe it is true–They have to believe it is important–They have to understand it will work

Example motion• THW Arm the Police– This will reduce crime (Prop)– This will save lives (Prop)

– This will lead to better armed criminals (Opp)– This will lead to the police being alienated from the

public (Opp)

Add examples• True things– American police are armed and there are far more

shootings than in the UK

• Emotive things– Imagine how you would feel if you were an elderly

lady in a minority community who every day saw police from the majority group patrolling your neighbourhood with guns

Sub-points

• Don’t have one really convincing argument for why something is true?–Use several weaker ones

COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS

ISSUE:• Often people talk around each other so fail to

engage with other side • Or fail to explain why the things they say are more

important than points from their opponents

USING COMPARATIVES:• Why life under your side is better than the

alternative option; • Why the benefits/ harms you give are more

important than those from the other side.

Now Solution Then

• How can you attack this from Opp?• Usual cases feature around:–Solution does not lead to desired "then" –Then is bad.

• Have to say why then is better than now or vice versa.

• Often Opposition teams will just explain problems in Then - without explaining why those make it worse than Now.

• So even if you prove that there desired Then doesn't happen you still have to explain why that Then is worse than Now.

Trade-offs

• Both sides of the debate are proposing benefits that any reasonable person would consider to be good.

• However there is a zero sum game: both of these goods cannot be achieved fully, an increase in one comes at a cost to the other.

• Therefore the debate is about the correct balance of these principles in a moral or ideal situation.

• Have to prove that your stakeholder is more important (tends to mean either your group is larger or is effected to a greater degree in terms of being either harmed or benefited more than other groups are.)

• In analysis directly engage with what your opponents are saying and explain why your stuff is more important.

• This is particularly important when weighing up principles.

• Often you are weighing up some harm versus some concept of freedom.

• Freedom does get taken away in certain circumstances. Why or why not in this case?

Impacting

• A lot of this can be solved by simply impacting harms more.

• As then the other teams can't just shrug it off as not a problem.

• So how do you do that?– Explain why things are harmful (don’t assume your

judge will just believe something is bad)– For example, debaters often just state that this leads

to inequality therefore it is bad. But why is this the case?