Citing evidence?

I think that this post belongs here, so here it goes. What format do debaters generally use to cite evidence? I have never seen or heard of someone becoming upset over poorly sourced evidence, but could this potentially be a problem? It seems like there is no clear consensus over the issue. Some people include the URL of the website while some don't. Some include the author's qualifications while others don't. Opinions?

Db8rBoi wrote:I think that this post belongs here, so here it goes. What format do debaters generally use to cite evidence? I have never seen or heard of someone becoming upset over poorly sourced evidence, but could this potentially be a problem? It seems like there is no clear consensus over the issue. Some people include the URL of the website while some don't. Some include the author's qualifications while others don't. Opinions?

At a minimum, the debater needs to have enough info (not necessarily read) that their opponent could use it to find the card in question. This would mean the Author, source, article title (if applicable), date and url (if it's not in a database).

Author Quals are prolly a good thing to have, since they can be used to weigh between competing claims (ie if I rant on blogger about why soft power is evil, and my opponent reads a card by nye, the fact that Nye is a professor at harvard's jfk school of govt is a reason to prefer his claims over mine). If it's just a philosopher (ie Rawls, Derrida, Nietzsche, etc) author quals prolly aren't relevant since they aren't making a claim as an expert in a field so much as an academic.

If the claim is either a descriptive claim about the status quo (ie uniqueness), or if the claim is only valid because the author is an expert in the field (ie medical/psychological/studies/surveys) author quals are a MUST since they are, de facto, the "warrant" for your claim (for instance, if I were to say that McDonald's makes your heart stronger would be laughed at since I have A) no medical experience; and B) am straight up wrong). If your claim is a study/survey, you have to have with you information about how the survey/study was performed (this would be methodology, survey size, and how long the data was collected over) for the same reason.


Imo, only the author's last name (and maybe the year, depending on the topic/argument) must be delivered orally.


I think this is pretty much the consensus on the circuit.