On Theory Internal Links (Bob Overing)
by Bob Overing
Too many times I’ve had to say this to a student doing a theory drill, and I’m tired of it:
I noticed you were stumbling a bit on the internal links from the standard to the voter. Make sure to have the internal links pre-written or memorized. It’s easy to do and will save you some effort in round! I know it seems silly, but some opponent could call you out if you don’t warrant it and some judge might just disregard your theory argument.
I stand by that advice for now, but I’d like to think that we’re evolving as a community and can dispose of some archaic and unnecessary practices. One such practice is the second internal link argument in theory shells. For example, “ground is key to fairness because both sides need arguments to have a fair shot” or “reciprocity is key to fairness because we both need equal access to the ballot.” As you can see, the argument is hardly an argument at all and yet is nearly ubiquitous in LD theory debates.
I advocate that internal links from common theory standards to common theory voters are self-evident and that judges and debaters should treat them as such, requiring no further justification. I wrote this in my paradigm years ago, and more judges should state it explicitly. A big reason the practice of justifying the internal link still exists is because debaters are afraid that if they don’t do it, they might be punished. The calculus is pretty simple: It’s not that hard to do, so I might as well do it and not risk losing my theory argument. But if more judges explicitly adopt my view (which has been very steadily gaining traction), then debaters won’t have this worry.
The major justification is purely practical – there’s no good reason to waste time on a self-evident argument. So many young debaters have trouble with this section of the theory debate because it’s so blatantly obvious that ground matters in terms of fairness that it’s difficult to come up with a quick, concise, and warranted reason why it matters that’s distinct from everything that’s already been said. So let’s cut it out. Make theory more fluid. The best theory debaters are already doing it in front of the best judges because they know it’s a waste of everyone’s time to read every tiny little link.
From a pedagogical standpoint, it may seem like teaching “link the violation to the standard and then the standard to the voter” makes the theory structure clear. I understand that, but we don’t teach our students to go through every step in every link chain elsewhere in the debate. For instance, we don’t expect students to explain why human extinction would be a utilitarian harm – it’s obvious! Teaching the nuts and bolts of theory gets easier if we eliminate this burden because we can move on to more important concepts and skills.
From a tabula rasa judging perspective, you might think that you can’t vote on an argument without an internal link, but in most debates, several internal links are unjustified because of their obviousness. For instance, debaters often neglect to define “ought” or whatever the normative language in the resolution is that gives their framework import. Debaters often skip the value debate altogether. They forget to make an explicit link from the criterion to the value or the case impacts to the criterion. They don’t define terms like “RVI” or “fiat.”
Requiring the debaters to make all these inferences would be profoundly unproductive and likely create a regress problem. At a certain point, arguments in a technical community become enthymematic. We don’t need every step explained to us because we can fill in the missing parts. The internal links in a theory shell shouldn’t need explanation even in front of the most tab judge. To explain why ground is key to fairness is usually just to explain what ground is, and so the only “work” done by the judge is interpretation, something every judge does in every debate.
More and more judges are already adopting this view. I hope it’s part of a larger trend. A year ago, Adam Tomasi pointed out the uselessness of extending every part of a dropped argument. Like extending a dropped aff card by card, reading theory internal links is another archaic form of going through the motions, and we ought to abandon it.
Bob Overing | Director
Bob is a director of Premier, coach for Loyola in Los Angeles, and debater for the USC Trojan Debate Squad. As a senior in high school, he was ranked #1, earned 11 bids and took 2nd at TOC. In college, he cleared at CEDA and qualified to the NDT. His students have earned 60 career bids, reached TOC finals, and won many championships.
10 Comments
I have some clarifying q’s. I have other thoughts but I want 2 make sure I understand you first: Your proposal is don’t read/make internal link arguments between standards and voters?
So that means still make internal link arguments from the violation to the standards args? Is this a blanket statement or just for like common deployments (I feel like there are nuanced but not implausible scenarios where the internal link argument is not going to be obvious and making it has clarity benefits)?
Also what if your nuanced construction of an internal link argument is actually useful and strategic because you can use it to weigh against generic (or I suppose assumed like you suggest) internals that your opponent uses?
Thanks for the reply Rebar. My position is roughly, don’t read ’em and don’t talk about ’em. Ground, predictability, limits, strategy skew, reciprocity and the other ways of saying those things so obviously impact to fairness that there’s no need to state it. The same goes for real world, philosophy education, policy education, and their internal links to education impacts. This applies only to the 2nd internal link in a standard argument from the standard to the voter, not from the violation to the standard.
I specify in the bolded line “common theory standards” and “common theory voters” because the more bizarre or obscure probably do need some clarity. I encourage my students to get creative with their theory arguments, and when there’s a deviation from the norm, it probably needs some explanation.
More nuanced weighing arguments are a good thing. They still have a place in the theory standard, but often, debaters feel the need to make that specific weighing argument and then make a generic internal link to fairness in addition. That’s the part we need to cut out. For instance, if a debater made a topicality claim with a limits standard and then a further argument for why T should be all about limits and not field context or grammar or something like that, they shouldn’t need a further link from limits to fairness. Presumably, they’ve already warranted the link in a much better, deeper way than the trite statement that “limits is key to fairness because it controls what arguments both sides can make…”
Gotcha.
I have mixed feelings. On the one hand I don’t really care that much, and given clarity in argument function/impacting/comparison those kind of technical nits really don’t matter much.
On the other hand I’m always pro eliminating cheap technical wins (like “you’re missing an internal link so you lose theory even though you’re winning all the other line by line arguments and the largest impacts”) and pro setting debaters up to do more comparison and impacting.
On a third hand I feel like the notion that “we all know what fairness is” is A. empirically false and B. closes off some potentially fruitful paths for innovation (although the marginal improvements to conceptions of fairness or education are not all worth defending).
On a fourth hand my caveat to accepting this would be to say that I’d also accept arguments that critique the assumed links and would not be swayed that debaters shouldn’t have to answer those responses.
Finally and perhaps most intriguingly, this seems to destabilize to some extent the notion that debaters should not have to defend against links of omission. What this demonstrates is that omissions are largely conscious decisions (even if they’ve filtered through collective use to the point of being unquestioned assumptions) and are indeed positive positions. Leaving out the internal link story is a choice, just like leaving out the way your argument relates to the inherent anti-blackness of western thought. There are reasons (perhaps poorly chosen ones) for making those decisions even if you as a debater don’t identify them personally.
It seems perfectly fine to omit some things so long as you are prepared to positively defend those omissions (and in my opinion you should have to if questioned).
I’m not sure predictability, strategy skew, and time skew are self-evident links to fairness. Likewise, I don’t think real world education is a self-evident link to education, if, as it seems to be, “real-world” is just some moniker for “let’s play policy-maker!” In your view, would that mean debaters need to justify those links in front of me? (Which seems to imply that I along with every other judge on the circuit should outline the standards we don’t find self-evident?) Or am I supposed to play along with more debate esoterica when evaluating an “argument” with a controversial premise that is completely unjustified – namely, that strategy skew links to fairness?
It’s also a bit odd how we intuit which standards link to both fairness and education absent a debater making those links. Personally, I think it’s self-evident that ground links to both fairness and education, but I doubt debaters would feel in control of the round if I just made those x-aps for them.
Here’s a possible solution that I’m admittedly not tied to. Reciprocity is fairness by definition, so it’s reasonable that an internal link from reciprocity to fairness doesn’t need further justification. If so, then unreciprocal strategy options (time allocations, prep burdens, etc) create unreciprocal, in some perhaps misleading sense of the word for those of us who don’t think predictability or time skew is a standard, debates. The “reciprocity” signposting gets rid of the confusion about which standards link to which voters.
Another benefit is that this fix isn’t as esoteric or improbable to become a norm. The squo explanations for why some rule hurts ground or creates a time skew sometimes explicitly make this very argument, ie. “there’s no ground to turn polls, so it gives you an unfair advantage when my case is turnable”. And this is at least a semblance of a warrant that is about as justified as the status quo internal links for strategy skew etc, so there’s no longer some magical exception that permits theory arguments to omit crucial, controversial internal links. So, to summarize, the solution is just that debaters need to embed this “unreciprocal strategy options create unreciprocal debates” explicitly in their abuse story and then there’s no need to link reciprocity to fairness since the two are synonymous. I think this solves your concerns well enough.
If so many theory standards can be couched in terms of reciprocity, which you agree has a self-evident link to fairness, then why require it at all? If it’s all just framing/the words we choose, what’s the point?
Yes, you are supposed to play along with “debate esoterica” just like you do with every other layer of the flow. If a debater said “RVI” or “value criterion” without explaining what it is, you’d play along because that’s how technical communities like ours work. If it works for you to understand strat skew as an implicit reciprocity argument, then do it. It seems for the better. I like what Rebar had to say about eliminating cheap-shot wins as another advantage to the view.
Maybe some of the standards I listed aren’t “self-evident” depending on your definition of fairness, but they’re so close to being self-evident links and almost universally accepted as such, that we should presume they are until said otherwise. Again, Rebar’s addendum to the theory is spot-on here. If the links are contested, sure, the theory initiator should have to defend them. Otherwise, leave ’em be.
“[C]an be couched” doesnt mean they are couched. My suggestion would ask debaters to go out of their way to embed this sort of “unreciprocal strategy options create unreciprocal debates” premise explicitly into their abuse story. The difference is that this fix is a semblance of a warrant (and seems to be the best that can be done in defense of a standard like predictability) and your suggestion seems fine with precisely zero warrant for a claim that I’ll still have to continue to insist is not self-evident. And sure, there are times when debate esoterica like jargon make rounds better quality, but the point is that we shouldn’t sacrifice pretty basic guidelines like justifying arguments to that end.
If it takes the same six words to say it in every debate and is accepted nearly 100% of the time, then there’s no need for it! My suggestion is not to allow zero warrant arguments; my suggestion is to infer this particular warrant as understood by participants and judges.
You dismiss my examples, but the explanation of jargon is a crucial part in any argument. “Vote on RVI” or “that’s terminal defense” has an implied internal link/function that you accept in many a round without explanation or warrant.
But I don’t think I even have to go there. What about justifications for RVI, drop the argument, presumption, theoretically justified standards, competing interpretations, and the like that all rely on theoretical impacts (generally fairness and education). Most judges are okay with “use competing interpretations because reasonability invites judge intervention.” But on your view, they’d have to say something like, “which is bad because judges should decide the round fairly, and intervention risks favoring one side over the other, precluding an even determination of skill.” Most judges are okay with “presume aff because it’s harder to affirm given the neg time advantage.” But on your view, they’d have to go on and further warrant why time skew is bad… You could bite the bullet here, but I don’t think you want to.
Finally, you’ll accept “unreciprocal strategy options create unreciprocal debates” as warrant, but there’s neither warrant for how A causes B in that sentence nor for why “unreciprocal debates” are unfair. You see what I’m getting at. You have to draw the line somewhere — why can’t we move it my way by just six words?
We don’t even disagree that much, so hear me out my dear friend bobbins.
So undoubtedly a debater won’t be able to justify every premise with further arguments since that’d go on ad infinitum. That’s not the case here; you do need a warrant for independent, stand-alone arguments. In other words, there is a crucial difference between a bad warrant and a non-existent one.
Every standard makes two independent, stand-alone arguments. Keep in mind that there’s a fairness voter, not a time skew voter, so that’s why debaters justify (and have to justify) why 1) their interp solves x standard and 2) why x standard matters for fairness.
Changing gears, the terms “RVI” and “terminal defense” are not themselves premises in an argument, which is what you’re implying the word “predictability” should now entail.
You claim that a lot of blippy arguments are under-justified by my account. Yeah, totally. Their opponent should point that out. You also criticize communal norms, so certainly I can do it too (solves all abuse). It’s a 6 word bullet – I assure you I can chomp straight through it.
Last, extend and x-apply the dropped argument about not knowing which standards link to which voters. Vote on strength of link etc etc
I’ve held this view for a while and had a line in my paradigm to that effect, but I plan to make it more explicit.
To those who think there is enough ambiguity that it is incumbent upon debaters to clarify the internal link, does “time skew is key to fairness because I need time to make arguments” really clarify it in any meaningful way? That’s roughly the level of quality I tend to see.
Yup.
Interested in your thoughts on the most recent piece.