Point Of Information
Wu Yu
What is an argument?
In debating, each argument you offer is a separate line of logic which directly answers the question — why is your side of the motion true? There are very many ways you can choose to answer the question, and this will lead you to all sorts of different kinds of arguments. Each of these arguments is referred to as a substantive, while the collection of all your substantives is called your case. At any level of debating, 2 or 3 well-chosen and well-explained substantives are generally enough to demonstrate the merits of your side.
All good substantives have certain basic characteristics, they:
✓ Directly answer to your side of the motion
✓ Are built on sound logic, rather than just examples, intuition, or rhetoric
✓ Are original arguments brought up by your side, and not responses to your opponent
✓ Are separate arguments that do not depend on other substantives being true
The structure of an argument
There are an infinite number of ways to run an argument, and what kind of structure you use is something that will change and grow as you debate more. However, this episode will provide one basic structure that will help you run any argument effectively.
The PEEI structure describes the 4 elements that should appear in an argument:
Point:
This is a clear and concise statement of what you aim to prove with the substantive — it should describe the end outcome of everything you are about to say.
It also serves as a signpost that you are about to begin a new substantive. Usually, you would start with “this substantive aims to prove that…”, “the thesis of this argument is…”, or something similar.
Elaboration:
The essence of explaining a substantive is to make some observations about the world as it is, and then show how your end outcome naturally and logically follows from this set of observations. It goes:
Premises can take many forms, but they must be intuitive and immediately acceptable to the average listener. Premises can look like:
A principle that is generally agreed upon (e.g. that everybody has a right to life, or that we should pay reparations to someone we have wronged in the past)
A structural reason for why things exist in their current state (e.g. that Singapore has limited land and natural resources, or that the US Congress is disproportionately filled with white politicians)
A scientific fact (e.g. the emission of greenhouse gases causes climate change)
Your task as a debater is to find the most direct and believable chain of cause and effect that leads from your premises to the end outcome. At its core, a chain of logic links is just a series of “if X then Y, if Y then Z” statements.
At every link, ask yourself if what you are saying is necessarily true (that is, does Y necessarily follow from X) — if your answer is yes, great! If your answer is no, find additional reasons why it is more likely than not to be true (more specifically, it has to be more likely than what your opponent is saying).
Evidence:
While the explanation portion is purely logical, your evidence gives the logic real world credibility. Often, there is a variety of evidence to pick from thanks to the internet, but there are certain criteria which make some evidence better and others worse. Evidence should be:
Representative of a general trend (as opposed to cherry-picking)
Widely known
Indisputable, not controversial
In giving evidence, quality matters more than quantity — give one relevant and illustrative example over many brief ones.
Impact:
Impacting your substantive means showing the judge why your argument is significant in the context of the debate, and why it should win you the debate. This can take many forms:
The most basic requirement is to show that the substantive has fulfilled your side’s burden in the debate — link back to the motion and show how you have proven it.
You should also show that your outcome either affects a lot of people, or affects some group of people very heavily.
You can also show the comparative — that is, when you are arguing for X, what would a world without X look like? In what ways would it be worse? What would we be sacrificing? This is the world of your opponent, and you strive to show that the average person would prefer yours’ over theirs’.
You can otherwise do weighing — when you and your opponent have competing outcomes, show that your side’s outcome affects more people, or has longer-lasting effects, or addresses the problem more directly, or explain any other way in which your substantive matters more.
This list is not exhaustive, and impacting often differs from debate to debate. Experience will help you determine what kind of impacting is most effective in any given context.
It should also be noted that impacting does not have to come as a package with the rest of your substantive. While the explanation and evidence often come together, impacting can be done both when the substantive is delivered initially, or later on in 3rds and replies. In fact, a reply speaker’s whole job is to impact what the earlier speakers have already said.
Certainly, this is a lot to cover in the span of a few minutes, and often it is not possible to execute all of the steps perfectly. Prioritisation is hence important — identify which portion of your argument is weaker or which portion is being attacked most by your opponent, and dedicate more time to that.