Finding and Cutting Cards
From search query to tournament-ready card: sources, citations, taglines, and quotes that hold up in the evidence exchange.
Evidence is how PF debaters prove claims, and a card is more than a link to an article. It has three parts: the citation, a tagline in your own words, and the underlined quoted text. Cutting cards that hold up under scrutiny is what separates a varsity debater from someone who reads headlines.
Where to search
Tier 1: government and intergovernmental sources (CBO, GAO, EPA, DOE, UN agencies). Tier 2: established think tanks (Brookings, CFR, Pew, RAND). Tier 3: major news outlets with named reporters. Avoid anonymous blogs, outdated statistics, and any source you couldn’t verify if it were called for in the exchange.
Cutting the card
Citation first: author, qualifications, publication, date, URL. Tagline second: one sentence in your own words saying what the card proves, and it has to match the quote. Quote third: the minimum verbatim text that proves the tagline, underlined. If you use ellipses, check what you removed, because your opponents will.
The student loan example
CBO’s September 2022 letter estimates that cancellation adds roughly $400 billion in present value. It does not say "$1 trillion bankrupting the budget." An accurate tagline earns you credibility, and an inflated one loses the round once your opponents read the source in the exchange. Here is that card, cut properly:
A cut card, part by part
CBO puts the cost of the announced student loan cancellation at roughly $400 billion in present value.
Phillip L. Swagel, Director, Congressional Budget Office. Letter to the Senate Committee on the Budget, 26 September 2022.
In August 2022, the Administration announced a plan to cancel some outstanding student loan debt. CBO estimates that the cost of the announced cancellation will total about $400 billion in present value. That estimate is subject to substantial uncertainty, in part because it depends on how many eligible borrowers apply.
Read the minimized text before you read the card aloud. The last sentence, the one about uncertainty, is what a good opponent will quote back at you in the exchange. If you know it is there, you can answer it instead of being caught off guard. The assignment below has you cut this card yourself.
Resolved: The United States federal government should substantially forgive federal student loan debt.
Read the NPR and ERIC summaries of the CBO cost estimate below. Cut one card for Con (arguing forgiveness is fiscally unsustainable). Turn in a complete citation, a tagline in your own words, and an underlined quote of 1–2 sentences that proves your tagline.
Assignment
Cut a Card: Student Loan Forgiveness
~15 min
Read before you write
- Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan will cost $400 billion, budget office says
NPR · NPR
A readable summary of the CBO estimate. Start here, then check it against ERIC’s copy of the CBO letter.
- ERIC: CBO Costs of Suspending Student Loan Payments and Canceling Debt
Congressional Budget Office · CBO
A second CBO analysis of loan program subsidies, useful for comparison.
Practice what you learned
Evidence Autopsy
Trace one card from a brief back to its source: read the full article, judge what the card left out, and rewrite the tag to match what the evidence actually proves.
30 min, soloAuthor Fight Club
Hold an evidence-comparison duel: each partner defends one card on the same question, arguing recency, qualifications, methodology, and specificity.
25 min, partner