By Jason Luo, Andrew Lee, and Neel Kanamangala
Theory is debate about debate, specifically the rules surrounding how we debate. Theory arguments are typical structured in shell form (a formalized structured theory argument composing of an interpretation, violation, standards, and voters) as they are done in LD and CX, but they can also be made in paragraph form where they’re made like a normal PF argument (just what they’re doing, why that’s bad, and what to do about it). Most judges that are willing to evaluate theory prefer shell form because the structuring makes it far easier to evaluate and interact with the argument.
Theory seems intimidating but it’s actually similar to/easier than debating substance. For one, it’s about debate, and we all know a lot about that. Furthermore, while some people put evidence in their shells, you don’t need evidence to make/respond to theory args, just good warranting. As more PF judges and former debaters become receptive to these arguments and more PFers are making them, it’s important to have at least a basic understanding of how they work in order to be prepared for these debates.
As a note, theory has many paradigm issues or issues pertaining to how theory is adjudicated in the round. These issues can change how the debate is evaluated, as well as what is to be done about theory. Clarifications will be made later in the article but just know for now that these issues affect how theory is evaluated and are typically argued about by both sides.
There are five parts of a standard theory shell.
Theory seems intimidating but it’s actually similar to/easier than debating substance. For one, it’s about debate, and we all know a lot about that. Furthermore, while some people put evidence in their shells, you don’t need evidence to make/respond to theory args, just good warranting. As more PF judges and former debaters become receptive to these arguments and more PFers are making them, it’s important to have at least a basic understanding of how they work in order to be prepared for these debates.
As a note, theory has many paradigm issues or issues pertaining to how theory is adjudicated in the round. These issues can change how the debate is evaluated, as well as what is to be done about theory. Clarifications will be made later in the article but just know for now that these issues affect how theory is evaluated and are typically argued about by both sides.
There are five parts of a standard theory shell.
Interpretation
The interpretation is the rule you are proposing by reading your shell. For example, if someone paraphrases evidence instead of reading direct quotes, the interpretation could be “Debaters may only read evidence that is directly quoted” or “Debaters may not read evidence that is not directly quoted.” Both accomplish the same thing.
When writing interpretations, you want to be specific. For example, the interpretation “Debaters must disclose” is very vague. Where do debaters disclose? How do debaters disclose? What do debaters disclose? Interpretations set up the rest of the theory debate so having a specific one is very important. A better interpretation would be “Debaters must, on a page on the PF NDCA 2019-2020 wiki with their name and the school they attend, disclose the taglines, full citations, and the full text of the card of any pieces of evidence which they have read in their case in a previous round before the coinflip.” This interpretation leaves almost nothing ambiguous, which is important especially when discussing the violation of the interpretation.
Paradigm Issue: Spirit/Text of the shell
This paradigm issue argues about how the interpretation should be evaluated. It’s very rare to see PF teams argue about this and most judges and teams default to text.
Spirit of the shell: This is the idea that debaters should not be held to the text of the interpretation, but rather the idea behind the interpretation. Some debaters choose to add a statement at the end of the interpretation that essentially boils down the interp. For example, “Debaters may only read evidence that is directly quoted. To clarify, don’t paraphrase”. This to clarify statement is the “spirit” of the shell or the summary of the shell which is paraphrasing bad.
Common warrants to prefer the spirit of the shell:
Text (AKA semantics) of the shell: This is the idea that interps should be treated at face value. For example, if an interp was “debaters must disclose their previously read cases on the NDCA wiki”, a literal interpretation of the interpretation would allow disclosing on the PF, LD, or CX wiki since they all fall under a wiki run by the NDCA.
Common warrants to prefer the text of the shell:
Text versus spirit comes into play only when a debater violates one but not the other. For example, let’s say that the interpretation “Debaters should read carded evidence” is read. Then, in response, the other team pulls out notecards with their paraphrased evidence as a reason they meet the interpretation, since their evidence is pasted on notecards - it is “carded.” In this instance, the team might meet the text of the interpretation, but they clearly violate the spirit of the interpretation.
The interpretation is the rule you are proposing by reading your shell. For example, if someone paraphrases evidence instead of reading direct quotes, the interpretation could be “Debaters may only read evidence that is directly quoted” or “Debaters may not read evidence that is not directly quoted.” Both accomplish the same thing.
When writing interpretations, you want to be specific. For example, the interpretation “Debaters must disclose” is very vague. Where do debaters disclose? How do debaters disclose? What do debaters disclose? Interpretations set up the rest of the theory debate so having a specific one is very important. A better interpretation would be “Debaters must, on a page on the PF NDCA 2019-2020 wiki with their name and the school they attend, disclose the taglines, full citations, and the full text of the card of any pieces of evidence which they have read in their case in a previous round before the coinflip.” This interpretation leaves almost nothing ambiguous, which is important especially when discussing the violation of the interpretation.
Paradigm Issue: Spirit/Text of the shell
This paradigm issue argues about how the interpretation should be evaluated. It’s very rare to see PF teams argue about this and most judges and teams default to text.
Spirit of the shell: This is the idea that debaters should not be held to the text of the interpretation, but rather the idea behind the interpretation. Some debaters choose to add a statement at the end of the interpretation that essentially boils down the interp. For example, “Debaters may only read evidence that is directly quoted. To clarify, don’t paraphrase”. This to clarify statement is the “spirit” of the shell or the summary of the shell which is paraphrasing bad.
Common warrants to prefer the spirit of the shell:
- Competing interps is about maximizing fairness and education in the long run through discussion of what happens, but the discussion doesn’t happen when theory goes away because they meet the text of the interp.
- Text of the interp limits the ability of debaters to extemp shells in round, which opens a world of more abuse by limiting ability of debaters to read nuanced abuse stories against specific violations.
Text (AKA semantics) of the shell: This is the idea that interps should be treated at face value. For example, if an interp was “debaters must disclose their previously read cases on the NDCA wiki”, a literal interpretation of the interpretation would allow disclosing on the PF, LD, or CX wiki since they all fall under a wiki run by the NDCA.
Common warrants to prefer the text of the shell:
- Spirit of the interp creates a moving target because they can draw different implications later in the debate by claiming it was the “spirit” of the shell
- The spirit of the shell is ultimately left up to the judge which incentivizes intervention
Text versus spirit comes into play only when a debater violates one but not the other. For example, let’s say that the interpretation “Debaters should read carded evidence” is read. Then, in response, the other team pulls out notecards with their paraphrased evidence as a reason they meet the interpretation, since their evidence is pasted on notecards - it is “carded.” In this instance, the team might meet the text of the interpretation, but they clearly violate the spirit of the interpretation.
Violation
The violation is how your opponent breaks the rule you are proposing in your interpretation. Violations can happen out of round such as disclosure, but the vast majority of violations occur in round. For example, a violation claim would sound like “Violation: They read evidence not directly quoted. Speech docs prove.'' This is probably the simplest part of a theory shell but also possibly the most important.
When proving the violation, you want definitive, recordable proof. It’s not enough to know that your opponent did something. You have to have a way of showing it. For example, when proving the violation of disclosure theory, it’s the norm to take screenshots of the NDCA wiki demonstrating that opponents did not disclose and then state this in round. However, other violations are much simpler. For example, if your opponent reads 4 disadvantages in 1st summary and you respond with the interpretation of “debaters may not read offense independent of opponent offense in summary (so no new contentions)”, simply saying “they did” is enough for most judges.
Though you don’t really “respond” to a violation, a way to counter a violation is by reading a “we meet” argument. For example, if your opponents read disclosure good and you have disclosed, you can read a “we meet argument”, saying that you have disclosed so the shell’s impacts don’t happen in round. This nullifies the shell, and causes the opposing team to waste a lot of time. You can make also make “semantic we-meets,” which are reasons why you meet the text of the interpretation, although you might not meet the spirit of the interpretation. For example, if the interpretation says that debaters may not drink from water bottles, you saying that your bottle contains apple juice and is thus an apple juice bottle is probably a semantic we-meet.
The violation is how your opponent breaks the rule you are proposing in your interpretation. Violations can happen out of round such as disclosure, but the vast majority of violations occur in round. For example, a violation claim would sound like “Violation: They read evidence not directly quoted. Speech docs prove.'' This is probably the simplest part of a theory shell but also possibly the most important.
When proving the violation, you want definitive, recordable proof. It’s not enough to know that your opponent did something. You have to have a way of showing it. For example, when proving the violation of disclosure theory, it’s the norm to take screenshots of the NDCA wiki demonstrating that opponents did not disclose and then state this in round. However, other violations are much simpler. For example, if your opponent reads 4 disadvantages in 1st summary and you respond with the interpretation of “debaters may not read offense independent of opponent offense in summary (so no new contentions)”, simply saying “they did” is enough for most judges.
Though you don’t really “respond” to a violation, a way to counter a violation is by reading a “we meet” argument. For example, if your opponents read disclosure good and you have disclosed, you can read a “we meet argument”, saying that you have disclosed so the shell’s impacts don’t happen in round. This nullifies the shell, and causes the opposing team to waste a lot of time. You can make also make “semantic we-meets,” which are reasons why you meet the text of the interpretation, although you might not meet the spirit of the interpretation. For example, if the interpretation says that debaters may not drink from water bottles, you saying that your bottle contains apple juice and is thus an apple juice bottle is probably a semantic we-meet.
Standards (AKA Net Benefits)
Standards are why your interpretation is good for debate. If the interp and violation are the “resolution” of the theory debate, then standards are the links. Standards vary and many are unique to shells but they are normally structured in the order of tag-warrant-link, although standards with an obvious link to a voter (i.e. strat skew - they made it easier for themselves to win while making it harder for me to win) don’t necessarily require debaters to “spell out” the link to a voter, since they very obviously link to one voter or the other. This is where the majority of theory clash will take place.
Common Standards tags include
Once you have your tag, now you have to warrant out why the interpretation links to the standard. For example, lets say you want to make the argument that disclosure hurts topic education.
First is Topic Education. Disclosure decreases topic education because people can just take cases off of the wiki instead of doing their own research. Topic education is the most important form of education because we only have 1 month to learn about it.
Finally, you link the warrant to the voter. For topic education, its pretty self-explanatory; learning about the topic is educational. However, for other standards, the link may be less clear.
Here’s an example of how a more nuanced clash standard in a disclosure good shell may work.
First is Clash. Disclosure increases clash in two ways:
a) Engagement – disclosure allows substantive engagement through prepping out specific arguments rather than relying on sketchy tricks to avoid the discussion.
b) Specificity – debaters can see specific arguments disclosed instead of trying to respond to nuanced warranting with generic arguments.
Clash is key to fairness because it means arguments are better tested and the best argument wins which is the metric for a good debater and to education because a) it’s the only kind of education unique to debate, without clash, I could just read books.
Responding to standards is much easier than it initially seems. You can simply lay defense on them analytically, while reading your own standards for a counter-interpretation. For example, if someone has read Disclosure Bad with a standard of “Topic Education”, you can respond by saying “Research still goes into creating cases; topic education exists with or without disclosure.”, and reading your own counter-interpretation.
In most cases, it is most strategic to turn standards, since that offers offense for your counter-interpretation. For example, if their interpretation says that debaters should disclose with a standard of “Clash - disclosure creates better clash because both teams are able to prepare arguments beforehand so they have better-quality arguments against each other, creating higher quality clash,” you can say “turn - disclosure decreases quality of clash because both teams are given docs to read off by their coaches, which incentivizes reading arguments off a doc instead of engaging with your opponent’s arguments.” This proves that your counter-interpretation - the “counter-rule” you offer - is better than the original rule proposed.
Honestly, just treat it like substance debate and you should be fine.
Standards are why your interpretation is good for debate. If the interp and violation are the “resolution” of the theory debate, then standards are the links. Standards vary and many are unique to shells but they are normally structured in the order of tag-warrant-link, although standards with an obvious link to a voter (i.e. strat skew - they made it easier for themselves to win while making it harder for me to win) don’t necessarily require debaters to “spell out” the link to a voter, since they very obviously link to one voter or the other. This is where the majority of theory clash will take place.
Common Standards tags include
- Skews (Time skew, Strategy skew): Does your opponent’s practices make strategy for you harder? Does your opponent’s practices force you to spend more speech time responding than they spent making the argument even at the same assumed efficiency?
- Topic Education: Does your model of debate allow for more education about the topic?
- Clash: Does your model of debate foster more clash and interaction between debaters and their positions?
- Ground: What ground do you have to make arguments upon? Does your opponent unfairly limit your ground or gain access to more ground than they should?
- Inclusivity: Is your model of debate more inclusive?
- Predictability: Does your opponent do something unfairly unpredictable?
Once you have your tag, now you have to warrant out why the interpretation links to the standard. For example, lets say you want to make the argument that disclosure hurts topic education.
First is Topic Education. Disclosure decreases topic education because people can just take cases off of the wiki instead of doing their own research. Topic education is the most important form of education because we only have 1 month to learn about it.
Finally, you link the warrant to the voter. For topic education, its pretty self-explanatory; learning about the topic is educational. However, for other standards, the link may be less clear.
Here’s an example of how a more nuanced clash standard in a disclosure good shell may work.
First is Clash. Disclosure increases clash in two ways:
a) Engagement – disclosure allows substantive engagement through prepping out specific arguments rather than relying on sketchy tricks to avoid the discussion.
b) Specificity – debaters can see specific arguments disclosed instead of trying to respond to nuanced warranting with generic arguments.
Clash is key to fairness because it means arguments are better tested and the best argument wins which is the metric for a good debater and to education because a) it’s the only kind of education unique to debate, without clash, I could just read books.
Responding to standards is much easier than it initially seems. You can simply lay defense on them analytically, while reading your own standards for a counter-interpretation. For example, if someone has read Disclosure Bad with a standard of “Topic Education”, you can respond by saying “Research still goes into creating cases; topic education exists with or without disclosure.”, and reading your own counter-interpretation.
In most cases, it is most strategic to turn standards, since that offers offense for your counter-interpretation. For example, if their interpretation says that debaters should disclose with a standard of “Clash - disclosure creates better clash because both teams are able to prepare arguments beforehand so they have better-quality arguments against each other, creating higher quality clash,” you can say “turn - disclosure decreases quality of clash because both teams are given docs to read off by their coaches, which incentivizes reading arguments off a doc instead of engaging with your opponent’s arguments.” This proves that your counter-interpretation - the “counter-rule” you offer - is better than the original rule proposed.
Honestly, just treat it like substance debate and you should be fine.
Voters
Voters are the impacts of your interpretation. They are the terminalized reasons why your interpretation is good for debate, and mainly consist of two voters, education, and fairness.
Education and fairness are pretty self explanatory. If a debater never reads evidence for their claims, it’s probably uneducational. If a debater makes a new response in 2nd final focus, it’s probably unfair. Even if the judges, opponents, and you know why being educational and fair is important, you must still read warrants for it in round.
Common warrants for why education is good:
- It’s the only portable skill we take from debate into real life
- Schools wouldn’t fund debates if it wasn’t educational
- People wouldn’t join debate if it wasn’t educational
Common warrants for why fairness is good:
- All arguments presume fair evaluation by the judge of the arguments.
- Debate is a competitive activity, so fairness is constitutive of it.
- Debaters would quit if they keep unfairly losing.
Common warrants for why fairness outweighs education:
- All the warrants for why education is good must first be adjudicated fairly by the judge
- Unequal education is horrible - one group getting more education than another is the root of power structures that prevent certain students from achieving as much as others
- Probability - it’s 100% certain that voting against the unfair team will be able to resolve their unfairness in round since their unfairness is aimed at achieving the ballot, but it’s not certain that voting against the less educational team will guarantee that we will gain more education in future rounds.
- Education is the only portable skill, we won’t care about how fair this round was years from now
- Debate can never truly be fair, one team will always win the flip, teams have coaching disparities, etc. However, we can uphold education.
Other voters exist as well, but these are by far the most common.
Implications (Most paradigm issues are argued here as well)
Implications are what you want your opponents and judge to do with the theory debate. You can pretty much copy the same implications for every shell that you read.
Paradigm Issue: Drop the Debater/Drop the Argument
Essentially, if I win this shell, what should the judge do? Drop the debater means that the opponent should lose, while drop the argument means that the argument(s) that the shell applies to should be disregarded. Obviously, drop the argument doesn’t apply to every shell. For example, if the shell is about wearing shoes being bad, there isn’t an argument to be dropped. If the shell is about paraphrasing, then every paraphrased argument is pretty much every card that your opponent read, which if dropped means they would lose anyways. However, you still have to warrant and extend why your opponents or their arguments should be dropped.
Common warrants for why the judge should DTD
Common warrants for why the judge should DTA
Paradigm Issue: Competing Interpretations/Reasonability
These are two competing philosophies about how theory debates should be handled. Arguments can be made about which one to prefer, and most judges already know the differences between these.
Competing Interpretations is the idea that the way that we best create future norms in debate is by comparing interpretations of rules. This is somewhat similar to viewing substantive debate under a “comparative worlds” lens. Under this model, the team that is responding to theory must read an alternative “counter-interpretation”, read “counter standards” about why their standard is to be preferred, as well as respond to standards/voters/implications given by the theory initiator. For example, if the interpretation is “debaters must read evidence directly quoted”, a possible counter-interpretation would be “debaters may choose to read evidence not directly quoted as long as it is not misconstrued”. Then it becomes an offense-defense debate, similar to what we’re used to. Unlike an interpretation, counter-interpretations don’t need the other team to violate them, but the team reading a counter-interp must meet that counter-interp.
Common warrants for Competing Interpretations
Reasonability is the idea that the best way to resolve theory debates is to let the judge adjudicate whether the violation has substantially affected substance in a way that makes debating it overly difficult. Reasonability is very vague by definition, so debaters usually read a brightline for reasonability. For example,
Common warrants for Reasonability
Paradigm Issue: RVIs (Reverse Voting Issues)
RVIs are the way that teams getting theory read on them can “turn” the entire theory layer for themselves. If the team that did not initiate theory wins a RVI as well as wins the theory shell (either through proving their counter-interpretation is better under competing interpretations or proving that they did not cross the brightline for abuse under reasonability, although whether teams should get an RVI under reasonability is debatable), they win the round instead. Most teams initiating theory will preemptively read “No RVIs” or reasons why the RVI is bad, while teams that respond to theory will read reasons why RVIs are good. To clarify, if you are initiating theory, you should probably read “No RVIs” whereas if someone is reading theory against you and you think that it’s a good time investment, you should read reasons you should get RVIs.
Common warrants for RVIs good
Common warrants for RVIs bad
Implications are what you want your opponents and judge to do with the theory debate. You can pretty much copy the same implications for every shell that you read.
Paradigm Issue: Drop the Debater/Drop the Argument
Essentially, if I win this shell, what should the judge do? Drop the debater means that the opponent should lose, while drop the argument means that the argument(s) that the shell applies to should be disregarded. Obviously, drop the argument doesn’t apply to every shell. For example, if the shell is about wearing shoes being bad, there isn’t an argument to be dropped. If the shell is about paraphrasing, then every paraphrased argument is pretty much every card that your opponent read, which if dropped means they would lose anyways. However, you still have to warrant and extend why your opponents or their arguments should be dropped.
Common warrants for why the judge should DTD
- A loss sets a precedent and deters future abuse for fear of losing
- Reading theory skews substance (topical debate) so we can’t effectively “return” to the substantive debate
- Drop the argument incentivizes debaters to read a quick unfair argument to bait theory then drop that argument to gain a time advantage, since their opponent just wasted a minute reading a theory shell on a ten second argument which ultimately became irrelevant.
Common warrants for why the judge should DTA
- DTD means people can explode one small abuse into a game over issue destroying substantive clash
- There’s no impact to an abusive arg after it gets dropped, DTD is overkill
Paradigm Issue: Competing Interpretations/Reasonability
These are two competing philosophies about how theory debates should be handled. Arguments can be made about which one to prefer, and most judges already know the differences between these.
Competing Interpretations is the idea that the way that we best create future norms in debate is by comparing interpretations of rules. This is somewhat similar to viewing substantive debate under a “comparative worlds” lens. Under this model, the team that is responding to theory must read an alternative “counter-interpretation”, read “counter standards” about why their standard is to be preferred, as well as respond to standards/voters/implications given by the theory initiator. For example, if the interpretation is “debaters must read evidence directly quoted”, a possible counter-interpretation would be “debaters may choose to read evidence not directly quoted as long as it is not misconstrued”. Then it becomes an offense-defense debate, similar to what we’re used to. Unlike an interpretation, counter-interpretations don’t need the other team to violate them, but the team reading a counter-interp must meet that counter-interp.
Common warrants for Competing Interpretations
- Reasonability is arbitrary and invites judge intervention which isn’t fair
- CI creates the best norms in the long run which makes for better debates
Reasonability is the idea that the best way to resolve theory debates is to let the judge adjudicate whether the violation has substantially affected substance in a way that makes debating it overly difficult. Reasonability is very vague by definition, so debaters usually read a brightline for reasonability. For example,
Common warrants for Reasonability
- CI creates a race to the top, anybody could just nitpick one thing since there’s no perfect interp
- Allows judges to gut check frivolous theory which increases topic education
Paradigm Issue: RVIs (Reverse Voting Issues)
RVIs are the way that teams getting theory read on them can “turn” the entire theory layer for themselves. If the team that did not initiate theory wins a RVI as well as wins the theory shell (either through proving their counter-interpretation is better under competing interpretations or proving that they did not cross the brightline for abuse under reasonability, although whether teams should get an RVI under reasonability is debatable), they win the round instead. Most teams initiating theory will preemptively read “No RVIs” or reasons why the RVI is bad, while teams that respond to theory will read reasons why RVIs are good. To clarify, if you are initiating theory, you should probably read “No RVIs” whereas if someone is reading theory against you and you think that it’s a good time investment, you should read reasons you should get RVIs.
Common warrants for RVIs good
- Deters frivolous theory which kill substantive clash, without RVIs, theory is a no risk issue
- Lack of RVIs skews time 2:1 since I need to win both the theory and substance layer while they can win on either one
Common warrants for RVIs bad
- Denies the antecedent, you shouldn’t win for proving you’re fair
- People wouldn’t run theory for fear of the RVI meaning abuse can’t be checked back upon
Sample Theory Shells
Use Verbatim to open these. Also, although these shells are a helpful start, you should optimally write your own shells using these as a guideline.
