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20 3 Underlying Concepts for Case Building He who knows only his own side of the case, knows little of that. —John Stuart Mill, On Liberty (1859) More than 2,000 years ago, Aristotle identified the debater’s fundamental requirement: “There are only two parts to a speech: You make a statement and you prove it.” In modern debating, the two teams make a statement, in effect, when they agree to uphold either the affirmative or the negative side. The whole debating structure is designed to make sure that each speaker has an equal chance to make a statement and to prove it. Once the debate process itself has been understood, the basic questions to be answered are “What is proof?” and “How is proof used in a debate?” The Problems of Proof Creating Belief It is obvious that merely stating a proposition will not cause listeners to accept it. If you say, “We should spend more money for highway construction,” all you have done is to assert that such a step should be taken. From the audience’s point of view, you have merely raised the question, “Why should we?” No person in that audience has any reason to believe that the proposal is good merely because you have voiced it. If, however, you are able to say, “Because . . .” and then list several reasons why each of your listeners should honestly make the same statement, you are likely to succeed in proving your point. You have succeeded when it is possible for your audience to make the same assertion that you do: when every audience member, if asked, would say, “Yes, we should spend more money for highway construction.” 21 Underlying Concepts for Case Building This apparently simple relationship—that is, the agreement between speaker and audience—is the key to the whole problem of debate. If you can create belief in your statements, you can secure this agreement. Proof, therefore, may be defined as whatever tends to create belief. This proof may encompass anything from the speaker’s appearance, apparent sincerity, and tone of voice to the speech itself. But, since every speaker tries to appear sincere and interested in the subject, the debate situation focuses attention on the speech. For the debate speaker, the term “proof” means every item of evidence and reasoning that tends to make an audience agree with the assertions . Evidence can be defined as matters of fact or opinion that tend to support those assertions. On the other hand, reasoning is the process of inferring relationships between the evidence and the assertions. The mere listing of facts, or the reading of evidence cards or the piling-up of opinions , therefore, is not enough to create belief—the audience must be shown an explicit logical relationship between the evidence and the assertion at hand. The Toulmin Model Stephen Toulmin, a philosopher, rhetorician, and logician, has described the process of proof in terms of three areas that lead an audience through the reasoning process. He calls these areas data, warrant, and claim. Data or grounds are the items of information you gather and process. You can think of these items as “evidence” in a debate. They can be the examples, quotations, statistics, or other materials that you use to support your arguments. On the basis of these data, you ask the audience to accept your claim. Claim is the end of the reasoning process, and it is your conclusion —or in debate, your argument. Several arguments become the support for an issue, and the issues become the reasons to support the proposition. Thus, the debate is structured so that there are interrelated series of claims, each backed up by data. The way we connect these materials together, our linking of ideas, is called the warrant. The warrant is the reasoning process by which we look at one bit of information (data) and decide what it means (claim). Sometimes 22 Underlying Concepts for Case Building logic provides the warrants for our conclusions; sometimes the warrants are elusive, illogical, or even missing altogether. In a debate, the reasoning process is often overlooked when searching for problems with your own case or that of your opponents. It is easier to see data, and thus many debaters simply try to indict the evidence. It is also easy to see the claims, since they are major headings of the case outline. Warrants, or reasons to connect information, are much more difficult to locate, and we shall encourage you to keep...

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