Writing a Case, pt 2 of 5, research

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January 16, 2007

Here are some general tips for researching NFA-LD:

Researching is important in any format of debate whether it be policy or parli. It’s just that what you do with the evidence is different. I know that when I was competing in parli keeping up with the news by reading the economist – along with specific case briefs on issues that I thought would come up, was usually sufficient to have a solid knowledge base to compete. However, in NFA-LD you need to actually read the evidence you are finding in the round – that changes things. Now you want to start thinking about word economy and piecing together various different sources in a coherent and persuasive way.

One reason I thought this year’s NFA-LD topic is a great one for beginning students is because the topic has been debating both in college (2004-2005) and in high school (1997-1998) recently. This means that there should be lots of resources available on the internet to use. One resource are case lists that the college CEDA/NDT community has begun to publish from tournaments. For example, planet debate (free membership required to log in) maintains case lists from previous years. Here is a link to the case list for the 2004-2005 college topic. If you open the affirmative file you’ll find a few SPS case outlines that you can use to grab source citations.

Here is the Case Western Aff slightly reformatted with the citations in bold (NOTE: This was intended to be read in CEDA, not NFA-LD, hence you’ll notice the plethora of evidence and citations. I do not recommend trying to read all of these cards in your 1AC in NFA-LD). Here is an Iowa outline that has even more citations (Iowa SPS case). As you can see, there is plenty of information out there to help you get started.

1. The first tip deals with quantity: Another thing that is different from parli is the number of articles you need to research. You’ll want to find about 10-15 core articles that you can use to draw cards from. This should give you sufficient variety of citations to avoid the problem of having only one author which usually sounds odd in the 1AC. Instead, just like in a platform speech, you want to show the judge that you’ve consulted a wide variety of sources and they all are saying the same thing – we need your plan! You may not use all 10-15 articles right away, but after your first tournament when you find what the negative will run against you those extra articles may contain the answers you need without having to do additional research.

2. As I’ve mentioned before, I think wikipedia is a great place to start your research. It will give you an overview of the subject and some hints on what to search for when you start looking in newspaper databases or simply in google. Often times google is not that helpful because it simply returns too many hits. However, as you add key words you will narrow down your search to find articles on your specific topic. For example, typing in “Solar Power Satellite” returns about 50,000 hits on google. However, if you add the keyword “transmission” you cut it almost in half. This way you’ll find more on-point articles. Additionally, you will probably find some key authors that you can use when searching. For example, Wikipedia cites an author (Mankins, John C) which you can type into google to try and find more articles from him or articles that reference him about the same subject.

3. One of the most important steps in researching for debate – regardless of format – is to find articles against your case as well. You never know when the affirmative team will run the same case against you when you are negative! As such, you’ll always want to have, at the end of the case writing process, a 1AC file, an answers-to file, and a Negative file. This way you’re prepared to debate whatever issue you are researching on both sides.
Here are the steps I took to research SPS

  1. I went to wikipedia and found the page on Solar Power Satellites.
  2. I went to all the articles linked from wikipedia’s reference section.
  3. I looked at the case outline referenced above and got their citations/articles when I could find them
  4. I searched in Google for additional articles using specific key words.

Here are all the articles I found that are available free on the internet along with citations to additional articles that you can find in newspaper databases (lexis-nexis academic, proquest, ebsco host, etc). There are certainly more out there, but since I reached 11 I figured I’ve found enough to do at least the first draft of the case. If anyone else has some amazing cites please feel free to post them in the comments section.
Berger, B. (2004, Jan 10). Bush Space Vision needs private and public space sectors to work together, advocates say. Space.com, Accessed 11/22/06 at: http://www.space.com/news/nasa_commercial_040110.html

Britt, R.R. (2002, Oct 31). Space-based power system needed to solve Earths Energy Woes. Space.com, accessed 11/22/06 at: http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/technology/space_power_021031.html

Boswell, D. (2004, Aug 30). Whatever happened to solar power satellites? The Space Review, accessed 11/22/06 at: http://www.thespacereview.com/article/214/1

David, L. (2001, Oct 17). Bright future for solar power satellites. Space.com, accessed 10/22/06 at: http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/technology/solar_power_sats_011017-1.html

Gartner, J. (2004, June 22). NASA Spaces on Energy Solution. Wired News, accessed 11/22/06 at: http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,63913,00.html

Grebb, M. (2005, Oct 20). Space Geeks Seek Wireless Power. Wired News, accessed 11/22/06 at: http://www.wired.com/news/technology/technology/wireless_special/0,69038-0.html

Hoffman, R. N. (2004, September 27). Controlling Hurricanes. Scientific American.

Leahy, B. (2006, May 18). Save our planet: Space Advocates see the bigger picture. Space.com, accessed 11/22/06 at: http://www.space.com/adastra/adastra_save_earth_060518.html

Price, S. (2001, Jan 6). Solar Power from Space. FirstScience.com, Accessed 11/22/06 at: http://www.firstscience.com/site/articles/solar.asp

Smith, A. (2003, Aug 11). The Case for Space Based Solar Power Development. Space Daily, Accessed 10/22/06 at:
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/ssp-03b.html

The Enginner (2005, March 11). Solar Power From Space: Sun Seekers. Accessed 11/22/06 from Lexis-Nexis

Coaching, Competing, Evidence, Instructional

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