Surface Transportation Authorization Act of 2009 Case
For next week’s camp at RCC I wanted to put together a quick beginner case to hand out to participants. This way, in case anyone is lost with this topic, you’ll have some evidence. Here it is, on the STA ACT – 1AC – Aug 2009 (here are all the STA ACT – cards 1 – Aug 2009 if you want to make your own case)
Note, that I do not think this is the best case on this year’s topic and probably would not advise anyone to run it beyond the first few tournaments. However, it does seem to fall right down the middle of the topic and thus should avoid many topicality debates.
One of my strongest recommendations for writing any first affirmative case is to GET IT DONE. You can spend hours and hours trying to find the perfect evidence for a particular sub point on your case and at the end of the day, still not have a case done. For the case I posted, I think there are very weak parts of the case that I would hope any negative debater would be able to point out and win.
But the point is, the case is done. It is now MUCH easier to work on making this case stronger now that it is done. The process I follow is that first I start cutting as many cards as I can and save them into the cards file. After that, I create a skeleton case and copy/paste the cards into the new 1AC file. Add an introduction, and you are ready to go.
As Sydne and Michael Miller have noted in the comments on the camp thread, I too think passing this act is one of the most straightforward cases on this year’s topic. It was a bit hard to find too many specifics on the STA Act but I think this is a good starting point considering that the first NFA-LD tournament is not for a few more months!
Here are some resources that can help you get up to speed on this case:
Thoughts on the good, bad, and ugly of this case? One good point – it’s done!
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Comments
This is great! I will have a lot of cards from books and articles. I have some contextual definitions of infrastructure, some items relating zoning and land-use to transportation, intelligent design, general infrastructure good arguments related to the economy, and things of that nature. We can use cards to supplement cases; but mainly they will come in use when you leave the camp and put together your own files.
We should be able to put together a pile of definitions as well, and mass copy for all who attend the camp.
Bring your laptops if you have them, or definitely invest in a flash drive. All of our classrooms are equipped with PCs, and we can easily access the internet, the library databases, and transfer files in the room. There is only one computer per room, but we presently have four rooms reserved (and we can get more if we need to).
is it just me or is there a trend towards cutting out the parts of cards people don’t read…
I have seen it from a lot of ld people and I am not sure whats up with it but it is all bad. I think that it takes away from the event because you only see snips and with creative editing you can really cut cards unfairly. What is the point of cutting cards down like that?
well, is there a specific example in the case that I posted you object to?
I think underlining is good primarily for focus. If there is a paragraph that is good but only 1/2 of it is relevant to your argument I think underlining is helpful to keep the argument focused.
I know last year I heard debaters reading an entire page of evidence where the only section that was relevant was the middle. After hearing the entire page I was usually confused as to why the debater was reading the evidence.
Furthermore, I think underlining encourages debaters to include the entire paragraph/context of the card rather than just taking out the middle few sentences. I’ve always tried to keep paragraphs together so that, even if I do underline, the other debater could read the sentences above and below the section I read to make sure the quotation was in context.
Fundamentally, it comes down to the bigger question – why do we read evidence at all? To provide greater credibility for our arguments. I do not know what is gained by reading irrelevant parts of a paragraph to gain credibility. Instead, focusing the audience’s attention (while still keeping context), tells me the speaker understands the evidence and the role of that evidence in the speech.
Underlining is good. It is what I do. However, not including the unread part to me always makes me wonder what was there that isn’t there now. It is always good to understand the full context of the card. I am not saying that you did this but debaters, especially novice, sometimes change the context of cards on accident. Maybe it is just me but only having the ‘highlighted’ parts of your card when you have your card is just weird. I guess it may just be my policy background. I used to keep copies of the full text of a lot of my cards (when I was in high school I had a discount on ink and a lot of disposable income) in case anyone wanted to see them. I guess I don’t see what a couple of extra lines of text hurts if the card says what it says.
Because we read through material that isn’t necessarily written for debate evidence, and I see that a lot here since so much is written by scientists, urban planners, and civil engineers, it is okay to ellipse evidence (if you do not change the meaning of the content). There are some great writers who write succinctly and cover all the bases we want, but that is rare. People can take a lot of time to get to the point of an issue, even mention background and historical information not pertinent to the debate round. Former debaters who now work in think tanks or write on issues related to foreign/domestic policy obviously write great evidence, but mainly you find verbose documents. So routinely I will see the first two sentences of a paragraph being useful, the middle being interesting but not that useful, and the end being useful. So, yes, it is common, and again, it is okay as long as the act of making an ellipse does not change the meaning of the original piece or alter the author’s intent.
Eurkea! In my Dinosaur-Debate days (and contrary to what I’ve learned – to my amazement – today’s generation of debaters believes we did), “cutting cards” meant just what we’re talking about here: the art of ACCURATELY and ETHICALLY EDITING – from credible “academic” sources – what “evidence” a debater actually reads in a round. Even today, this is precisely what a good writer does when composing a research paper, whether it is a first-grade “book report” or a Ph.D. dissertation. And we used actual index “CARDS” to store our evidence: hence the term.
so, dr. Kasle, you would underline he 1st 2 and last 2 sentences. That is cool. However, would you erase the stuff that is between those two underlined sections? That is where my issue is. That cards are not continued continuously. Even if you do not read it I think it should still be there.
an example from your response, I will use brackets ([[[ ]]])to show what I mean:
[[[Eurkea! In my Dinosaur-Debate days]]] (and contrary to what I’ve learned – to my amazement – today’s generation of debaters believes we did), [[[“cutting cards” meant just what we’re talking about here: the art of ACCURATELY and ETHICALLY EDITING – from credible “academic” sources]]]
I understand cutting out parts that are not as important as others. However, keeping the last few lines of the card that are not there doesn’t hurt anyone. In this case the un-underlined and omitted information could have value in the debate to either side later on.
With regards to ellipses – it’s really a matter of personal preference. I’m not opposed to the practice, but I do think it’s a good idea for the removed text should be available to the opponent in the round, even if it’s just in digital form.
I don’t use ellipses, but where I have large chunks of non-highlighted text I simply make it 8-point font instead of 10 or 12-point so I can fit more on one page.
Now that I’ve read the 1AC I’ll provide some constructive criticism.
The first inherency card lacks suitable warrants. It just makes a claim but the stuff after that only talks about inland America being left behind which is immaterial to the claim.
The second inherency card is rather strange. It talks about exploding budget deficits but then goes on to say that the solution is to incorporate more private-public partnerships at the state and local levels, which isn’t a part of the plan.
The third inherency card is fine.
The first harms card would be a lot stronger if it had warrants to support the claims. I don’t know where those numbers are extrapolated from which makes it much harder to accept on-face that it’s true.
The second harms card focuses on the wrong numbers. The fact that 40,000 people die in transportation accidents every year is an interesting statistic, but it’s completely useless. How many of those 40,000 fatalities can be directly attributed to shoddy transportation infrastructure? Given that the vast majority of accidents are due to human negligence in some shape or form, probably only a small fraction of those deaths can really be solved for. Same idea with the economic impact.
Plan text is fine.
Solvency cards 1-3 are okay, although they could be better with stronger warrants. I would also like to see more of a direct link to the harms – in other words, cards that specifically state that you can solve for your specific harms.
The fourth solvency card’s tag is confusing – key to what? Be more specific. The card is extremely general and lacks warrants.
The fifth solvency card also lacks warrants but is a good “conclusion” to the speech so that can be forgiven.
As a whole, it might be a good aff for a novice to run at their first tournament. But it has far too many holes in it to stand its ground against an experienced opponent. Because the impact scenarios are sketchy at best and lack “oomph” it’ll also be difficult to prove that it outweighs disad impacts such as fiscal discipline.
Great points on the case – those were all holes I saw as well when writing the case. It should also help people to go get some negative generic evidence along the lines of the criticism – ie, fatalities on the road are attributable to distracted driving not infrastructure problems. That would be really good evidence to have this year on most harm scenarios.
I especially think the 40k ppl die thing is a big weakness in the case. Hopefully over the course of the season more specifics will be written about the act so the cards can be made stronger.
I do think the private-public partnerships are a part of STA Act – I think the reforming the DOT card talks about that but I may be wrong.
Thanks for your criticism – hopefully it will help new debaters who are thinking about running this case.
http://www.hntb.com/sites/default/files/issues/07.13.09%20KC%20Star%20Scott%20Smith.pdf – that is the original copy from the Smith card. There are a lot of good points in that card that you can cut out other cards from you 1ac with. It says why that is the way to go and why doing it now is best.
Remember we cannot use short cites in LD, you have to have author’s full name, title of piece, source, and year, we wouldn’t want to break LD rules, now would we?
By using the full card instead of ellipses you have better consistency and you take less time for sources. That one source is used for cards 1 and 3 of Inh, so instead of double citing and reading the 2nd card just read it all the way though for a more consistent story and also improving time allocation. Then you repeat the card in harms 1, why not just have observation 1 – background, put in 2 cards… Smith and the House card then hop to observation 2 – the plan?
The cool thing about LD is that you don’t have to prove inherency in the 1ac, it says that you can provide it later if you are challenged. However, your harms card has inherency built in so having a whole section built around inherency and then a whole section built around harms doesn’t seem to have as much purpose. Really, all DA’s are inherency arguments for the 1ac. You piss off Russia by investing in Cuba.. Hello, instant access to inherency.
I understand that few people share my vision of what debate is but there is no reason why it won’t work well in LD.
NFA issued a special written “clarification” of its evidence citation rules at NFA Nationals in April. I will have copies of that document to pass out on Monday. Simply stated, NFA’s already ambiguous rules were further watered down.
At NFA Nationals, oral citation of evidence such as “Smith in ’08:” was the norm, not (alas) the exception. And nobody looks at evidence unless there is a charge of an ethics violation.
BTW…
RE NFA-LD Rules: I judged NFA-LD extensively last year. I did not vote once on the basis of ANY rules violation (although they were violated in every round I judged), and I don’t have any personal knowledge of any debate that was decided on the basis of a rules violation. Also, please be aware that there is a MAJOR difference in NFA policy between a “rules violation” and an “ethics violation.” More on Monday.
Michael – is that to say that citations such as “Smith 08″ are now considered officially legitimate, so long as the full citation is provided with the card?
Hutt: That’s about it. There is a school of thought that wants NFA-LD to become one-person NDT/CEDA. I’m not enrolled in it.
My prefence would be: “Joe Smith, professor of political science at Dartmouth, in 2008″: or words like it. Rationale: if the judge/audience is not actually going to read the card, they should be presented with sufficient infomation to know what makes a person is “qualified.” The extra 2 seconds in actually speaking this info is, at least IMHO, justified.
Regardless of the school of thought, however, I think most – if not all – judges want enough info actually on the card so that it can be verified if challenged on “ethics” grounds.
Still, 3-5 seconds times however many cards are in the 1AC probably equals one or more additional cards. The fact that the speech times are so damn short makes it necessary, imo, to find ways to “steal” time in any way possible.
If there is a problem with an author’s credentials, the burden should be on the negative to point that out, not for the judge and/or audience to intervene based off of assumptions that may or may not be correct.
to me in a cite like ‘Smith, director of forensics for blah blah blah ’08′ the dof blah blah blah is pen time for the judge to keep up if you are going fast. Outside of that it is irrelevant. Besides, what is wrong with a 1 person ceda event? I am all for it as long as people keep the speed under 300 wpm.
I see LD as a slower CEDA where you cannot run topical CP’s. Where do you think we got all of our theory from? The only thing that should be different is adding in specifics to LD like no backside rebuttals or whatever.
Some of my cites, under old school rules, would take 10 seconds at a ‘normal rate of speed’ to say. So, having the short cite makes me happier. I may go back and add an introduction, lol. The idea of an introduction in LD never dawned on me, but I can see how it may help in a round where I won’t be able to use my parli/ceda judge case format. Thanks for the idea on that one Danny!
Great discussion regarding citations and unique theory for LD. I’ll have more to say on that later but I think the more citation information you give the more credibility your evidence has. “Smith 08″ is simply not as strong as “Prof Smith, a policy analyst in transportation studies at UC Davis” etc.. It is simply giving yourself more credibility – which in NFA-LD should matter.
I like to think of it like a Persuasive round, and I think the best speakers give more context to their citations in those rounds too.
Regarding the introduction – I was taught that it’s a way to preempt topicality. You introduce the subject and try to be the first one out of the gate proving your case is topical. It at least gives you some defense in the 1AR against a topicality position.
Also, as any theory of public address will tell you, an introduction will help the audience (and judge) understand the context of your case/speech. Given that many of the judges throughout the year will not have had a substantial number of rounds judging the event combined with the fact that it would not be very difficult to write a new 1AC for every tournament, an introduction can get everyone up to speed.
It can also serve as a way to introduce some humor in the round when the rest of the case is serious… judges/audiences like humor =)
Well, I suck at humor so I am going to have to have one of the interpers write me an intro, lol. I prefer not to talk about topicality until the 1ar because I was taught that focuses the debate on topicality. If the first thing out of your mouth is, “Hey, I am topical! Look at the intro where I swear I am!” it goes to show that you buy into the idea of having to fit into topicality.
I just don’t wana talk about it at all when I am on the aff. I don’t care if it is the 1ac, 1nc, or 1ar I just don’t wana deal with T on the aff. If I were on the neg I will be sure to have some swag interp where you will never be T. It is just a belief that was ingrained on me by my coach.
I think that by the end of the year I will have a 1AC that will remind you of a ADS. That would make me happy and I would be happy to give it to anyone for PRP. This may take a little collab. but I think we can pull it off. CU-Boulder had the best crazy case last year this year so-cal can have the funniest case.
TA-DA!
We now have TWO model cases for the Clinic: Danny (and Rep. Oberstar) vs. the GOP!
Representative John L. Mica, the ranking Republican on the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, has prepared and posted a de facto Affirmatice case and Plan which he calls “A National Strategic Transportation Plan. (NSTP)” Without necessarily intending to do so, Congressman Mica has “substantially” satisfied all of the traditional debate requirements for preparaing a case and plan this topic. (His press release announcing the NSTP is a de facto 1AC.) Please go to this website and examine it CAREFULLY:
http://republicans.transportation.house.gov/Media/File/111th/NSTP.pdf
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Kudos and much love to Danny for posting this case and supporting evidence.
And even if you are not interested in running this particular case, you can still benefit from Danny’s example by taking just a few minutes to carefully peruse the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee website, because there are other pending proposals about other kinds of reform. For example, almost all of our focus so far has been on surface transportation. As the recent tragedy over the Hudson show remind us, air transportation infrastructure is also an area of concern.
http://transportation.house.gov/