How to cut cards
In PF Debates, evidence can play an important role in determining the outcome of the ballot. Thus, Debaters are held to a high standard when it comes to evidence ethics and Debaters should always have evidence which supports their claims - whether that be in any of their speeches or crossfire.
Note: When I refer to a “card” I really mean a piece of evidence
Hence, because evidence is so important within PF Debate, it is important that you know the proper format to “cut” (cite) cards. Here is an example of a well-cut card.
Database Already Massive Justin Rohrlich, 2019, “Homeland Security will soon have biometric data on nearly 260 million people,” Quartz, https://qz.com/1744400/dhs-expected-to-have-biometrics-on-260-million-people-by-2022
The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) expects to have face, fingerprint, and iris scans of at least 259 million people in its biometrics database by 2022, according to a recent presentation from the agency’s Office of Procurement Operations reviewed by Quartz. That’s about 40 million more than the agency’s 2017 projections, which estimated 220 million unique identities by 2022, according to previous figures cited by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), a San Francisco-based privacy rights nonprofit. A slide deck, shared with attendees at an Oct. 30 DHS industry day, includes a breakdown of what its systems currently contain, as well as an estimate of what the next few years will bring. The agency is transitioning from a legacy system called IDENT to a cloud-based system (hosted by Amazon Web Services) known as Homeland Advanced Recognition Technology, or HART. The biometrics collection maintained by DHS is the world’s second-largest, behind only India’s countrywide biometric ID network in size. The traveler data kept by DHS is shared with other US agencies, state and local law enforcement, as well as foreign governments.
At the top of the card is what’s known as its “title.” We title cards so we can find them easily. As you further your debate career, you will have hundreds of cards - so it’s important to find the ones you want.
Below our “title” is the citation. This displays the authors name, year, title and link to the article.
Finally we have the paragraph where our evidence is from. When we cite cards, we usually copy and paste a paragraph. We highlight the area of evidence we directly cite and we can underline any important information which may be useful in understanding context but is not cited or stated in whatever speech the card is from. Of course, we don’t use the entire paragraph, so we minimize the text size of anything which is not used.
This is a lengthy process but fortunately, there are tools to help you cut cards! My personal choice is to use “Debate Template.” This is an extension you can add on Google Docs which makes it much easier to cut and cite cards. To download Debate Template follow this link here.