PF 2009 Part 4

Next up—case writing

Curiously enough, my old rule number one for PF was: Don’t do LD in a PF round. How wrong I was.

This is not to suggest that people actually do LD in their PF rounds. There are no values, there are no criteria, speed is problematic at best, and judges are inevitably new to the activity so you can’t count on any paradigmatic understanding of what you’re doing. But the underlying concept of value and criterion can easily be adapted to case structure in PF, and doing so will make your cases all that much clearer. We'll get to that eventually. Before that, the mechanics.

The first step in writing a case is divvying up the work. There are two people on a PF team, so we need a fifty-fifty approach. But I’m not necessarily sure if something as simple as, you write the con, I’ll write the pro, is a good approach. I’m going to assume that as a general rule your team will have somebody who always does the first speech and someone who always does the second speech. The first speech on either side is a constructive. Simple enough. Your best constructor will go first, your attack dog will go second. There are probably plenty of variations on this theme, but that makes sense as a starting point.

So here’s a problem. Both members of the team write a speech, but only one actually delivers it. Unless the person who is writing but not delivering is a professional speechwriter, it is highly unlikely that that person will be capable of molding his or her phraseology to match the speaker. As a rule, we all write like ourselves. People who read my writing inevitably tell me they can hear my voice in their head when they read it. I write like me, so when I read something I’ve written aloud, I do it pretty well because I know what it’s supposed to mean. This is true of most people, consciously or otherwise. Language has a unique personality aspect for each user, regardless of whether it is written or spoken. My rhythms, my word usages, my syntax. Because of this I’m wary of splitting the writing chores in a simple 50/50. I would suggest the following.

The case-writing process begins when the initial research is completed. The idea that informs an LD case, that there is a central thesis, that you are running X, where X can be relayed in one simple sentence, holds for PF. If you can’t boil it down to one simple declarative sentence—running that Obama’s health care plan will bankrupt the country, let’s say, or that not enacting Obama’s health plan will result in the collapse of the present health care system, whatever—then you’re not there yet. So, the first step between the two partners is a meeting of the minds. Agree, after studying the topic area, what the plan of attack will be. If you don’t agree, you’re going to be in trouble, so make sure you both like it. And then I suggest that the first speaker put together a good solid draft of the case. Write it all out, start to finish. Make it good. Then send it to your partner for a critique. Partner will find things that aren’t clear, that go on too long, that need different evidence, etc., and edit it accordingly. Then back to the speaker/writer, who incorporates the editing. Repeat until everyone is satisfied.

This may make it seem as if the second speaker is getting something of a free ride. Not exactly. Can you say blocks? Rebuttals? While the first speaker is putting together the constructive, the second speaker puts together predictable arguments against the other team. We don’t want anyone to feel left out here. The partner will edit these blocks as this person edited the partner's.

Of course, there is the question of, what if the better writer is the second speaker? Aren’t we missing out on that person’s very useful skill?

Well, yes and no. You just have to work things out. What I'm suggesting here is a starting point for a team, given that the team will have many many months, nay years, to work it out. When all is said and done, one person will be delivering the speech that is written. Every word tripped over, ever phrase misstated, works against the team. But different people are different people. In the best of all posible worlds, a team will over team find the best system that capitalizes on both their best skills.

But no matter who does what, the basics apply of using an LD framework while not using an LD framework, that I mentioned at the start. We’ll get to that next.