How to Write A Case

How to Write a Case?

In a PF debate, a case is mainly a compilation of multiple claims with cited evidence and is almost like an argumentative essay you would write in school, but instead here you have access to the internet and are required to cite sources. 

Key Terms/Definitions 

Contention - Synonym for argument

Card - A cut portion of evidence from an article/paper

Tagline - A 3 - 10 word sentence or phrase that explains where you are at, or what your card/evidence explains

Warrant - Explanation for how your card links to your argument

Status Quo - The current situation of the world right now

Alright, now let's get into the basic structure of a contention or an argument, which you can have multiple of in your case, depending on their lengths. 

Your Argument consists of 4 key things in this order,

1. Uniqueness

2. Claim 

3. Solvency

4. Impact 

Before we begin discussing this, I will guide you through a step-by-step explanation process with examples. For this “How to Write a Case” tutorial, I will use a past PF debate topic. Resolved: The United States Government should substantially reduce its military support of Taiwan.

Before we get started, let's first think of an argument. Let's say I were to run the argument “China will invade Taiwan with or without military support from the United States. And giving military support, during China’s invasion of Taiwan, would worsen the situation even more than it would’ve been”.

Now that I know the argument I am running, I can start writing my case, with the first thing to do would be to open up a blank document and just past the Resolution at the very top of the page with your side, something like this “We affirm the Resolved: The United States Government should substantially reduce its military support of Taiwan.”, this is a phrase that you say at the start of every single debate round to remind the judge the topic that is being debated as well as the side that you are on. Next, you need a 1 or 2 word tag of your claim/argument to be the header of your contention, something that allows you to easily refer back to it. For example, here I would write, “Worsening the Situation”, something short while also being catchy. 

Next, before you start writing and arguing your first contention, you will introduce your first contention with this 1 or 2-word catchphrase, “Contention 1: Worsening the Situation”.

Now onto the meat of the case, your actual claim and argument

You start off with Uniqueness

Uniqueness - Uniqueness is a view of the status quo, in simpler terms, what is the problem that the status quo currently has, which requires you to change. Keep in mind we are writing this case with reference to the affirmation side, where we have agreed to a change or agree to a resolution. 

So in this scenario “Uniqueness” would look something like:

Now lets go over piece by piece what I did here, first of all the bolded text at the very top which says “China has threatened to take over Taiwan under the Status Quo” is my Tagline for this source or fact. It’s just a 3 -10 word explanation of what my evidence says explained in simpler terms. 

Next I wrote ”As Gan ‘24 finds”, this is introducing the evidence, with “Gan” being the authors last name and the “ ‘24 ” being the truncated year that it was published, as in 2024 → ‘24, or 2025 → ‘25. Another key point to mention is that the author's last name is a hyperlink to the actual source from where I got my evidence.

Now onto the actual evidence, the import sections which support my claim in the text are highlighted and underlined in 12 size font, the rest is in 6 size font, just in case someone asks for my evidence in a debate round. Now the text that I have is directly copy and pasted form the source, but you aren’t required to paste the entire text of the source into your case, only the important sections with the paragraph after and before from where you are citing. 

Onto what this section actually does, it helps introduce the problem we have in the current world right this moment, which accounts for ¼ th of my contention, and is really important since this is the problem you are going to solve for. 

Next, you provide your actual claim in the case, which in this scenario I will have to prove that China WILL invade Taiwan, and or why China will invade Taiwan, basically give multiple reasons as to why China is willing to invade Taiwan.

Here is what that will look like: 

Now, onto what this actually means in my argument, all of these claims just prove the reasons that China will invade Taiwan, which is my main claim in this argument. All of these facts and logical claims, building on top of each other, prove that China will invade Taiwan, are called Link Chains. This main claim should be the biggest thing that you should defend in a debate round, and is the biggest point of an opponent's contention that you should attack in PF debate, as it is the most important part of their contention, holding it all together. 

Next is Solvency and Impacts. Solvency is basically proving that once you affirm (in this scenario), you will solve the problem that is happening in the status quo. Then, next are the impacts, which are the impacts that you would save the world from by choosing your resolution. Most of the time, Solvency and Impacts are bundled together in one go as its easier and both of them go hand in hand. 

An example of this would be : 

This shows solvency via logic, it provides evidence that US military presence in Taiwan means US involvement in Taiwan in case of an invasion, which implies that if US military presence in Taiwan were to be significantly reduced, US involvement would not occur, proving solvency and how the Affirmative will stop US involvement in a US-China War. 

Now onto impacts, these can be hard to find and can sometimes be on the broader scale, however the best type of impacts are ones that include numbers, however sometimes broder scale impacts work well if no numerical data on the “what if ” side is unavailable, which a lot of the times, it is. 

This shows exactly how US vs China was would result in a nuclear war as an impact, which is the very last part of your contention. The impact here if we don’t affirm is a potential nuclear war, which a decrease in military presence in Taiwan would solve.

This is only one argument/contention out of the many that you will have to write for a case. Just remember the 4 key things that a Contention requires. 

Please keep in mind that I am talking from the reference point of the affirmation side, as it is the example I am using right now; the negation side will just be the exact opposite.