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9.3.1 The Repeating Method
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The Repeating Method is common among newer debaters, but usually is not the most effective method. This method constructs a summary by first identifying those arguments in the debate that best support the Whip speaker’s side (and especially the closing team), and then building a summary around those arguments, trying to explain why they are the most important arguments in the debate. As with all the methods, the Repeating Method can be performed in a better or worse way. The summary will probably begin with an outline of the issues on which the Whip speaker will focus in the summary. Using the Repeating Method, the speaker picks out a few disputed issues from the previous speeches on which the Whip speaker can clearly prevail, and then highlights those in the summary, arguing the best things that his or her side has to say about these. Ideally, debaters using this method will also explain to the judges why these issues are the most important to the debate, but this often does not happen.
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The advantage of this method is that it is fairly easy to use. Debaters can usually identify the arguments on which their side is prevailing, and then, all that they need to do is organize the summary by explaining why each of the issues supports their side and why they are the central, or most important issues, in the debate.
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One problem is that the audience will probably think that they have heard all of this analysis before and the speech will therefore be rather uninteresting. The Whip speaker could make a legitimate contribution by pushing the analysis of these issues even deeper, which would add something new of interest. However, doing so is both difficult at this point in most debates and moves the speech deeper into details at a time when the audience really wants help in getting a better sense of the big picture.
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Being amusing and clever is almost always a good way to improve a speaker’s persuasiveness, and the Repeating Method can be marginally improved by creating an argument for the choice of issues to crystallize, so that the Whip speaker does not appear to be simply choosing the issues that the closing team is winning. The idea is to pick some amusing theme around which to build the summary. For example, a Whip speaker arguing against legalizing recreational drugs might say:
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“I will summarize this debate by focusing on five key issues, represented by the letters D, R, U, G, S. ‘D’ for the danger to individuals. ‘R’ for the rights that people don’t have to do whatever they want. ‘U’ for the underworld of criminals that this will actually promote. ‘G’ for the government bureaucracy that will be created. And, ‘S’ for the social fabric that will be shredded by this disastrous policy.”
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Countless clever ways exist to introduce the issues used to summarize the debate, using common cultural references, jokes, or anything vaguely amusing. Ultimately, these tactics do not make the relatively weak Repeating Method good, but at least, the Whip speaker will seem clever, and that cleverness may help a bit. Overall, if done well, the Repeating Method can be minimally effective and will be much better than a rambling Whip speech with little coherent organization. But, compared to the other methods discussed below, using this method will significantly limit the effectiveness of a Whip speech.
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9.3.2 The Regrouping Method
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The second method of summarizing is the Regrouping Method, sometimes called the disjunctive method of creating a summary. The word “disjunction” is just a fancy way of saying “or,” The most common form of disjunctive summary is usually called a stakeholder analysis, but other approaches are structurally similar. This section will first discuss stakeholder analysis, and then some less common approaches to the Regrouping Method.
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Debaters offering a stakeholder analysis will first clarify that those people affected by the Government Team’s interpretation of the motion are either in group 1, OR group 2, OR group 3, etc. They are all the stakeholders, all the people who are affected, and whose interests need to be considered in the debate. After identifying these groups, the Whip speaker goes on to explain how his or her side of the debate benefits each of these groups more than the opposing side. If everyone benefits more, the audience will clearly conclude that the position maintained by the Whip speaker is better. Once again, consider the example of the drug legalization debate. The stakeholders in this debate could be drug users, families of drug users, and the rest of society. But note that stakeholders always can be divided using a variety of different methods. Another division could be current drug users, those who would start using drugs if they were legal, people who produce and distribute drugs, and law enforcement workers. Different ways of dividing groups of people will make supporting the speaker’s side of the debate easier or harder, so the Whip speaker needs to think carefully about how to classify the groups that will be identified as stakeholders, considering how those groups are made better off by his or her side in the debate. A summary using the Regrouping Method should be based on groups that appear natural, unbiased and significant, rather than contrived to fit a debater’s particular agenda. Also, the groups that are used should not omit any important stakeholders, or the summary will appear very incomplete and unpersuasive.
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The fundamental idea behind the Regrouping Method is to consider the set of important arguments that have been made in the debate and regroup them according to the different perspectives to which they are relevant. In a stakeholder analysis, those perspectives are defined by different groups of people affected by the debate, but perspectives can be divided in other ways, as well. A different approach is to take the perspectives of various academic disciplines, such as economics, politics, ethics, sociology, feminism, religion, etc. A Whip speaker does not need to take all of these perspectives, just the ones that seem most relevant to the discussion at hand.
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Another Regrouping Method can be used when the debate clearly surrounds issues in one particular discipline, such as moral philosophy. Imagine a debate on the motion, “This house believes that grown children have a moral obligation to care for their aging parents.” In this case, a Whip speaker might start her summary by saying,
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“Three primary types of moral theories have been debated for centuries and although we are certainly not going to decide which is correct today, I will demonstrate that all three of these theoretical perspectives support my side’s position concerning a moral obligation to care for one’s parents. Since all these perspectives agree that my side is correct, the right answer in this debate is obvious.”
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A similar approach can be taken using competing theories in politics, economics, etc.
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As stated earlier, the goal of the summary is not to add new arguments, but to re-examine the arguments that have already been made in a way that highlights what is best for the Whip speaker’s side and team. By regrouping the various arguments that have been made using the lenses of a new set of perspectives, the Whip speaker is adding something important to the debate without making any new arguments. The Regrouping Method is not difficult to do well, and it can be done quite effectively, helping the Whip speech make a major contribution to the debate.
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9.3.3 Reframing Method
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The third method of summarizing is the Reframing Method. This method is generally considered to be the most powerful and effective method of summarizing a debate. The debater using this method reframes the issues in the debate by asking and then answering certain questions that are fundamental to the original motion being debated. The goal is to present the audience with a set of questions that are obviously central to settling the debate, and to then show how the arguments that have already been made actually provide answers to those questions that support the Whip speaker’s side of the debate. Learning to identify the best fundamental questions around which to build a summary is not simple, but when it is done well, it provides the audience with both a sense of closure on the debate and an impression that the side represented by the Whip speaker has obviously prevailed.
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Even though it is the best method, the Reframing Method is not the only one being taught, because it is the most difficult to learn to do well. No simple formula exists to identify and construct the most appropriate fundamental questions for a given debate. At the same time, the ability to do that is important far beyond constructing good summaries in Whip speeches. Being able to see the fundamental questions behind an issue is important for every person in a debate and is important to becoming a good critical thinker for life outside of competitive debates. So, what follows includes some examples and some hints about how to construct fundamental questions, but much of it will require genuine insight and practice over time.
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So, what are fundamental questions? As stated above, they are the most basic questions that need to be answered in order to come to a rational conclusion about the motion being debated. Imagine that the motion being debated is, “This house believes that the U.S. should provide airstrikes in support of the Syrian rebels.” In that case, the fundamental questions might be:
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1) Does the US have the right to militarily intervene in Syria?
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2) Will US airstrikes in Syria make the situation better?
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Answering both of those questions is clearly important to deciding which side of the debate is best. These two questions could provide a solid framework for a summary, looking at each of the important arguments that had been made in the debate and re-examining them in terms of how they influence the answer to those two questions. But, a good Whip speaker should realize that these are not the only fundamental questions that could be used. Indeed, Whip speakers need to choose a set of fundamental questions that emphasizes the strengths of their arguments(just as when using the Regrouping Method, the debater needs to choose the stakeholder groups carefully), while still ensuring that the questions appear to be fundamental, neutral, and fair. Indeed, the fundamental questions given in the example above are so neutral and fair that they may not be perfect for either side of the debate to use.
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The most effective Whip speakers will ask a set of fundamental questions that seem entirely neutral and that maximize the likelihood that the audience will be persuaded that the speaker’s side of the debate is right. So, using this same example about Syria, the Opposition Whip might build a summary around these fundamental questions:
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1) Will the world be better off if the rebels succeed in overthrowing the current government?
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