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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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2) Are airstrikes the best method to facilitate the overthrow of the current government?
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3) Is the US the right agent to be carrying out these airstrikes?
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They provide three unique opportunities to convince the audience that the opposition is right, any one of which is sufficient to persuade the audience and the adjudicators. First, the world may be worse off if rebels overthrow the government because they may set up a repressive regime or they may not be successful in setting up any stable government at all, in which case, the air strikes will just make things worse. Second, even if a rebel overthrow would make things better, other methods of overthrow might accomplish the same goal more effectively. For example, either a negotiated settlement (which might be thwarted by airstrikes) or a military victory without foreign intervention might be a path superior to rebel overthrow. Third, even if a rebel overthrow would make things better and the best way to achieve that is through air strikes, the US military may not be the right actor to perform those airstrikes, perhaps because US intervention will inflame tensions much more than strikes by NATO or other Middle-Eastern states.
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The strategy in this summary framework is to ask fundamental questions in a way that highlights that, if the Whip speaker’s side is right about any one of the answers to those questions, that side is right about the whole debate. Obviously, this is a more powerful way to structure the fundamental summary questions than to ask a set of questions that require answers to all of them to convince the audience, but that is not always possible. In debates about policy (which are the most common debates), because the Opposition Team just needs to show that the Government’s plan has some major flaw, they will more likely be able to set up a series of questions so that getting the audience to agree about any one of them will persuade them that their side is correct.
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Of course, the Government Whip can devise other ways to construct fundamental questions that are more likely to persuade people to the Government side of the debate. The Government Whip’s summary could be built around these questions:
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(1) What are the goals of US foreign policy in the Middle-East?
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(2) Will the current Syrian government change into a partner for peace without external military intervention?
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