Creating Evidence Cards
Selecting Useful Material
•While reading source material,
mark the text that you believe will
serve as strong evidence during the
debate.
•Passages may be marked by
highlighting, underlining,
bracketing, or, in the case of an
electronic text, cutting and pasting
into a new document.
Selected Materials Should Be…
 Supportive of a
potential argument
 Concise
 Authoritative
Creating the Cards
Selected text should be transferred to
the index cards or evidence sheets
by:
1. copying the text by hand,
2. cutting and pasting onto a card, or
3. cutting and pasting electronically.
What should I put on the
card?
Each card should include one key piece of
evidence on the subject.
This way the cards may be organized later in
the debate preparation process.
Evidence should be written in passages of
2-4 sentences.
This length ensures credibility and reasoning
but avoids too time-consuming a support.
Citing and Tagging
Each evidence card should include the
source and a content tag.
What does that mean??
Source Citations
Citations should include the author, title of
publication, date of publication, and page
numbers.
A site from the World Wide Web should
also include the URL.
Why do we do this?
By recording the citation on the card, it
lets the you refer to the authoritativeness
of the source during the debate.
Looks like this
(American School Board Journal Aug. 2006, Vol.
193, No. 8, pp. 24-27)
The Tag
The tag, consisting of one to six
words, serves as the title for the
card, making it easier to identify
particular pieces of evidence before
and during the debate.
Looks Like This
School uniforms reduce crime in schools
Organizing Evidence
Evidence should be sorted.
Determine if the evidence is
affirmative, negative, or both. Label
the evidence accordingly.
Sort evidence by topic so that it may
be located quickly to support or
refute an argument.
Sample Evidence Cards
School uniforms reduce crime in schools
(Affirmative)
(American School Board Journal Aug. 2006, Vol. 193, No. 8, pp. 24-27)
In 1995, Long Beach, Calif., became the first large urban school district to
require uniforms for all students in kindergarten through eighth grade. Five
years later, overall crime in the school district had dropped by 91 percent.
Suspensions were down 90 percent, sex offenses had been reduced by 96
percent, and vandalism had gone down 69 percent.
94% of students opposed school uniforms
(Negative)
Source: Survey of 155 students in Mrs. Miller’s Health
classes, November, 2006
A recent survey was given to all students in Mrs. Miller’s health classes, a
representative sampling of sixth, seventh and eighth graders in Howard
Middle School (approx. 30% of the school).
Students were asked to respond to a proposition from the PTSA that all
students in Howard County should wear school uniforms. 94% of students
surveyed were opposed, 4% were in favor, and 2% were undecided.
Debate Online Resources
 SIRS Knowledge Source/SIRS
Researcher’s Pro vs Con Leading
Issues is a good starting point for
developing arguments for both sides
of an issue.
Debate Online Resources
American Bar Association


http://www.abanet.org/publiced/youth/sia/home.html
Student Central page has list of many
contemporary issues with relevant legal and
legislative information, key Supreme Court
decisions and information on Law Day.
Debate Online Resources
American Civil Liberties Union

http://www.aclu.org/
 This site includes fact sheets on recent
and current legislation, Supreme Court
cases and related articles on many
issues.
Debate Online Resources
Debatabase

http://www.idebate.org/debatabase/index.php

Debatabase, a project of IDEA, is the world's
most useful resource for student debaters. Includes
arguments for and against hundreds of debating
topics, written by expert debaters, judges and
coaches. Also included are background
summaries, links to websites of interest and
recommended books, example motions and user
comments. Total number of topics: 430.
Debate Online Resources
Debate Central

http://www.debate-central.org/

This site is an online resource created and maintained
by the National Center for Policy Analysis for high school
students researching the nationwide high school debate
topic. Their primary objective is to provide students from
disadvantaged
and low-income school districts with
cost-free access to the best debate material
available.
Debate Online Resources
Envirolink

http://www.envirolink.org/
 EnviroLink maintains a database of
thousands of environmental resources.
Debate Online Resources
Middle School Public Debate Program
www.middleschooldebate.com/topics/topicres
earch.htm

Archive of past and active debate topics.
Includes links to resources on the World Wide
Web for successful and challenging middle school
debate topics.
Debate Online Resources
National Center for Policy Analysis

http://www.ncpa.org/

The National Center for Policy Analysis
(NCPA) is a nonprofit, nonpartisan public policy
research organization, established in 1983. This
site includes legislation and information on topics
including reforms in health care, taxes, Social
Security, welfare, criminal justice, education and
environmental regulation.
Debate Online Resources
University of Michigan High School Debate
Topics/Resources
http://www.lib.umich.edu/govdocs/hsdebate.html

The site offers links to resources related to
debate topics that include mental health care
policy, weapons of mass destruction, privacy
issues, renewable energy, juvenile crime, and
more.
Debate Online Resources
Howard County Library Debate
Resources
http://www.hclibrary.org/training/eresources.
php
Now You’re Ready!!
Let’s Research!!