How to debate.

[Tempest Storm]

It's not clear to me that anyone who really needs to read some of what I have to say will, but this becoming too large a problem to let slide any longer. We get our fair share of traffic in here, and many of these ppl come from either Asylum or CC. So click here by accident. But most come here out of curiousity. And many have no idea on how to participate in a decent debate. We get a lot of one liners, useless ones. A lot of ppl who don't seem to read Raya's Purposes and Rules topic. Not naming names, but, in the hopes of bringing in new topics and being able to enjoy those topics and the debates they encure as much as possible, I am posting this.

I'm going to lay out a quick definition of an "honest argument." I'm not going to cover the full field of rhetorical and logical errors, but instead will focus on a few particular errors that seem to come up an awful lot. This "honest argument" terminology is a little stange, I admit, but it's the best term I've come up with so far to describe the process I use to judge someone's words when they're disagreeing with me about something.

Just to be clear, I'm using the word argument in the sense of a verbal debate and discussion about some matter. I'm not talking about yelling matches about whose turn it is to do the dishes.

Proper Debating

First, I will address proper debating. When most ppl debate, they debate in hope of converting their opposition to their side. So when debating, there are 3 parts.

1.) Stating your initial opinion/case/feelings/morals/ect....

2.) Presenting evidence or support for your case, whether it be scientific, logical reasoning, or some other form. It's also best to provide internet links to legit, credible sites that contain your evidence or support. This will all but eliminate any chance of your opposition accusing you of posting flase evidence or questioning the credibility of said evidence.

3.) Questioning and debunking (if possible) the arguements and evidence provided by your opposition. In some case this can not be done, mostly whenever religion enters the debate. Religion exists on a plane outside of science, logic and reasoning and common sence. Religion is based solely on faith, and faith (much like stupidity, no offence intended to anyone of any religion) can not be disproved or proven, and all arguements of science, common sence and logic are pretty much void when dealing with religions or any type.

Now, debating, real debating is a time consuming thing. It is something that you have to enjoy in order to do it right, or to even do it at all. It's time consuming in the area tht you have to research, find fact, find evidence, and find evidence that not only furthers your case, but also debunks your opponents case. Time consuming that you much also type up your arguements. Time consuming that you have to do it, again and again, just for one debate.

Grammar

Here at AS, we aren't sticklers on grammar, because most ppl here have decent grammar. But, we do have certain rules concerning grammar. These have never really been announced, but they will be added to the Purposes and Rules topic soon.

Rules are simple.

1.) No L337 (1337, leet, l33t, ect...) speak is allowed, save for certain words, (like r0xx0rs, or suxx0rs). But, entire posts in L337 speak are not allowed.

2.) No 12 year old AOL speak. Also known as Gaheadga talk. If you don't know what that is, then here's a link for ya, http://ssshotaru.homestead.com/files...ranslator.html
Type something in there, maybe copy and past this paragraph in there, hit "Translate". Thats AOL speak.

3.) NoNe Of ThIs KiNdA ****.

4.)Ok is Yoda talk in one or 2 lines, but not for the entire post.

And thats it. Everything else is fine and allowed.

Now this is just the begining. There are many other faux pas out there that ppl stumble onto. If you're interested in debating, and getting good at it, here are a few links for you that contain the do's and don't's of debating and several tactics that your opponents might use against you and how to counter them.

http://www.co-prosperity.org/~annis/arguing.html

http://www.butterfliesandwheels.com/rhetoric.php

http://www.butterfliesandwheels.com/badmoves.php

Thanks to Raya and Amantis for the links.

And in hope of attracting more ppl to this topic, I will leave it stickied and open to reply.

[CelestialBadger]

Tempest mentioned the use of evidence. Sometimes it's also helpful to use quotes in your arguments. In debates a "Quotation Dictionary" can be useful to convince people that your opinions are credible. A good online quotation dictionary can be found here:

http://www.quotationspage.com/

While it's not a great idea to completely base your arguments of quotes, they can sometimes provide useful transitions and help you to develop arguments.

[Iliaran]

Common argumentative fallacies I've seen here at AS:
1) Ad misericordium: Accept my arguments, I spent a lot of time working on them.
2) Ad hominem (literally 'to the man'): What do you know about the truth, you're a liar too. (this is an argument against another person with the intent of making another's argument lose credibility)
3) Hasty Generalizations: This school sucks, all schools must suck
4) Appeal to emotion: Feel sorry for me, I'm poor
5) Appeal to authority: Einstein said so, so it must be right!
6) Appeal to common practice: Everyone does drugs, so its ok
7) Unpalatable consequences: That 'can't' be true, else I'd be no better than a criminal!
8) Post hoc ergo propter hoc (false cause): I broke my leg right after eating chocolate, I'd better give up eating chocolate.
9) Contradiction in terms: Words are meaningless. Writing is a waste of time.
10) Circular arguments:
x: Why do you get the money
y: because I'm the leader
x: why are you the leader
y: because I've got the money
11) Straw man: Why ban smoking? Why would anyone want to promote an economic recession?

If you're interested in other such common fallacies, I suggest taking a course in introductory philisophy.

[MacMan]

A very rough outline of a debate:

A formal aff/neg debate follows a very specific course, which is very difficult to keep in an online debate. However, the guidelines for arguments can still be followed. (I'll be talking about this in the online sense)

The affirmative:
This is the first person to bring up an argument, which is then addressed (in entirety) by the other 'team.' The argument should give substantial evidence to imply that the "status quo" (the way things currently are) is wrong. A very nice argument would also describe why nothing has not already been done about what's wrong, or why what has already been done has been ineffective. The argument is called a plan when a solution is incorporated into it, ie, "This is wrong, this is why it's wrong, this is why it matters, this is what we can do about it."

The negative:
The person who attacks every point brought up in the affirmative argument. It is very bad form to drop and arguments brought up by the aff, because it is then assumed that the neg agrees with the aff on that point. In order for a neg to win a debate, they must give substantial evidence to prove the aff's argument is incorrect/doesn't work. This can be done by only disproving one aff point.

The resolution:
This is almost never present in an internet debate, but it is the goal the aff is working for, usually for the federal government to increase funding for something (relating to the debate topic) significant.

The argument brought up by the aff, and the points argued by the neg, should all fall under five "stock" topics... AKA the ****S.

Significance: Why you should take the aff argument seriously. An argument that can solve for the worldwide destruction of the rainforrests would be more significant than one that can only solve for Tenny Park down the street. The negative would address this by proving that there are more important things to worry about, and the aff plan has no overall benefit.

Harms: What's wrong right now? If the way things are going now continue, what's going to happen? The aff would argue significant (you'll hear this allot) harms are the result of the status quo. The negative would counter this by saying the harms are exaggerated, incorrect, inaccurate, don't apply, or have bad sources.

Inherency: What currently exists that prevents anything from being done about the problem (the inherent barrier). A plan that only says the federal gov't should change all $10 bills to have the face of Peewee Herman on them, and the federal gov't has no objection to this, would have no inherency. The negative would address this by saying there is nothing to debate, so the aff case can be thrown out.

Topicality: Whether or not the aff argument relates to what you are debating. This is argued all the time by negs, by using definitions and interpretations of aff statements to try and prove the aff argument is undebateable. However, a negative who only argues topicality should be called by the aff at the end of the round for not addressing the whole aff plan.

Solvency: What the aff plan does to fix the problem. Topicality is used with this the most, by arguing that the aff plan is not really solving for their own plan.

As mentioned before, if the neg can prove the aff case is weak in any of these five points, they should get the win (by STOCK judging, affs never get low point wins).

Affs would also claim advantages to their plans, and negs would try to counter those with disadvantages, ie, "If this plan is passed, there would be peace on earth," "But if this plan is passed, everyone would lose the use of their left hands and have inbred children."

[CelestialBadger]

Temporarily locked. If you have anything constructive that you'd like to add to help people formulate better arguments feel free to PM either me, Spike, or Jaden.

[Tempest Storm]

This topic has been reopened. Now, this topic is meant to give advice of proper debating strategy. Nothing else. Anything else posted in here will be considered spam. And if you spam in here, regardless of who you are, I will have the admins bar you from AS completely.

Do not post in this topic unless it is about proper debating procedure and strategy, or you will be kicked from AS.

[B~E]

Here my friend Xenoce, in a brave effort to make our discussions more accurate and rigorous, posted a list of scientific terms and definitions that are often misused. I feel this will be a notable supplement to this forum.

Originally Posted by Xenoce

From reading posts within the AS, I've seen a few terms that keep coming up, and are constantly used incorrectly. I myself have been guilty of this. However, in an attempt to ensure clearer communication, I will give a few definitions.

Conjecture: This is the least powerful in the series of scientific classifications. Most refer to this is either "theory" or "hypothesis". Conjecture is an idea that often leads to a hypothesis or hypotheses. Conjecture does not need to be testable. If I were to say something such as, "An interesting theory I've heard is that by traveling faster then the speed of light, you go back in time," the word theory should be replaced with bit of conjecture.

Hypothesis: A hypothesis is a testable question, often phrased in (or can be phrased in) "if... Then..." format. It need not be true or even rational, but this is what it is. A correct usage would be to say, "My hypothesis is that if I masturbate, (then) I will go blind." Obviously this is false, however, it is testable, and that's the important thing for a hypothesis. If any single repeatable event disproves a hypotheses, it is considered false.

Theory: A theory is a hypothesis that has substantial evidence to support it. The evidence need not be experimental, but it often is. If any single repeatable event disproves a theory, it is considered false. Essentially, a theory is a cohesive way of explaining a facet of nature.

Natural Law: Not often misused in here, but still noteworthy. A natural law is a theory that has massive amounts of evidence to support it, and has been tried-and-true throughout the ages, with nothing that could be considered worthy to debunk it. If any single repeatable event disproves a natural law, it is considered false.

(While I know this technically doesn't follow the rules of the AS, I felt it belonged here more then anywhere else, especially since it is directed to the AS more then any other forum on this site.)

[Magikarp]

This is just a quick, but very important, suggestion:

I've noticed that a lot of people, when posting in the AS or not, often cram their paragraphs together, which often intimdates most readers from reading all of what they have to say.

In all forms of writing, from journalism to online debating, it is a very common pratice to make your paragraphs short and put plenty of space between them. This often encourages readers due to the "white space" which makes a individual's post seem more organized and easy to read.

Keep this in mind when you are making long posts.

That is all.. hope it was useful. If I have any more suggestions, I'll be sure to edit this post.