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| Goal of Exercise Title |
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Teach students to quickly identify the difference between an offensive and defensive argument.
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| Method of Exercise Title |
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Key Points:
A defensive argument’s goal is to prevent the other side from scoring a point. As such, a defensive argument usually attempts to mitigate an opponent’s impact or punch a whole in an opponent’s logic.
An offensive argument attempts to turn an opponent’s logic against him or her. An offensive argument will usually accept the opponent’s logic but arrive at a different—and more favorable—conclusion. The distinction between offense and defense is crucial for time allocation and issue selection in debate rounds. Advise students to make offensive arguments whenever possible. It’s far better to score yourself than only to stop the other team from scoring.
Answer Key:
A1: Defensive—the response mitigates the claim the economy will be harmed, but it doesn’t establish that the cap and trade proposal will be beneficial in any way.
A2: Offensive—the response says that the cap and trade proposal will actually help to improve the economy. This is an example of a link turn.
A3: Defensive—the response contradicts the claim that electric prices will up, but it doesn’t say that cap and trade will decrease prices or do something else positive.
B1: Offensive—this response says killing some coral reef species is actually a good thing because it will increase biodiversity. This is an example of an impact turn.
B2: Defensive—this response contradicts the claim that the coral reef species will die off, but it doesn’t establish a positive argument in favor of global warming.
B3: Defensive—this response mitigates the impact of coral species dying, but it doesn’t establish a positive argument.
C1: Defensive—this response denies that malaria will spread, but it doesn’t establish a benefit.
C2: Defensive—this response only mitigates the impact of malaria by pointing out that we can cure it. It doesn’t say that malaria is good or that malaria would be decreased.
C3: Offensive—this response establishes a benefit to global warming because it says that global warming will decrease flu cases. It implies that decreasing flu cases is more important than malaria because flu is more common and there is no treatment.
Instructions: Read each argument (in bold), and then read the responses to that argument. For each response, identify whether it is offensive or defensive. Then explain why the response is offensive or defensive.
Example Argument: Cats are excellent pets because they are good at catching mice.
Example Response: Cats are terrible pets because after they catch mice, they leave the bodies on your bed.
Example Answer: Offensive—the answer reverses the original assumption that catching mice is good. It says that catching mice is actually a bad thing.
Argument A: The proposed cap and trade system will hurt the economy because it will force electrical companies to increase their rates.
Response 1: Actually, slightly higher electrical prices won’t hurt the economy because most businesses and consumers can easily reduce their power consumption by remembering to turn off lights, washing dishes by hand, etc…
Response 2: Actually, the proposal will help the economy by creating a profit incentive to reduce energy consumption. That will help a whole new industry of green technology businesses spring up.
Response 3: Actually, electric prices will remain the same under a cap and trade system because most electrically companies won’t be in danger of exceeding their caps.
Argument B: Global warming is hurting the ecosystem because many species of coral can survive only in very specific temperature ranges. As the earth heats up, these species die off.
Response 1: The coral reef species that will die off are harmful to the environment because they produce toxins that kill any other plant species in the area. Warmer temperatures will increase biodiversity in coral reefs.
Response 2: Those species won’t die off. Even if some areas get to warm for them, places that are cold now will warm up just enough. Species won’t go extinct; they’ll just start growing in different places.
Response 3: It doesn’t matter if some species of coral die off because those species aren’t very important to the ecosystem and there will still be lots of other species.
Argument C: Global warming is increasing the spread of diseases like malaria. Warmer temperatures mean more mosquitoes, and mosquitoes spread disease.
Response 1: Warm parts of the United States like Florida and Louisiana have almost no cases of malaria because they have good sanitation systems. Malaria won’t spread even if temperatures go up because we have other ways to stop it.
Response 2: Even if malaria does become more common, it doesn’t matter because it is very treatable. We just have to give people the right medicine and it’s no worse than chicken pox.
Response 3: Malaria is less dangerous than the flu, a more common disease for which we have no treatment. Flu like cold weather, which means that global warming will actually decrease the number of flu cases. |
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