Article Cutting

Article cutting (often just "cutting cards") is the core research workflow in evidence-based debate formats such as policy debate, Lincoln-Douglas, and public forum in the United States, as well as parliamentary styles that permit prepared materials. A debater takes a published article — typically from a newspaper, academic journal, think-tank report, or government document — and converts it into a card: a discrete evidence unit consisting of a tag (a one-line claim summary), full citation (author, credentials, date, publication, URL or DOI), and the excerpted text itself.

Standard conventions in the U.S. high school and college circuits, as codified by organizations like the National Speech and Debate Association (NSDA) and policed by tournament evidence rules, require that:

• The original article text not be altered, though portions may be omitted via ellipses or de-emphasized formatting.
• Highlighting and underlining indicate which words the debater will actually read aloud; unread portions must remain visible so opponents can verify context.
• Citations must allow the source to be located and checked.

Cards are typically organized into files or backfiles by argument (e.g., an "Aff case," a "Disad," a "Kritik"). Software such as Verbatim, an add-in for Microsoft Word developed within the debate community, automates much of the formatting.

Ethically, cutting is constrained by evidence ethics rules: misrepresenting an author's conclusion, fabricating citations, or "power-tagging" (writing a tag that overstates what the card says) can result in loss of the round or tournament-level sanctions. Several high-profile evidence challenges in college policy debate have turned on whether ellipses removed qualifying language that changed the author's meaning.

For Model UN delegates and IR researchers, the underlying skill — locating authoritative sources, excerpting accurately, and preserving citation integrity — transfers directly to position papers and policy memos, even though MUN itself does not use the card format.