Writing Contentions
Contentions are the individual, labeled arguments that carry the weight of your case, each built as a mini-syllogism with its own evidence. You will be able to draft a complete contention with a tag, warrant, and evidence.
The Three Parts of a Contention
A strong contention has a tag (a one-sentence label naming the argument), a warrant (the logical or evidential reasoning that makes the tag true), and impact (why this matters for the resolution). Judges flow contentions by their tags, so a vague or overlong tag will get lost on the flow.
How Many Contentions to Run
Most competitive BQ cases run two to three contentions rather than five or six, because depth beats breadth: a judge can more easily be persuaded by two well-warranted, well-evidenced arguments than by six shallow assertions that never get fully explained. Choose your strongest, most independent arguments — ones that do not both collapse if a single piece of evidence is disproven.
Resolution: 'Resolved: Free will exists.' Building Contention One.
Tag: 'Contention One: Moral responsibility presupposes free will.' Warrant: 'We only praise or blame people for actions they could have done otherwise; if determinism were true, no one could ever have done otherwise, so all moral praise and blame would be incoherent — yet we cannot live consistently as though moral responsibility is an illusion.' Evidence: cites P.F. Strawson's 'Freedom and Resentment' on the inescapability of reactive attitudes. Impact: 'Because we cannot coherently abandon moral responsibility, we should accept that free will exists.'
1. What are the three components of a strong BQ contention?
2. Why do most strong BQ cases run only two to three contentions rather than five or six?
3. True or False?
"It's fine if all of your contentions collapse together when one piece of evidence is disproven, as long as you have several contentions."
Answer all 3 to check.
Build two to three independent, fully-warranted contentions, each with a clear tag, warrant, evidence, and impact.