Anticipating Responses While Writing
The best case writers pre-empt the most obvious attacks before the other team even gives their Constructive. You will be able to identify weak points in a draft case and reinforce them in advance.
Stress-Testing Your Own Case
After drafting a contention, debaters should role-play the opposing team: what is the single most obvious attack an opponent would make? If the warrant relies on one study, is there a stronger, more recent, or more directly on-topic source available? Strengthening the weakest link before the round saves scrambling in Rebuttal.
Building In Pre-Empts
A pre-empt is a brief line addressing an anticipated attack before it's even made, such as 'Some argue this causes inflation, but studies of comparable policies show inflationary effects under 0.5%, an amount economists consider negligible.' Pre-empts should be short — a sentence or two — since Constructive time is scarce.
A debater has written a Pro contention claiming a policy has no downside, but recognizes an obvious cost objection.
Draft warrant: 'This program will help millions of families.' After stress-testing: 'Critics will say this is too expensive — but the CBO projects the program pays for itself within six years through reduced emergency healthcare spending, a projection several independent economists have confirmed.' The added line pre-empts the most predictable Con attack.
1. What is a 'pre-empt' in case writing?
2. True or False?
"Pre-empts should typically be long, multi-sentence rebuttals within the Constructive."
Answer all 2 to check.
Stress-test your own case before the round; a short pre-empt now saves scrambling in Rebuttal later.