I debated very briefly all the way back in 2004, at my local community college. Like many of the other people debating at the time, I was taught that a rebuttal should be composed primarily of "voters": bullet-point style lists of reasons why my team should win. Apparently this practice is still around, because occasionally when I go to a local tournament I hear teams begin their rebuttals with something like, "My first voter is: we have a plan."
Obviously this is a terrible way to give a rebuttal. But, even you, the advanced debater, are probably not doing that much differently.
A proper rebuttal does not contain a list of voters and nothing else. A proper rebuttal is an attempt to communicate a vision for the debate round. You are trying to paint a picture of what the world would look like after the plan, given the way that arguments have shaken down during the course of the debate round. What would constitute "voters" might well find their way into this type of rebuttal, but instead of being isolated bullet-points, they would be integrated into a cohesive whole, to prove one basic thesis about the round.
Most rebuttals I see do not do this. They are just as line-by-line as the member speeches - people going down the flow, extending every argument they've won, and briefly impacted to the ballot.
Here's my question.
How exactly is this different than listing off twenty voters?
Right, it isn't.
Maybe your rebuttal should communicate a vision. Or maybe you are comfortable doing novice-level rebuttals.
Your choice.
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