Convention for the Interchangeable Transfer of Evidence

The Convention for the Interchangeable Transfer of Evidence (CITE) is a brief-writing standard which promotes the use of time-saving automation techniques. It was initially developed in the fall of 2012 by Elijah Schow (from Ethos Publications) and Daniel Gaskell (from COG Publishing) and is currently under active development. CITE aims to improve productivity by allowing researchers to focus on writing content instead of messing around with formatting.

Concept
CITE is based on the principle of formatting by structure instead of formatting by appearance. According to Elijah Schow,

Debaters usually format by appearance, which means that they tell the computer how they want their text to look. Formatting by appearance is analogous to scrolling through hundreds of miles of Google maps and plotting out each individual turn manually, instead of just telling Google your destination. CITE, however, will direct you to format by structure. Instead of telling the computer how you want a particular paragraph to look, you will tell the computer what the paragraph is for. The computer will automatically change its appearance. In other words, CITE doesn't tell you how briefs should look. It tells you how briefs should be made. 

Formatting briefs by structure is not only initially faster - because the computer automatically assigns a variety of formatting changes - but also faster in the long term because it allows for rapid revision of a brief's appearance. Furthermore, it can greatly reduce the need for reformatting traded briefs. Because all CITE briefs must use a common set of styles (structure), evidence transferred from one brief to another will automatically assume the appearance of the new brief.

Advantage 1: Easy to Change
CITE reduces time wasted changing the appearance of a brief. For example, if Decratum had been CITE compliant, researchers could have fixed all of its controversial formatting by attaching a new brief template. Doing so would take five clicks, not five hours.

Advantage 2: Easy to Transfer
CITE also reduces time wasted transferring cards from traded briefs into one’s own brief. If both briefs are CITE compliant, the word processor would automatically adjust the appearance of cards when transferred. For example, if one debater likes his evidence in size 13 Cambria font, but another likes his evidence in size 10 Times New Roman font, the word processor would automatically apply the correct font size and type to evidence when it is transferred.

Advantage 3: Easy to Learn
Using CITE may sound complicated until one sees it in action. Written documentation exists in addition to video tutorials, which will be expanded in the near future (see "Video tutorials" and "External Links" below).

Advantage 4: Free Customized Templates
Elijah Schow is offering to create free custom CITE compliant templates that conform to anyone's formatting tastes. Interested parties can e-mail contact[at]elegantevidence[dot]org for more information.

Adoption
Both Ethos and COG plan to make their 2013-2014 sourcebooks CITE-compliant. In addition, Factsmith versions from v1.5 and up are expected to be CITE-compliant.

Video tutorials
CITE plans to release an official set of polished video tutorials. In the meantime, it has released several alpha tutorials as a pilot project.

CITE-compliant templates
Starter Kit (a base template designed to be customized)

Melani