Tagline

A tagline, or "tag", is a summary of an evidence quote. Generally, every card in a brief will have a tagline, so the brief's user can quickly understand the content of each card without reading the entire quote. (See the article on cards for an example of a tagline.)

Brief tags vs. flow tags
Taglines serve two distinct purposes: to accurately describe the content of the evidence; and to give the judge an easy "handle" to write down and remember the evidence by. To clarify the difference between these two purposes, taglines are sometimes divided into "brief tags" and "flow tags":


 * Brief tags should accurately describe the content of the card, so the debater knows what it says. A good brief tag contains sufficient detail to understand the card while being clear and concise enough to understand easily, like "Risk of change makes businesses cautious, hurting economy".


 * Flow tags should describe the argument in a simple way that the judge can write down and remember. A good flow tag is only a few words at most, like "Hurts Economy".

How to best combine brief and flow tags is somewhat controversial. Many debaters neglect the flow tag altogether, and only include the brief tag; some even argue that this is preferable, and that debaters should always construct flow tags on the fly. However, this position is unpopular.

Broadly, there are three ways to write a tagline that includes both a brief tag and a flow tag:


 * 1) Separated, but on the same line : For example, "Hurts Economy: Risk of change makes businesses cautious, hurting economy". The flow tag is before the colon, and the brief tag is after the colon. This method is quite common, and is frequently used in the COG sourcebook, among others.
 * 2) Separated, on separate lines : For example, placing "Hurts Economy" (the flow tag) on one line, and "Risk of change makes businesses cautious, hurting economy" (the brief tag) on another. This method is somewhat rare, but was used by the Ethos sourcebook for the 2012-2013 season.
 * 3) Merged into a single sentence : This method involves writing the tagline around the brief tag, but in such a manner that the flow tag is obvious. For example, "Hurts economy because risk of change makes businesses cautious". The debater might then emphasize the words "hurts economy" to make it clear that this is the core idea of the argument.

Common tagging errors
Powertagging refers to taglines that misrepresent the actual content of the card, to make an argument that isn't actually there. For example, if the card reads "India has a lot of ships", tagging it "India doesn't need any more ships" would be considered a powertag. More subtle examples exist: for example, if a card says "It may be possible to argue that India doesn't need any more ships", tagging it "India doesn't need any more ships" would be powertagging (because it ignores the key qualifier "It may be possible to argue...", thus misrepresenting the card's actual meaning.)

Direct-quote tagging
Direct-quote tagging refers to the practice of taking sentences directly from the evidence, verbatim, and using them as the tagline. While rare, this style of tagging has seen sporadic bursts of popularity, and a number of high-profile researchers have used it. Many debaters are vehemently opposed to it, however, even going so far as to call it "the Manifestation of Pure Evil."

Arguments for direct-quote tagging
Some proponents prefer direct-quote tags because they are faster to produce than a customized tag. Opponents argue that any time savings are far outweighed by time lost trying to use the tagline, and the other perceived disadvantages of direct-quote tags.

Many proponents argue that direct-quote tagging reduces powertagging by forcing the debater to stick to what the actual quote says. Opponents argue that direct-quote tags can actually increase the risk of powertagging; quotes rarely include a single sentence that encompasses their full meaning, so the risk of misrepresenting a card is higher. Second, they argue that the solution to powertagging is simply to not write powertags, rather than adopt an arbitrary tagging policy.

Arguments against direct-quote tagging
Opponents argue that direct-quote tags consistently violate all the core principles of tagging, and are frequently wordy, obtuse, and unflowable. In almost all cases, they argue, a customized tagline better serves the debater - by being more concise, contributing useful information, and more accurately summarizing the entire quote.

SAFE
First proposed by Daniel Gaskell, SAFE is an acrostic used to describe the elements of a good tagline:

Short: The tag should contain as few words as possible. If there's a way to rewrite it to make it shorter, do it. (For example, "Damages our relationship" becomes "Relations hurt".)

Accurate: The tag should accurately reflect the core meaning of the card. (If the tag says it will hurt relations, then the card had better actually say it will hurt relations.)

Flowable: The tag should avoid words that are long, hard to spell, or otherwise not easy to write down. (Use "hurt" instead of "damage", "bad" instead of "detrimental", etc.)

Easily-understood: The tag should immediately make sense. This seems obvious, but it's violated surprisingly often. (For example, "IRC can't make laws" is much easier to understand than "IRC is not a legislative body".)

EASE
An alternate acrostic, as presented by Christina Tallungan, is EASE:


 * Efficiency: Avoid needless words.


 * Accuracy: Present the card's contents accurately.


 * Strategy: Consider the purpose the card will play in the round, and write the tag accordingly.


 * Examples: Include warrants in the tagline.