#debatehelp

First, there are impact refutations. These are refutations that address the impacts your opponent's arguments give, and either "turn" them in your favor, outweigh, or negate/minimize them. So for example, in my abortion debate with Seldiora, I gave the impact that we were killing something to the tune of 40 million people yearly via abortions. Seldiora said that is actually a good thing, because it addresses overpopulation. That's a turn. Seldiora maybe could have argued that the harms of illegalizing abortion would be worse than the current harms of 40 million people dying. That's outweighing.  Seldiora also could have given counter-evidence and said "there are way less abortions than that" theoretically. That's negating, or minimizing the impact.

Second, there are warrant refutations. A "warrant" is a reason an impact is going to happen. For example, I said we are killing 40 million people yearly. That was the impact. I had 1 big warrant, that those fetuses are people, and therefore every fetus that dies is a person. So in response Seldiora could have said "those fetuses are not people" and give the reason why, and maybe give some counter-evidence to back that up as well. This would have effectively "de-linked" my warrant from my impact, and the impact would have become irrelevant.

Third, there are source refutations. This doesn't mean counter-evidence, these are arguments that rely on you going into your opponent's source and discrediting it somehow. Let's say I unwittingly used commentary from a universally discredited scholar to establish that fetuses are people, for example. If nothing else, seldiora could have argued that he is a bad source according to other professionals in the field.

Knowing these categories helps, because even if you don't figure out how to address one category of your opponent's argument (maybe the warrant or impact is much too solid), maybe you can find something to work with in the other categories (maybe the source looks iffy).

Hope this helps!