Cut Your First Card

A start-to-finish walkthrough: turn a source into a formatted, highlighted evidence card.

This is the fastest path from a source to a finished, highlighted evidence card. It takes about two minutes and uses Single Card Snipe, the one-card-at-a-time mode. If you have never opened the app before, read Getting Started first; it covers signing in and creating a topic.

A "card" here means a debate evidence card: a tagline (the claim it proves), a citation, and the source text with the key words highlighted for you to read aloud.

What you need

  • A claim you want to prove, written as a full sentence (for example, "Carbon pricing cuts emissions without hurting growth").
  • A source: the article URL and the article text.

You do not need to format anything yourself. You bring the claim and the source; the app writes the tag, builds the citation, and highlights the card.

Cut the card, step by step

  1. Open Single Card Snipe. It is the default tab when you open the app at /app. On desktop it is also under the Card Cutting menu in the top nav; on mobile it is the Single Card tab in the bottom bar.

  2. Paste the Source URL. Put the article link in the Source URL field. This is what the citation is built from, so use the real article URL, not a search-result link.

  3. Pull in the article text. Either paste the article into the Source Text box yourself, or click Fetch next to the URL to pull the text in automatically. Fetched text locks to a gray preview; click it if you need to edit. (PDFs cannot be fetched; for those, copy and paste the text in by hand.)

  4. Write your claim in the User Claim box. Be specific. "Nuclear power is good" gives the AI little to work with; "Nuclear power is the fastest way to decarbonize the grid" tells it exactly what to highlight for.

  5. (Optional) Write your own tagline. Expand Custom tagline under the claim if you want to control the exact wording of the tag. Leave it blank and the app writes one for you. Whatever you type here also steers what gets highlighted.

  6. Click Generate Card. A card usually takes about 15 to 45 seconds, depending on how long the source is. You will see the progress and a running timer while the AI reads the source, finds the strongest passage, and highlights it.

  7. Review and edit. The finished card lands in the editor on the right. Everything is editable: fix the tag, adjust the highlighting, or change the font size with the toolbar.

  8. Get it out. Click Copy to put a Word- and Google-Docs-ready version on your clipboard (formatting and highlight color survive the paste), or Save to Library to keep it in your topic. Cards are not saved automatically, so if you want to keep one, save it.

That is one finished card. It counts as one card cut against your limit (free accounts get 5 cuts per day; see Plans & Limits).

Set how your cards are cut (Settings)

Open Settings (the gear in the top nav) and go to the Card tab. These controls change how every card looks, in every mode, so set them once and forget them:

  • Cutting Mode: Lay highlights words that read as a smooth sentence when spoken aloud; Tech packs in more text for spreading (very fast reading). The default is Lay.
  • Highlight Density: how much of the card gets highlighted. Sparse is just the core warrants, Balanced is the default, Dense adds surrounding context.
  • Highlight Color: Yellow, Purple, Cyan, or Green.
  • Card Signature: your initials, added to the end of every citation.
  • Font sizes: the size of the tag, body, author, and citation text.

The Advanced tab has more: H4 tag headers (so your tags appear in Word's navigation pane), paragraph integrity (keep the source's paragraph breaks), and a token-count readout. The full list is in Cutting Cards.

Make your cards better

  • Tighter claim, better card. The claim is the single biggest lever on quality. Name the specific thing you want proven.
  • Give it enough source. Paste the full relevant section, not one sentence. The AI needs context to find the best line and to build an honest citation.

If something goes wrong

  • "No matching evidence." The source text does not actually support your claim. Try a different source or loosen the claim. (Heads up: this still uses one card cut, because the AI had to read the source to decide.)
  • Fetch failed. The site blocked the automatic reader. Paste the article text in manually instead.
  • It is slow or errors out. See Troubleshooting & Performance.

Next steps