Debate FAQ

There are 6 speeches in a round, 4 positions that give speeches, 2 on each team.

Prime minster Constructive: 7 minutes
Leader of the Opposition Constructive: 8 minutes
Member of Government Constructive: 8 minutes
Member of the Opposition Constructive: 8 minutes
Leader of the Opposition Rebuttal: 4 minutes
Prime minister Rebuttal: 5 minutes

Prime Minister (PM) and the Member of Government (MG) are on the government side, they set up the case and argue for it. The Prime minister gives the first and last speech of the round, and therefore has the ability to really make or break a round.

Leader (LO) and Member (MO) of the opposition are trying to tear apart the government's case. It's a LOT easier to do than side government because you can find a loophole and dig in. Opposition usually wins rounds because of this fact. That isn't to say government can't win, but generally they have a harder time doing so.

The leader of each team's job is very unique. They each offer the first constructive speech. Let me explain that really quickly.

Constructive: New examples, new points, and responses to the oppositions points are commonplace, allowed, and encouraged. This is essentially arguing the case back and forth.

Rebuttals: New examples are welcome, but new arguments are not. You can re-iterate the points you have, but you can't bring in new points if they haven't been touched on in the rounds before.

So, let me just kind of walk through a round with the general basis and terms sorta set up:

PM gets up, gives a 7 minute speech. In it he has to explain what case the government side is arguing. The government gets to pick the case, and therefore has a head start, since they already know what they'll be talking about coming into the round. In addition to setting up the case (setting it up means giving ALL relevant information), the Prime Minister has to argue the government's case, with 3-4 points. I'll take a handbook example, from Machiavelli's "The Prince" you could make the case, "Is it better to be loved or feared?" Assume the gov't picks "feared":

a) At the time of the prince, there was a feudal system, with assassination of rulers who were weak, and many people with a lust for power. Fear will prevent some of those attempts.
b) By inspiring fear in the populace, your control over them will be greater, and will allow you to have a more productive kingdom.
c) In addition to them being more productive, the laws will be less likely to be broken.

So those are 3 basic points.

Now the Leader of the opposition has been listening for about 5 minutes of arguments (after the case was set up for 2 minutes). In those 5 minutes he has to come up with arguments against points a, b, and c, AND he has to come up with 3-4 points of his own d, e, and f. Generally, new points are given first, and then you argue backwards to the last person who spoke's points.

d) A loved ruler is less likely to experience a revolt by the people
e) A loved ruler is more likely to be trusted by foreign countries since
his population trusts him
f) A loved ruler is going to be happier when he dies because his conscience will be clear.

a') Loved rulers won't have people trying to assassinate them in the first place.
b') The people will be more likely to leave the country, reducing productivity and taxes
c') The laws may be followed, but only reluctantly, and it can be guaranteed that if there is any way around them, it will be taken.

So that speech is 8 minutes of setting up the opposition's case

The MG gets up, gives 2-3 new points of his/her own, and then refutes the LO's points, and then brings back the PM's speech and try to make his arguments seem strong again.

The MO does the same, he brings up 1-2 more points, refutes the MG, supports the LO's argument, refutes the PM's arguments.

The LO then gets up, can make NO NEW ARGUMENTS and picks 2-3 points which explain EXACTLY why the opposition won. For instance, if the point about reducing crime was just totally botched by the government, if the MG had for instance stood up and gone, "Well, yeah, crime will be less, but at what cost? You know?" and couldn't really make an argument against it, you'd want to make that a MAJOR point in the rebuttal, because the other side totally screwed it up, and they can't do a thing about it now.

The PM gets up, and gets to bring up new arguments, but only to rebut new points made in the MO's speech (the 1-2 new points, there may not be any), that's why he gets an extra minute. The other 4 minutes are spent clarifying why the GOVERNMENT side won.

So that's a brief little show of how a round goes. Basically, Let me try to make a little table. All the letters (A-K) are new points. All the letters with ' after them are responses to points. For instance, A was "At the time of the prince, there was a feudal system, with assassination of rulers who were weak, and many people with a lust for power. Fear will prevent some of those attempts" in the last example. A' was "Loved rulers won't have people trying to assassinate them in the first place."

1-6 are the "points of crystallization" which are points which explain why your side won. Each side should have 2-4. These can incorporate several different points in the round in one point of crystallization, or even be a counter-point or whatnot. So I could group things into social, economic, and moral consequences, or I could group things into the opposition's stupidity, the government's greatness, and the price of sliced bread. Giving your points titles "The Government's False Dichotomy" for example may help it stick better.

In addition to just following this format, you'll want to make a piece of paper with 6 columns, and keep track of the arguments. It is VERY important to respond to each point (otherwise it's considered dropped, and your side can't bring it up anymore, basically you say the other side is right if you don't bring it up). So you just make a little table like this on your paper as you go along, covering each argument and counter-argument.

PMC      LOC       MGC      MOC       LOR    PMR
A        A'        A        A'        1      J'
B        B'        B        B'        2      K'
C        C'        C        C'        3      4
*        D         D'       D                5
*        E         E'       E                6
*        F         F'       F
*        *         G        G'
*        *         H        H'
*        *         I        I'
*        *         *        J
*        *         *        K

Few notes about picking cases:
If you're government, you MUST ARGUE AGAINST THE STATUS QUO!

You can't argue that the US should have entered World War I, they did. You *can* argue against it.

In that example, if you're arguing about the US entering world war I, you cannot use any historical information past 1915, when it was an issue. Your opposition case cannot be, "But you know in 3 years that you'll win!"

As government, you can only use information that you clearly state for both sides in the mission statement, or things that is considered common knowledge. In other words, in these RPG debates (or whatever we do), you cannot make a case that Dreamcast is better than PSX 2 by arguing with tons of obscure technical figures, because that isn't common knowledge.

Basically, all these things make a case "tight" meaning that it can't be arguable. I simply won't allow them. In a real round, the opposition has to argue that the case is tight, and either propose a counter-case (another case that is more fair than the one they were offered), and be damned sure they prove that the government screwed up. If this happens in our rounds, I'll just stop the debate.

The BIGGEST thing that people do is that they'll make an argument, and then introduce in the MG speech a new piece of information that came from nowhere. That's called a collapsing tautology, and is VERY illegal. For instance, in the Machiavelli argument, if the people who are arguing that it is better to be feared suddenly say, "But no peasants can leave or revolt, because you have such firm control over the country, and they can't desert, because you have control over the ports and live on an island." then that's a collapsing tautology, because they're incorporating new "facts" that didn't exist and make the case unarguable.

The other problem lots of people make is to make arguments that are tautologies, like if someone wants to argue "1+1=3" and then in the PMC they say, "well, we're going to assume today that 1+1=3" Since you can't argue against it, you can't do it.

Basically, if you make a philisophical argument, keep it philisophical, and don't try to bring fact into it. For instance, if you're arguing graphics vs. plot, and you're arguing for graphics, and say "It's obvious graphics are better, FF7 has the biggest sales figures, and it's a graphical masterpiece, and beat Xenogears which was plot heavy" then that's no good. Generally, you want to argue on a philisophical level, and bring in hypothetical examples.

If you're arguing the merits of a game, FF7 vs. FF8 or whatnot, don't go into the theoretical, just stick to the games themselves, and you should be ok as long as the government does not start using specific knowledge (start talking about polygon counts in the two games and technical realism of which the opposition may know nothing about). There is NO specific knowledge for the opposition however.

I was arguing a case of censorship one day as opposition, and got up there, and quoted about 6 court cases from 1918-1990 regarding the issue, and we blew the opposition away. That's 100% legal, but if the MG got up and quoted those court cases, it would be specific knowledge.

During rounds in which you aren't speaking, you have a right to ask questions. These questions are called "Points of Order" and can only be asked in the constructive speeches (the first four), any time except in the first or last minute of the speech. If you have a question, just say "Point of Order." The person speaking has a right to accept/reject the question.

The general rule of thumb is that you want to answer one question a round (if you get one). Do *not* accept a question if you just made a mistake. For instance, if you were to say "that's as clear as the sky is green" and someone has a point of order, you KNOW they're going to point out that the sky is BLUE. So you don't want to answer that question and look stupid.

The final thing to bring up is a resolution. At the start of each round, there is a "resolution." That resolution is a small little phrase that has to be incorporated into the Prime Minister's first speech. For instance, if I was debating about polygons, and the resolution was a South Park quote "This is just another one of God's horrible mistakes -- like German people," then I could say something like:
"The little children on South Park, little paper cutouts, are rebelling against what they see as the ultimate mistake -- German people. It is clear that this isn't a small joke to get a laugh, but rather it's symbolic of the fight between two-dimensional sprites, and the polygons they hate that are slowly replacing them."

Obviously, you have lots of latitude. It's not a critical aspect, it's just there to show your speaking skill.

That's debate in a nutshell. Best of luck to you!