Most important things
• Keep your personal views outside the room
• Debaters must adapt to you
• Be honest about your judging experience
What is Policy Debate
• Focus is on a policy proposal within the
resolution
• Same topic for the entire year
• 2 person teams
Resolution
• Focus of the debate
• 2014-15 resolution is Resolved: The United
States federal government should increase its
nonmilitary exploration and/or development
of the earth’s oceans.
What happens in a round–
constructive speeches
• 1st Affirmative Constructive – 8 minutes
– 3 minute cross-examination
• 1st Negative Constuctive – 8 minutes
– 3 minute cross-examination
• 2AC – 8 min.
– 3 min. cross-ex.
• 2NC – 8 min.
– 3 min. cross-ex.
What happens in a round -- rebuttals
• 1st negative rebuttal – 5 minutes
• 1st affirmative rebuttal – 5 min.
• 2NR – 5 min.
• 2AR – 5 min.
No new arguments in rebuttals.
Preparation Time
• Each team has preparation time to use
between speeches throughout the round
– League rounds is 5 minutes
– Invitationals is ususally 8 or 10 minutes
– Judge keeps track of prep time
Cross-examination
• Debater who will not speak next asks
questions
• Can be used to probe arguments, set up
arguments or understand arguments
• Don’t expect Perry Mason
Evidence
• Arguments are constructed with evidence.
• Paragraphs or longer from articles, books,
websites etc.
• First speeches are pieces of evidence logically
one after another to construct arguments
– The evidence begins with a “tag line”- a sentence
that summarizes the evidence
– Source of evidence is also stated.
The Plan
• Presented in the 1AC
• Is the focus of the debate – is the plan a good
idea or not.
Stock issues
• What the affirmantive needs to win.
• Signifance and harms – is there a problem?
• Inherency – has the problem already been
solved or is there a barrier to solving the
problem
– Low barrier – essentially whether the plan has
already happened
Stock Issues (cont.)
• Solvency – Does the plan fix the problem
• Topicality – Is the plan within the resolution
• Advantages over disadvantages – Do the
benefits of the plan outweigh the bad things
the plan might cause?
• Put in another order for memory . . .
Stock Issues (cont.)
•
•
•
•
SH (significance and harms)
I (inherency)
T (topicality)
S (solvency)
More about topicality
• Is the plan within the resolution. That is does the plan
increase the United States Federal Government
nonmilitary exploration and/or development of the
earth’s oceans?
• Some things are clearly topical – example United States
mapping the ocean floor
• Some things are clearly not topical – example United
States federal government giving monetary aid to the
Mexican government (that was last year’s topic)
• Some things are a close call that will be debated.
Example – is law enforcement cooperation “economic
engagement
More About Topicality (cont.)
• Some things are a close call that will be
debated. Examples
– Is selling offshore oil and gas leases development
by the United States Federal Government?
– Are icebreakers nonmilitary exploration of the
ocean (because they can have both military and
nonmilitary uses)
Negative options
• Topicality
• Disadvantages
– Arguments why the plan causes bad things
• Counterplans
– A different plan than the aff
– Must be competitive (cannot do both the plan and
the counterplan at the same time)
– Can be non-topical (a way to solve the plan’s
harms outside of the topic)
Counterplans
– A different plan than the aff
– Must be competitive (cannot do both the plan and
the counterplan at the same time)
– Can be non-topical (a way to solve the plan’s
harms outside of the topic)
• Examples – Russia does the plan; do the plan without
increasing economic engagement.
Flowing
• A way of taking notes about the round
• Write the arguments in the debate in columns
Jargon
• Card – a piece of evidence
– Derives from evidence used to be physically cut
from articles and taped to 3 x 5 index card
• Drop – when one team says the other team
did not answer an argument
• Link – What the Aff does to cause bad things
to happen
• Impact – what the bad things are
Jargon (cont.)
• Fiat - The aff’s right to state that the machinery and
personnel will be made available for plan to come into
existence. This is the “magic wand” that says the plan
happens, even if it might not happen in the real world.
• Turn – A type of argument that states what the other team
said is the opposite (Ex: They say that the budget deficit is
bad, but we have a piece of evidence saying that the
budget deficit is actually good. Our evidence “Turns” their
argument.)
• Extend – telling you as the judge that the debater wants
the argument to continue in the debate. This is when you
draw an arrow on your flow.
So how do I decide a debate . . .
• Keep your personal views outside the room –
decide based on the arguments made in the
round
• Do not make arguments for the debaters
• Look at the arguments left at the end of the
debate. Your flow will tell you which
arguments are answered and which are not.
Then weigh what is left.
Judging a debate (cont.)
• Do not vote on arguments that are not
mentioned in either of the last two rebuttals.
• The negative might only extend one or two
arguments in the 2NR. That is OK. In fact it is
probably good strategy because there is not
enough time in the 2NR to go for everything.
• If the negative wins the aff is not topical, the neg
wins.
• The better speakers do not always win. It is
possible for better speakers to not answer an
argument that costs them the debate.
Writing your ballot
• Try to focus on the arguments. Something like: I vote
aff because aff solves global warming which outweighs
neg risk of economic collapse.
• Try to avoid: I vote aff because aff sounded better.
• Avoid personal comments about the debaters like “why
are you not wearing make-up,” “your sweater is not
formal enough” or “why don’t you have a tie.”
• Speaker points. Each debater gets points for how well
they speak between 1 and 30. Points are generally
between 25 and 30. Do not go below 22 unless
someone is very offensive (racist etc.)
A note about other forms of debate
• Lincoln Dougles: 1 on 1, focus on values and
philosophy, topic changes every two months
(except same topic from September to
December)
– Topic for September – December 2014 is
Resolved: A just society ought to presume consent
for organ procurement from the deceased.
Other forms of debate cont.
• Public Forum: 2 on 2, topic changes monthly,
shorter debate (will judge two different
debates in a time period). Supposed to be like
television political shows like Crossfire.
• Parlimentary: 2 on 2, different topic each
round, topic given to debaters 20 minutes
before the round, for the most part no
evidence.