ACTDU WORKSHOP
2015
Supported by the
Commonwealth
Department of
Education and the
Australian Debating
Federation
Chris Bisset
TIMETABLE
 Session 1: 9:15am-10:00am (45mins)
 Re-thinking debating
 Constructing Arguments
 (Trivia & Morning Tea)
 Session 2: 11:00am-11:45am (45mins)
 Preparing for debates
 (Case Construction Exercise)
 Session 3: 1:00pm-1:45pm (45mins)
 Rebuttal
 (Practise debate)
ACTDU Workshop - 17 October 2015
Supported by the Comm. Dep. Of Education &
RE-THINKING DEBATING
EXERCISE 1.1
 Think about all the people or groups who make decisions that
affect you – who or what are they?
 What are some of the decisions or rules they make that affect
you?
 Which of these decisions or rules affect you the most? Why?
 Which do you disagree with most? Which are the most
controversial? Are these different? Why (not)?
 Consider the one you disagree with the most; think about how
you could convince someone to agree with you.
 Now think about how you would convince yourself you were
wrong about the rule or policy.
ACTDU Workshop - 17 October 2015
Supported by the Comm. Dep. Of Education &
LEARNING TO DEBATE MEANS LEARNING
TO WIN ARGUMENTS
 The key to debating is learning how to make smart arguments
to support your ideas.
 Debating is just an argument that has been organised into two
sides with some basic rules to give everyone a chance to talk.
 Debating can involve arguing about many dif ferent things, but
can be broken down into:
 Policy Debates: about somebody implementing a policy
 Empirical Debates: about whether a claim is true or untrue
ACTDU Workshop - 17 October 2015
Supported by the Comm. Dep. Of Education &
HOW DOES THIS APPLY TO DEBATING?
 Key Debating Skills:
1. Debating is about logical and objective analysis: you need to
think of persuasive reasons why somebody who might think
dif ferently to you should agree with you.
2. You need to organise your ideas so that they make sense
and the audience can follow your point.
3. You need to speak clearly so that people understand you
and need to be engaging so the audience stays awake.
 Remember there is always another side to every topic and in
order to win – you will need to be able to do the three things
above, not just well, but better than the opposing team.
ACTDU Workshop - 17 October 2015
Supported by the Comm. Dep. Of Education &
WHAT ARE THE TWO T YPES OF DEBATES?
Policy Debates
Empirical Debates
 Involve a proposed
change to the way the
world works that needs to
be considered.
 Looking forward– what
will the effect of a
change of policy be?
 Assesses the state of the
world and the truth of a
statement.
 Look at the past or the
present.
 Hint: they often about
something you would argue
with your parents about over
dinner
The Af firmative must prove the
policy will do more good than
harm.
The Negative must prove the
policy will do more harm than
good.
ACTDU Workshop - 17 October 2015
The Af firmative must prove the
statement is more true than false
The Negative must prove the
statement is more false than true.
Supported by the Comm. Dep. Of Education &
EXERCISE 1.2: POLICY OR EMPIRICAL?
 That technology has done more harm than good.
 That we should celebrate school’s focus on academic
performance.
 That we should require all social networks to of fer parents full
access to their children's accounts.
 That schools focus too much on exams.
 That we should regret the over-use of Facebook.
 That we should ban examinations in schools .
ACTDU Workshop - 17 October 2015
Supported by the Comm. Dep. Of Education &
BE AMBITIOUS IN YOUR ARGUMENTS!
Policy Debates
Empirical Debates
Affirmative
Negative
Affirmative
Negative
The policy will
make the
world better
The policy will
make the
world worse
The statement
is true most of
the time or in the
important case
The statement is
false most of the
time or in the
important case
The policy doesn’t
do any damage
The policy won’t
Change Anything
The statement is
true some times
The statement is
false some times
Things can’t stay
the way they are
now
There’s nothing
wrong now
The statement is
true in at least
one instance
The statement is
false in at least
one instance
ACTDU Workshop - 17 October 2015
Supported by the Comm. Dep. Of Education &
DEFINING THE TOPIC
 We use words to describe real things, but sometimes things can
be hard to describe so we need to establish a common meaning
before we can have a proper argument.
 The affirmative team is responsible for clarifying anything
uncertain about the topic.
 Often a good way of defining words is by using examples
 E.g. If the topic is about violent sport, you need to define what a violent
sport is
 A way to do that is to say ‘sports like rugby, karate, kickboxing etc’ and
not sports like fencing.
 Exercise 1.3: Are the any words in the topics we considered
before that need to be defined?
ACTDU Workshop - 17 October 2015
Supported by the Comm. Dep. Of Education &
GOAL IS TO PROVE BENEFITS AND
HARMS…
 Going to happen when the policy is implemented ( policy debates)
 Happening in the past or right now (empirical debates)
 1 . Something is going to happen.
 What is going to happen?
 How is it going to happen?
 Has it happened that way before?
 2. That thing will be beneficial/harmful.
 What are its positive consequences
 Why are they more/less significant than the negative consequences
ACTDU Workshop - 17 October 2015
Supported by the Comm. Dep. Of Education &
EXAMPLE 1:
THAT ALL SCHOOL STUDENTS SHOULD BE FORCED
TO DO 1 HOUR OF EXERCISE EVERY DAY AT SCHOOL
P ra c t i c al Que s t i on
Wh a t a n d h ow m uc h o f i t w i l l h a ppe n ?
Principled question?
What is more important?
Affirmative
Negative
Affirmative
Negative
Students will
be more
healthy
Students
will miss out
on class
time
Physical
wellbeing
Educational
Development
Doing exercise
at school
builds good
habits
One hour of
exercise isn’t
that important
for health
Government
Choice
Parental
Choice
ACTDU Workshop - 17 October 2015
Supported by the Comm. Dep. Of Education &
EXAMPLE 2:
THAT WE SHOULD BAN SINGLE-SEX SCHOOLS.
P ra c t i c al Que s t i on
Wh a t a n d h ow m uc h o f i t w i l l h a ppe n ?
Principled question?
What is more important?
Affirmative
Negative
Affirmative
Negative
Single sex
schools are bad
for social
development
Single-sex
schools are good
for educational
development.
Social
Development
Educational
Development
Scale is
debatable.
Scale is
debatable
Government
Choice
Parental
Choice
ACTDU Workshop - 17 October 2015
Supported by the Comm. Dep. Of Education &
EXERCISE 1.4:
THAT WE SHOULD BAN ANIMAL TESTING
P ra c t i c al Que s t i on
Wh a t a n d h ow m uc h o f i t w i l l h a ppe n ?
Affirmative
ACTDU Workshop - 17 October 2015
Negative
Principled question?
What is more important?
Affirmative
Negative
Supported by the Comm. Dep. Of Education &
CONSTRUCTING
PRACTICAL ARGUMENTS
PROVING SOMETHING WILL HAPPEN
 Often there is a chain of things that have a ‘domino ef fect’
 E.g. That we should raise taxes on cigarettes
 Argument: Raising taxes will stop people smoking
 Step 1: Raising taxes increases the price of cigarettes
 Step 2: Increasing the price of cigarettes dissuades people from smoking them
 You need to prove each step in the chain
 Sometimes you will have evidence to show that a similar
policy has had the ef fects you think it will have. You should
include this in your argument, but be careful because:




The policy might have been different
There might have been something different about the place it was tried
There might be controversy over exactly what happened
The other team or judge may not believe you
ACTDU Workshop - 17 October 2015
Supported by the Comm. Dep. Of Education &
HOW WILL PEOPLE RESPOND TO A
POLICY
 How do we know how people/groups/organisations are going to
respond to our policy?
 Step 1: Don’t treat all people the same – break different
stakeholders down into sensible groups and deal with them one
at a time.
 Step 2: Think about how you would behave if you were a member
of each group.
 Think about your incentives – what would give you the most reward?
 How do you react when your mum threatens no TV unless you tidy your
bedroom?
 Think about your abilities – are there limits on what you can actually do?
 If a friend promised you a million dollars in exchange for doing a backflip
could you suddenly do it?
 Think about your attitude – is there an X factor like culture or history
that might shape the way people view their incentives and abilities.
 If your family didn’t believe in eating pork, would you eat it for a big prize?
ACTDU Workshop - 17 October 2015
Supported by the Comm. Dep. Of Education &
EXAMPLE OF CAUSATION:
THAT WE SHOULD BAN UNDERWEIGHT MODELS
AFFRIMATIVE ARGUMENT: We should ban underweight models
because they create harmful body image issues.
Steps of causation that must be proved
1. There are currently dangerously underweight models (why)
2. Vulnerable people see these models ( how and why)
3. Vulnerable people want to emulate what they see (how and
why)
4. When they try to look the same as models it has harms (how
and why)
ACTDU Workshop - 17 October 2015
Supported by the Comm. Dep. Of Education &
CONSTRUCTING
PRINCIPLED
ARGUMENTS
PROVING THAT SOMETHING IS GOOD OR
BAD
1. You need to explain how to measure a harm or a benefit
For example:




How many people are better or worse off? (scale)
How much are they better or worse off? (degree)
Are they benefited in the short or long term? (time frame)
In what way are they better off? (type)
 i.e. socially? Economically? Environmentally?
2. You need to explain why your measurement is the best
 If you’re defending scale:
 Talk about making more people happy = more happiness in general
 If you’re defending degree:
 Why is the group that is a lot happier so important?
 If you’re talking about time frame:
 Why is it important that the problem be fixed slowly or quickly?
 If you’re talking about type:
 Why is your type more important?
ACTDU Workshop - 17 October 2015
Supported by the Comm. Dep. Of Education &
OFTEN PRINCIPLES AT STAKE ARE ABOUT
PEOPLE’S RIGHTS
 Ever y right creates a burden on someone else.
 That burden may be positive; to do something
 e.g. to rescue you if you are drowning
 Or negative burden to NOT do something
 e.g. to not push you into the water
 Exercise 2.1: Can you think of some positive rights you have? What
obligations do they create on others? Do the same for negative
rights.
ACTDU Workshop - 17 October 2015
Supported by the Comm. Dep. Of Education &
HOW DO WE BALANCE COMPETING
RIGHTS AND OBLIGATIONS?
 Justify a right because of:
1. Something about the person and their entitlement to the right.
 Are they vulnerable?
 Is there something about their position that entitles them to higher
consideration – eg. past wrongs committed against them?
2. Something about the nature of the right
 Is the benefit of this right unable to be achieved elsewhere?
 How important is the benefit of this right?
3. Something about the motives behind the use or exercise of the
right.
 Is the motive behind the use of the right exploitation?
 Compare on each of those categories with the imposition of
the obligation required to create the right.
ACTDU Workshop - 17 October 2015
Supported by the Comm. Dep. Of Education &
THE RIGHT TO CHOOSE THINGS
 People should be allowed to make choices for themselves
even if they are potentially risky choices.
 Except if:
 The consequences of the choice will affect/harm other people.
 Types of harm to others? Eg. Offence?
 Directness of harm to others? Eg. Loss of family earnings leading to harm.
 People have not properly consented (soft paternalism)
 Informed consent – understand the options before them
 Free consent – without duress, have real options
 When does an influence become coercion?
 Explicit consent – have given consent for this particular risk.
 There is something about the choice that makes it wrong to consent
to (hard paternalism).
 Objective wrongs.
ACTDU Workshop - 17 October 2015
Supported by the Comm. Dep. Of Education &
WHO SHOULD MAKE A DECISION?
 Comparing two decision -maker s –
eg. Governments, parents,
children, doctor s, teacher s,
children, animals
 What do you know about the
incentives, capacities and ideologies
of each decision maker?
 As to their competence to make a
par ticular decision. Eg. to choose
an education, to adopt a
par ticular cour se of treatment.
 E x e rc i s e 2 . 2 : Wr i te i n s o m e
f e a t u r e s o f t h e s e d e c i s i o n m a ke r s :
Governments
•Majoritarian
•
Adults
•Liberalised
•
 What do you know about the
perspective and qualities required to
make this type of decision.
ACTDU Workshop - 17 October 2015
Supported by the Comm. Dep. Of Education &
PREPARING FOR
A DEBATE
THE AFFIRMATIVE NEEDS TO TELL A
SERIES OF STORIES
Status Quo
How will
the model
operate?
Our
endgame
Which bad things
are happening to
whom? Why
should we care?
WHO…will do
WHAT
differently?
What will things
look like
afterwards?
ACTDU Workshop - 17 October 2015
Supported by the Comm. Dep. Of Education &
THE NEGATIVE HAS A CHOICE TO MAKE
ABOUT THE SQ, MODEL AND END GAME
Agree on the
SQ
Offer a
different model
to achieve
Agree on the
SQ
Offer a
different model
to achieve
Disagree
about
the SQ
ACTDU Workshop - 17 October 2015
Propose no
change
Same
end
game
Defend
the SQ
Supported by the Comm. Dep. Of Education &
EXERCISE 2.3: THAT WE SHOULD BAN
REALIT Y TV SHOWS
Status Quo
How will
the model
operate?
Our
endgame
Which bad things
are happening to
whom? Why
should we care?
WHO…will do
WHAT
differently?
What will things
look like
afterwards?
ACTDU Workshop - 17 October 2015
Supported by the Comm. Dep. Of Education &
EXERCISE 2.3: NEGATIVE OPTIONS
Offer a
different
model
Recharact
erise the
status
quo
Aim for a
different
end-game
Which
approach
would
you take
on the
negative?
Why?
ACTDU Workshop - 17 October 2015
Supported by the Comm. Dep. Of Education &
THE NEG’S CHOICE SHAPES THE CLASH
AND CHANGES BOTH TEAM’S PRIORITIES
The clash is the major dif ference between the two teams:
 Is there a philosophical dif ference ?
 Is there a practical dif ference in how you would go about
solving the problem?
 Do you have different priorities or criteria for success?
ACTDU Workshop - 17 October 2015
Supported by the Comm. Dep. Of Education &
EXERCISE 2.4
 Topic is: That Australia should adopt a carbon tax
 If the Neg says “The government doesn’t have any right to limit
businesses’ ability to make money”, what kind of difference is
that?
 If the Neg says “Australia should combat climate change, but
should instead implement an emissions trading scheme”, what
kind of difference is that ?
 If the Neg says “We shouldn’t adopt a carbon tax because it
would harm the mining industry”, what kind of difference is that?
ACTDU Workshop - 17 October 2015
Supported by the Comm. Dep. Of Education &
THE AGENDA
Affirmative
1.
What’s happening now and
what’s wrong with it?
What should we change with
our model – who will do what
dif ferently?
What will our end -game be?
What will the negative say
about the SQ, mechanism and
end game?
2.
3.
4.

5.
If there are options – consider
them and decide which is hardest
for you.
What are the key arguments for their
approach in light of ours’?
Given your answer s:
6. What will you need to prove to
win?
ACTDU Workshop - 17 October 2015
Negative
1.
Wh a t ’ s h a ppe n ing n ow – i s t h e re
a ny t h ing w ro n g w i t h i t ?
Wh a t w i l l t h e a f fi rm a tive pro po s e
to do ?
W h a t i s t h e i r l i kely e n d - g ame?
In l i ght o f t h a t - do yo u n e e d a
c o un te r - m odel o r c a n we s ay t h a t
t h ey w i l l m a ke i t wo r s e?
2.
3.
4.


What will we change – who will do
what differently to the SQ and
affirmative’s model?
What will our end-game be?
5.
Wh a t a re t h e key a rg um ent s fo r
t h e i r a ppro a c h i n l i ght o f o ur s ’ ?
G i ven yo ur a n s we r s:
6 . Wh a t w i l l yo u n e e d to prove ?
Supported by the Comm. Dep. Of Education &
TIMELINE
 0-5mins
Brainstorm
 Focus on being ready to answer the agenda
 5-20mins
Download your brainstorm to the team
 Follow the agenda – get an answer to the first question first, then move on
 Get an answer and then ask if there are any concerns or alternate
suggestions – if not, move on.
 Discuss and argue each of the agenda items that you disagree on.
 20-30mins
Decide the arguments
 What needs to be proved at first?
 What are the second speaker arguments?
 30-40mins
Argument Development
 Develop the levels
 Develop the labels
 40-50mins
Write
 Write big, make a plan for an argument – not a speech.
 50-60mins
Refine
 Anticipate, pre-empt, balance and compare
 Add examples, depth and sophistication
ACTDU Workshop - 17 October 2015
Supported by the Comm. Dep. Of Education &
THE AGENDA CREATES THE SPEECH
1. What’s happening now and what’s wrong
with it?
This is the introduction
2. What should we change with our model –
who will do what differently?
This is the model and definition
3. What will our end-game be?
This creates a team goal to focus
on and defend – rounds out intro
4. What will the negative say about the SQ,
mechanism and end game?
This will help you know what you
are comparing
5. What are the key arguments for their
approach in light of ours’?
This helps you prepare responses
and make arguments comparative
6. What will you need to prove to win?
These are the first speaker’s
arguments.
ACTDU Workshop - 17 October 2015
Supported by the Comm. Dep. Of Education &
LABELLING: DEBATES ARE LIKE ONIONS…
That we should lower the voting age.
That those affected by the
government should be
entitled to vote.
That It’s a fundamental right
to control those who
exercise authority.
That children have the
necessary capacity to be
able to exercise the vote.
That using any other test of
eligibility is problematic.
ACTDU Workshop - 17 October 2015
That children are sufficiently
affected by the government to
be entitled to vote.
That children contribute
enough to government.
That government policy
affects their interest.
That parents and other
proxies don’t sufficiently
protect children.
That engaging children will
improve policy outcomes
for society.
That having the vote
encourages govs. to be
accountable to you.
That children’s votes will
help value long-run
concerns.
That children will gain a
voice for sidelined issues.
Supported by the Comm. Dep. Of Education &
EXERCISE 3.5
That we should close all zoos
3.
1. Animals have a right not
to be treated cruelly
2. Zoos treat animals cruelly
1
1
1
2
2
2
3
3
3
ACTDU Workshop - 17 October 2015
Supported by the Comm. Dep. Of Education &
HINTS FOR LABELING ARGUMENTS
 Be specific- use the language of the topic
 Tell the adjudicator what you intend on proving - don’t leave
them guessing!
 No longer than a sentence, but more than one word
ACTDU Workshop - 17 October 2015
Supported by the Comm. Dep. Of Education &
FEEDBACK
 bit.ly/ACTDUdebate
ACTDU Workshop - 17 October 2015
Supported by the Comm. Dep. Of Education &