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Debating is a clash of arguments. For every issue, there are always different sides of a
story: why people support or disagree with that certain issue. Debating seeks to explore the
reasons behind each side. To make those reasons understandable and convincing, debaters
should deliver their arguments with good communication skills.
Competitive debating is debating using a specific format. With formats, people are regulated
to speak one at a time and each side is given the same amount of time and opportunity to
prove their point. This format rules out the possibility of who-speaks-loudest-or-fastest shall
win the debate. It encourages people not only to speak out but also to listen to the other side.
There are many formats of debates: Karl Popper format, British Parliamentary format,
Australasian Format, World Schools format, etc.
People debate for a number of reasons: to convince other people that his/her opinion is better,
to listen to what other people think of an issue, to find which solution is the best for a
problem, etc. Since competitive debating aims to convince judges that a team’s argument is
superior, it gives opportunities to use analytical-critical thinking and public speaking skills to
the fullest, skills which are very useful in everyday life.
But remember, debating is not a discussion. After each debate there is no compromised result
as in a discussion. The point of having a debate is to speak out and listen to different
kinds of opinions and at the end respecting those differences.
So, competitive debating is debating using a format. What format does Indonesians
use? How does it work?
The Indonesian Schools Debating Championships uses the World Schools format. This
format work as follows:
1. There are 2 teams debating, each consists of 3 (three) debaters who would be 1 st, 2nd
and 3rd speakers of the team.
1st Aff 1st Neg 2nd Aff 2nd Neg 3rd Aff 3rd Neg Reply Neg Reply Aff
AFFIRMATIVE TEAM NEGATIVE TEAM
1st speaker 1st speaker
(8 min) (8 min)
MOTION
Motions, also known as topics, are full propositional statements that determine what a debate
shall be about. In the debate, the Government/Affirmative team must argue to defend the
motion while the Opposition/Negative team must argue to oppose it.
There are some types of motion that mostly use in debating. There are open and closed
motions, philosophical and proposal motion There are some examples of motions used in
various international and national debate tournaments:
- This House Believes That religious lesson should not be taught in school
- This House Believes That gambling of all forms should be made illegal
- This House Believes That politicians should only be allowed to serve in office for a
DEFINITION
For a debate to proceed, both teams need a clear understanding of what the motion means.
This requires the motion to be ‘defined’ so that everyone (audience and judges included)
knows what is being debated. Problems arise if the two teams present different
understandings of the meaning of the motion. This can result in a ‘definitional debate’, where
the focus of the debate becomes the meaning of the words in the motion, rather than the
motion itself. Interaction and clash between the two teams become concentrated on whose
definition is correct, rather than the issues raised by the motion. Definition debates should be
avoided wherever possible. They make a mockery of what debating seeks to achieve.
ARGUMENTS
After agreeing with a definition, both the Government/Affirmative and the
Opposition/Negative team should give arguments on why they support or disapprove with the
topic. Arguments explain why a point of view should be accepted. Good arguments are
logical and relevant to the point being proven. They should also comprise of:
1. Assertion – the statement which should be proved
2. Reasoning – the reason why that statement is logical
3. Evidence – examples/data that support the assertion and reasoning above
4. Link Back – the explanation of the relevance of this argument to the motion
Given the duration of the debate, it is best to have 2 to 4 arguments to support your point of
view. These arguments should be divided between the 1 st and the 2nd speaker. So, some
arguments are explained by the 1st speaker and the rest are explained by the 2nd speaker. This
division is called a team split.
Each of these arguments should stand on their own. This means that each of the arguments
should be able to answer the definition with a “… because…” statement.
Having more than one argument means that teams should make sure that their arguments are
consistent or do not contradict each other. Contradiction and inconsistency makes a team’s
performance seem poor because it shows as if they’re not agreeing the points among
themselves. It is good to have a main idea that connects or becomes the foundation of the
arguments. This is one way of ensuring arguments don’t contradict with one another. This
main idea is usually named as a team line/theme line in a debate.
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REBUTTALS
Rebuttals are responses towards the other team’s arguments. Rebuttals should prove that
the other team’s arguments are not as important as they claim to be. As with arguments, mere
accusations do not equal good rebuttals. It is not enough to say that the other team’s
arguments are inferior, good rebuttals should also explain the reasoning and evidence of why
those arguments are inferior.
Rebuttals are responses towards the other team’s arguments. Rebuttals should
not only claim that those arguments are inferior, but rebuttals should also explain
why they are inferior and back it up with evidence. Rebuttals should prioritize
strong and important arguments.
Given limited time in a debate, it is not necessary for a team to rebut every single point and
fact raised by the other team. Better single out the opposing team’s main arguments and
attack those first. Teams should prioritize rebutting strong and important points first and leave
the weak ones for last priority.
In order to offer a POI, a person must stand up, hold out his/her hand and say “On that point,
Sir/Ma'am” or “On that point of information”. POI should be offered politely, not used to
hackle the speaker. When offered a POI, the speaker having the floor has full authority to
either reject or accept the POI. If a person is rejected a POI, he/she should sit down again.
POI should be brief and expressed as a question so that the speaker is required to provide an
answer. Once accepted, the person offering POI has at most 15 seconds to deliver the POI.
The speaker then must answer or respond to that POI right after it is given and not wait until
later in his/her speech. It is advisable that the speaker does not answer a POI more than 30
seconds as it would make him/her lose track of his/her speech.
POI should be offered regularly and through out the course of the debate. Offering POI shows
that they understand the issues being discussed during the debate.
It is advisable to accept around 2 POI in a speech, and accept them between points of
arguments/rebuttals. Not accepting POI at all (especially when they are often offered) would
Yup, for all questions. Oh, and one more thing: the word “CASE” would often be heard in a
debate. A “CASE” refers to the whole package of a team’s arguments. Imagine a debate to be
a physical battle. Then the definition would be the battlefield that both sides have chosen. The
CASE would be the fort that each team builds using arguments as bricks. The rebuttals would
be the weapons that they use to attack the other side. To make you understand more about
“CASE”, let us take a look at the Case Anatomy in the next page:
Motion
Clear and Logic
Definition
Answer Why?
Team Line
Argument
Argument
Team Split
Argument
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Argument
Rebuttals
POI
The arrows indicate each link from the motion to definition, definition to your team line, and
how your arguments, rebuttals, and POI must be consistent with your case foundation.
But there are 3 speakers in each team. Does each speaker have the same job? If
not, what are the jobs of each speaker?
No, every speaker in a team has different jobs to fulfill. Here is the brief outline of the jobs or
roles of each speaker:
The first speakers lay the foundation of the debate battlefield and The 1 st
Opposition has to lay negations.
The second speakers attack the other side while continuing to build the case.
The third speakers’ main duty is to attack/rebut the opponent’s case.
The reply speakers sum up the debate.
Novice debaters often think that if a motion contains terms which meanings are
commonsensical, they don’t need to define the motion. But actually, every motion can be
subjected to multiple interpretations. Thus, there is a big risk of a parallel debate – one where
arguments from opposite teams don’t clash each other – or a definitional challenge (more on
this next) as the result of a negative team having a different interpretation of the motion.
Example:
THB in Pertamina.
Everybody knows that Pertamina is a company owned by government which deals with the
supply of fuel. But what does believing in Pertamina means? It could mean stopping the
It may seem unfair for the affirmative team to have such burden, but actually it’s also a big
advantage for them. Practically, with a definition, as long as it is still debatable, one can
construct a parameter (‘room of the debate’) to benefit his/her team or to disadvantage the
other. Example:
TH prefers censorship over rating.
Rather than generalizing censorship over rating for all kinds of media, the
affirmative team may want to limit the debate to television only, because they can
argue that nobody could control viewing activity, including children’s choices of TV
programs.
However, if the motion says otherwise – TH prefers rating over censorship –
the affirmative team may want to constraint the parameter to movies only, because
they can argue that theaters could confirm people’s IDs to make sure whether they’re
age-appropriate to watch the movie.
If the Opposition is unhappy with the Proposition’s definition, it has several options:
(i) Accept and Debate
The first option is to accept it anyway. If the Proposition’s definition leads in
to the expected issue and allows the Opposition to put forward the arguments
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and examples it was intending, there is no point to arguing over the precise
words the Proposition has used.
(ii) Challenge
The second option is to challenge the Proposition definition, arguing it is
unreasonable. Further discussion will be explained in particular chapter below.
(iii) Broaden
The third option is neither outright acceptance nor outright rejection, but
instead to supplement the definition. The Proposition’s definition may have
omitted to define a word in the motion that the Opposition considers pivotal.
In this case, the Opposition can offer a definition of this word, so long as it
meets the standards of reasonableness outlined above.
(iv) ‘Even-if’
The fourth option is to both reject and accept the definition. It involves:
a. Rejecting the Proposition definition as unreasonable and
explaining why;
b. Putting up an alternative (and reasonable) definition,
then proceeding to advance arguments and examples based on
this;
c. Rather than ignoring the Proposition’s arguments and
examples on the basis they derive from an unreasonable
definition, arguing that ‘even-if’ the Proposition’s definition
was reasonable, its arguments and examples do not prove what
is alleged.
DEFINITIONAL CHALLENGE
A negative team can offer a definitional challenge if the affirmative team proposed an unfair
definition. Means, they have to try to change the definition. The easiest way to do it would be
to follow these simple steps:
1. The 1st negative speaker should immediately point that the definition brought by the
affirmative team is invalid, unfair, or not debatable.
2. Explain why it is invalid, unfair, or not debatable, by choosing the most suitable
explanation out of four unfair definitions in the previous section.
3. Provide the correct definition.
4. Offer ‘even-if’ rebuttals. Even though you believe that your opponent’s case is not
valid because it was built on an unfair definition, you still have to negate it to preserve
the dynamic of the debate. This is due to the fact that even though a team set an
unreasonable definition, their arguments may still have elements of logic. So, opposition
However, even if the affirmative brought an unfair/invalid definition, the negative team
would not be lost automatically if they didn’t recognize it or were too scared to do it. But as
the consequence, the debate would be a low-scoring debate. It is entirely up to the negative
team to do it or not, but given the huge chance of winning big, the risk could be worthy to
take.
ARGUMENTS
A. About Arguments
Arguments are reasons why you support or not support a certain motion. It is a
fundamental part of debates. The clashes between arguments brought by both sides of the
house will be weighed by the adjudicators at the end of the round to determine which
team wins. Therefore, your arguments need to be convincing.
Convincing people does not mean delivering the argument with perfect public speaking
skills – though it does help raising a certain speaker’s mark. Rather, the most important
thing is to prove your claims with logical explanation and examples.
Thus, arguments are delivered in the structure of AREL, which stands for:
Assertion : state your claim. Your statement
of why you support/oppose the motion.
Example 1:
The motion is about beauty pageants. You are the negative team. One of your
arguments says that Miss Universe kind of contests should be opposed because it
degrades woman. Your speech should be more-or-less delivered in this manner:
A : Miss Universe contest degrades women.
R : because it puts a woman in a position as
an object and to be valued based on their appearance.
Furthermore, the contest is aimed to be a commercial business,
thus the contestants are positioned to be a commodity.
E : The adjudication process are 80% based
on “beauty skill” while the “brain” session is only additional and
the questions can be answered by elementary school students,
like “what will you do if you are a president?” While during the
contest season, the event organizer open up many gamble sites to
bet on who is going to win and gain more than 2 billions US$
dollar in 2006 only.
L : So, because it becomes an arena of
women objectification as well as a business commodity, the
contest degrades women.
Example 2:
The motion is about quota for women in the parliament. You are the negative team.
You want to say that quota would only strengthen the paradigm in society that women
B. Types of arguments
There are many types of arguments to fulfill different purposes, such as:
1. Justification Arguments are arguments where we put certain assertions or
goals to the test of principles in judgmental manner. This requires knowledge on
principles related to the motion as well as its origin for better understanding and
delivery.
Example:
a. Rights to live is a right which no one may limit
b. Individual rights to the extent of privacy may be
breached for
collective rights of security
4. Hybrid Arguments, as the term implies, are hybrids of the previous types of
arguments – two, or maybe even three of them. Therefore, one argument doesn’t
always fall under only one criterion as mentioned above. Thus an argument could
have two or even three ways of analysis.
Example:
a. US method on terrorism hunt violates human rights
(principle),
thus it decreases international respect and cooperation
(implication) while international cooperation is necessary to hunt
terrorists who are multinational (effectiveness).
b. Subsidy helps alleviate poverty (effectiveness) which is
government responsibility (justification).
A. About Rebuttals
Rebuttals are responses towards the other team’s arguments. Rebuttals should prove that
the other team’s arguments are not as important as they claim to be.
As with arguments, mere accusations do not equal good rebuttals. It is not enough to say
that the other team’s arguments are inferior, good rebuttals should also explain the
reasoning and evidence of why those arguments are inferior. Therefore, AREL also plays
an important part in constructing and delivering rebuttals.
B. Types of Rebuttals
In terms of purpose, there are two types of responses:
Offensive: It attacks the other team’s argument
Defensive: it attacks the other team’s rebuttals towards your arguments
For some people, the term rebuttal only refers to offensive responses, while defensive
responses are referred to by the term refutations.
There are several reasons commonly used as the basis of offensive responses. They are,
but not limited to:
1. Irrelevant to the point being proven
Example:
Claim : Prostitution should be banned because prostitution creates
more porn sites in the Internet.
Rebuttal : The number of porn sites in the Internet has nothing to do
with whether prostitution is legalized or not. Fact is, porn
sites could be accessed in many countries, apart from whether
it legalizes prostitution or not.
2. Illogical
Example:
A. Introduction
This is an alternate method of analysis, to hopefully explain what an analysis should be
like. In the method of AREL which you all know, basically this is an expansion of the R
(reasoning).
Before advancing to the steps and examples of the methods, I must warn you that the
explanations may seem hard and complicated to apprehend, especially because they are
broken down to many points. But it is necessary to break the process down in order to
make clear the flow of analysis. When you are a bit more experienced, you should be able
to deliver them with various ways of explanations, but the essences and the elements
should still apply the same.
B. The Method
To its best interest, it will be divided in steps.
1. Fragmenting Arguments
Go back to the basic AREL concept, and highlight the Assertion part. This is what we
will fragment. An argument always has a pattern of A is B. Or at least, could be made
so.
Example:
Corruptors deserve death penalty. It could be patterned as
Corruptors are among criminals who deserve death penalty.
A B
(Remember that ‘are’ is also an ‘is’ but in a non singular form)
We shall separate the A and the B. We will find out that A is a subject, or the source of
controversy within the sentence, and B is a long predicate without a subject, which serves
4. Argument Conclusion
Now this is where you conclude why A fulfills the SoT. So then you remind everyone
of the ‘agreement’, and how you have fulfilled the agreement. The ideas are:
a. We have all agreed to the Standard of Truth
b. I have shown you how my argument works accordingly with the
Standard of Truth we have agreed upon.
c. So as consequence, we must all agree to my arguments.
Example 1
Governments have rights to take lives.
C. Matters of Delivery
This is an issue which is equally important. Remember that an adjudicator can’t “sleep
with one eye aware”. What I mean, is that they can’t always be aware of what we say, like
every single word. So, emphasis and style must be really paid attention upon. This is
probably a little tip on how to do it.
When you are explaining your SoT, change your speech style for the moment, as if you
were asking for everyone’s agreement. Just as convincing as how a magician would be
when he tries to convince people that his hat is empty.
Be more interactive in a demanding way towards the audience, as if you are expecting
them to answer (of course they won’t). And make it as if you are saying “This is the SoT,
and it’s a common agreement, right? And if an argument does not go along with this
SoT, it means that it is wrong, right?” as if they would respond.
To say “isn’t it?” or “doesn’t it?” for example, don’t forget to emphasize on the right
moment. Do not start on low tone and ascend. Make sure you pause a for a split second,
then nod your head convincingly as you put a push on the syllable “is-” or “doe-“ before
you continue the rest descending in tone. Hand gestures are also important. An indicator
Then after you finish explaining your SoT, you may revert to normal mode. And when
you go to step 4: Conclusion, change your speech style again with that interactive-
demanding style. As if saying “Everyone, we agreed already about something before,
right? And hey, look at my argument! Doesn’t it fit the agreement we made earlier? I
told you I would be right, right?”
And don’t forget to put the last sentence of your conclusions (as given in the conclusion
examples) which is naturally slower than any other parts of your explanation, and within
elegant finality.
Example 1
Thus [split pause] we can agree that it is true [split pause] that governments [split
pause] have rights [split pause] to take lives.”
Example 2
“Thus it is only but the truth [split pause] to proclaim that privatization indeed [split
pause] is harm [split pause] towards society economical welfare.
Bolded means that you give an extra push on it, and spell them out word per word instead
of flowing in one sentence.
It is very important for you not to talk monotonously and/or too fast. Make sure you know
when to pause and how long to make bombastic effects on certain phrases.
Imagine the magician thing before, or imagine how you would explain to your mom why
you need new shoes: “You want me to do my best in the football match, right? And of
course you know that playing with my toes popping out the shoe front would not help me
perform my best, right?”
This is why I say one of the purposes of this method is to sway an adjudicator’s mind.
E. Sequence of Logic
Most of the times, the SoT can’t work by itself as a method of analysis. There are times
where we can’t justify our assertions just by borrowing universal, well-known principles
and connecting it to our arguments and context. Sometimes, we have to justify the
standard of truth brought as our basic premise.
Here’s when the sequence of logics come into play. We construct arguments within
arguments – or we can call it prerequisite logics – to help our standard of truth
establishing itself as a proper base for justifying our assertions.
It means we have to find the premises after we decide what the conclusion is. And because
every debater assumes that their assertion (conclusion) is true, they have to make sure that the
premises are also true.
Note also that although evidence, as well as examples, is a substantial part of the argument, it
is NOT to be mistaken as a part of the reasoning. The purpose of giving evidence is to
strengthen your reasoning. That’s why it’s not included in the chart because it’s not main part
of the logic.
… (1st Premise)
… (2nd Premise)
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… (next Premises)
Conclusion
Therefore, because … (summary of
premises), we believe in …
(assertion).
To help do this, make a sequence of logic from what you have in starting concept as 1st
premise, then what you want to prove as conclusion. And later on you will fill the gaps with
any information necessary to the result in the output.
a. Decide 1st premise and the conclusion
The conclusion should be not much different or even the same as the argument’s
assertion, since that’s what you seek to prove. The 1 st premise is the main
reasoning – possibly the primary SoT.
1st Premise
Governments may take certain
rights
………
Conclusion
Governments may take lives
The blank part between the two is not to be filled with just one supportive premise
or two, but a long chain of them.
1st Premise
rd
3 Premise
People
Governments may gave
take government
certain rightsthis power to give them welfare
2nd Premise
Because they have the authority to regulate and distribute rights
4th Premise
People give power through social contract, which is the society collectively submit some part of their rights to the government, hence giving the
5th Premise
Thus society right-taking and distribution is for the sake of welfare
6th Premise
Society rights of welfare include rights for sense of justice (this is a very
specific pointing out from such a general understanding of welfare. It is
because the motion will obviously suggest death penalty, seeing the
argument. Talks about punishment is talks about justice)
7th Premise
Sense of Justice is where deeds are repaid accordingly.
Good given praise, and evil given punishment.
8th Premise
Punishment is to take away as much as what has been taken.
Lesser evil deserves lesser punishment also. It is proportional.
10th Premise
The greatest thing which could be taken away from an
individual is life, hence the only just retribution for such crime.
11th Premise
Thus there are cases where to achieve sense of justice,
lives have to be taken
13th Premise
If sense of justice is a part of welfare, then there are
cases where to achieve welfare lives must be taken
Conclusion
And if the government’s power to take rights is
governed by the responsibility to achieve welfare,
sometimes lives must be taken (assertion).
As we can see, we may have emerged certain issues that simple Standard of Truth
does not yet highlight.
The example above may not be perfect. But it is close. The methodology ensures better
attention to missing logical-links while case building. So that then, you can classify them in
accord with the Standard of Truth methodology.
Also, all these instructions about the Standard of Truth may seem very complicated and
overwhelming. But actually, it only looks like that because the arguments are presented in
written form. When spoken, an argument only spends no more than 3 minutes.
When your opponent's substantive speaker is speaking in front, has passed his/her 1st minute
and has not entered his/her last minute, you may interrupt their speech. These interruptions
are called Points of Information (POI), and last at the maximum length of 15 seconds.
It is the privilege of the speaker in front, however, to accept or refuse POIs. And POIs may
only be given to opponents.
The manner of which to deliver POIs is explained in more details in the section on Manner.
They have to be as concise as possible, because you have only 15 seconds, and it’s best to be
in a form of question.
Offer as much as you can to show your activeness, but not too much that it disturbs the
debate.
For the speaker in front, try accepting POIs on the right time and right amount. You do not
want people to interrupt in the middle of a sentence or an explanation that it disturbs you, so
And you do not want to be bothered by too many POIs, so try to accept just a reasonable
amount. Two is the generally acceptable amount. But accepting three is also okay if you think
you can handle it and not disturb your speech too much.
You must answer immediately and effectively, to show your mastery of your speech. And
don’t forget to look cool.
There is no single precise rule as how to handle POIs the best. But the following tips may
give basic strategic – not substantial – guidance for offering or answering POIs.
Tip #1:
If you seriously don’t understand the POI given by your opponent – like it seems as if they’re
speaking in alien language – admit it and apologize but then just continue your speech. Do
not ask them to repeat the point.
Example:
"I am sorry, but I seriously don’t understand that point. Let’s continue."
Tip #2:
Desperado way out. If the opponent asks you something you seriously can’t answer, stay cool
and confident. This is not recommended, but when you are at a corner, well, by all means.
Pretend you misunderstood. Pick a word from that POI which you can comprehend most,
then just say anything related to that word.
Example:
POI:
"But why are you proposing such thing in this age of postmodernist view of governance
and society?"
If you don’t know heck about postmodernism, just respond,
"Well, the idea of this proposal is to achieve... (re-explain your goal, forgetting the
'postmodernism' part)."
Tip #4:
For POI givers, due to Tip #3, you must be careful in picking your words and only use what
is necessary, or else the speaker might use it to their advantage.
Example:
Intended POI:
"I beg to differ. What you are proposing is considering that lives are expendable and
cheap!"
Fact POI:
"I beg to differ, ..."
Cut by speaker:
"Thank you, of course you should differ, it’s your job as my opponent (and continues
speech)."
You just lost a chance for a POI. While, by tens of offers from your whole team, only 2-3 will
be accepted. Might as well just go straight to:
“What you are proposing is considering that lives are expendable and cheap!"
DEBATE
The aim of this chapter is to equip you with basic necessary information from which you can
then work your case. Starting from contextualization, setting up, and building arguments.
There are steps you need to take:
I. MOTION UNDERSTANDING
When you see a motion, the first thing you’ll need to do is identifying the important key
words. This has already been explained in the chapter on Definitions. After identifying the
keywords, find all the information necessary related to these keywords which would then
reveal the issues revolving around them. This will help you get a better understanding of what
the motion demands.
Example: THW Conduct Humanitarian Intervention to Zimbabwe
Keywords are “Humanitarian Intervention” and “Zimbabwe”. Now you know that
you need to find out what is going on in Zimbabwe, and what does it have to do with
Humanitarian issues. Or something like “what is ‘humanitarian intervention’?”. Then
more actors will appear such as UN Security Council and P-5 countries etc etc.
II.RESEARCH ON ISSUE
After you have identified these things to look up, its time to find out what is going on around
the topic. This is when you need to start finding reliable search engines and websites that can
provide information for you.
Google, wikipedia, BBC, New York Times, publicagenda.com, debatabase.org,
guardian.com, the economist.com, there are plenty of sites very useful in the internet from
which you can dig. Books also help. Each topic would have their own recommended must-
read list. It is important however for you to put in the right key words in the search engine.
Every motion on every debate will then lead to a clash of basic principle, at least one but
mostly entangling many. These basic principles will be contested upon each other, or
arguments will compete to best fulfill better the same principle.
Thus it is very important to know the most commonly used principles in debating. Below are
some most used principles and a brief description of it. Remember that these are not the only
principles that might be used, those mentioned here are only explained briefly. Thus it is at
the utmost essence for you to research deeper on these principles.
Human Rights
Wikipedia defines it as “basic rights and freedoms to which all humans are entitled”.
Problems appear when rights clash each other to an extent that the legal protection of
one would sacrifice another. Many controversies lie on to what extent we compromise
rights, most commonly rights to live on death penalty debates or when rights to live
are conflicting with bodily autonomous rights in cases of abortion. Other conflicts lie
on the contention between individual rights and collective rights, like what would
usually happen in terrorism related debates.
Human rights is very commonly used in a debate as a universal standard from which
both teams must try to fulfill by either comparing rights or fighting for win-win
solutions, in a very wide array of topic possibilities. Thus one must master the types
of human rights, background from which these rights were given in the first place, and
background of society norms as well as today’s context. Holding a copy of the
International Declaration of Human Rights would really help.
See also : harm principle, utilitarianism
Discrimination
The standard of right and wrong from the society are formed by many elements.
Religion, customs, and morality. These social constructions form values which are
highly diverse, but become standard of society judgment.
The understanding of social perspective construction is very essential in debates
which involve culture, discrimination, and any policy making which is lack in
popularity.
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DEBATE GUIDELINE by Jogja Debating Forum Page 40
DEBATE GUIDELINE by Jogja Debating Forum Page 40
Debates usually happen because of contrasts in the diversity of values in the society,
but the government must act strict on it and pick which value to uphold better.
Debates about anti pornography bill or establishment of gambling sites are examples
of this kind.
Trias Politica
Making laws is the background of many motions, thus its nature must be well
understood in order not to naively perceive it. Find out the background and
implication of clashes between the law functions: manifestation of society interest
versus tool of social engineering, and different complementary and sometimes
clashing forms of law: written legislative law versus unwritten custom and indigenous
laws. Principles of legality and justice don’t always go in hand either, thus makes a
disparity between law in books and law in action. It is equally interesting to see why
and how then two major law systems: Continental and Anglo Saxon interpret some
key points differently.
Committing crime is not as simple as going against the law, but also must has an
element of fault. Going against the law would not be punished upon if fault is proven
inexistent. Two things that cancel out fault are reasons to justify: it is against the law
for a random guy to cut up another, but for a surgeon it is okay to do so to performing
a surgery; and reasons to forgive: murder but by a total schizophrenic person, which
will not be punished but taken away from the society. There are many philosophies
behind the fault concept, and why there are exceptions.
Debates regarding law, justice, and punishment highly appreciate theories on society
sense of justice, crime and evil, and how it is perceived and fulfilled. And furthermore
International Law
It is commonly mistaken with nation law, where a government has sovereign power
over the governed. Subjects of International law have their own sovereignty, thus have
equal positions before the law. Thus it is treaty-based and jurisdiction is determined
by ratification of these treaties. International customs, however, also exist. Examples
of it would be the principle of ergo ormes.
Then the debates would usually involve international issues under the platform of
International Organizations. Important organizations which are important to
understand its natures, origins, functions, jurisdictions, charters and statutes, current
and past hot issues, would be but not limited to: United Nations, United Nations
Security Council, International Criminal Court, World Trade Organization, World
Bank, International Monetary Funds, European and African Union, ASEAN, etc.
Other things that are equally important to search would be results of Geneva and
Vienna Convention, ICCPR, GATT, GATTS, Kyoto Protocol and other results of
UNFCCC.
Many debates about international law are about humanitarian issues. They try to
justify intervention, and/or find the best way to resolve conflicts or other issues.
see also: diplomatic immunities, humanitarian interventions, peace keeping troops,
extraordinary rendition
The most basic things one would need to understand about economy would be about
public goods, demand-supply-price theories, and ‘unlimited need’ versus ‘limited
supply’.
This would then create a market mechanism within the society, or between many
societies. Price, supply and many other things are formed by itself. But then for
certain interests, the Government steps in and controls a few elements. Then comes
An interesting dilemma is befalling the world. Many countries with high education
and welfare rate have close to zero or even minus population growth, and countries
with the contrary instead have very high population growth.
Migration is a phenomenon that has happened since quite a while ago. Many
countries, especially the advanced ones, are complaining about the large influx of
legal and illegal migrants to their countries and their social implications. There are
many motives of these migrations: seek for better welfare, or seek for refuge.
Debates usually are about population control mechanisms, domestic economy
especially labor policies, immigration policies, which are highly related to economy
and human rights aspects.
The same disparity in countries’ economy which becomes the background of
migration also causes other phenomena’s. Outsourcing becomes quite a problem
which is also a clash between economy principles and human rights. One must find
out why outsourcing and all that comes with it happens, also the conflict of interests,
and reasons of judgment from both pros and cons towards it.
See also : cultural assimilation, salad bowl society, zero-growth population
Patents
Patents are protections towards intellectual properties, so that reproduction and sales
must profit the inventor. It represents ownership and gratitude towards these
inventors.
Environment
The greatest issue of environment today is global warming, thus knowing what it is
and its causes is highly essential. The general problem is that the cause for Global
Warming is apparently something that humans need. Emission is an excess of
production.
Debates about environment and global warming would not go far from Kyoto
protocol, REDD and other UNFCC results, green tax, emission trade, debt-for-nature
swap, etc. They would all argue upon a cost and benefit analysis, towards what is the
best solution –maybe not to stop, but- to help solve global warming.
Other issues regarding environment would include Eco-Terrorism: conflict between
human rights violations and environmental urgencies, animal rights and preservation,
Genetically Modified Products, and many more.
See also : tragedy of the common, carbon offset,
Still highly relevant to the issue of Environment, an energy crisis is befalling the
world. Facts remain plain that we need energy, but the resource we rely on today has
many flaws: not renewable, pollution, high fluctuation in price, but yet it’s the most
effective we have today: fossil fuel.
Scientific debates still happen on whether or not fossil fuel is limited. But most
debates in competitions will argue about alternative energies, which include but not
limited to: biofuel, Coal Bed Methane, and of course nuclear. It is very important to
know the nature, effectiveness and efficiency as well as cost of these resources. Other
Education
Health
After having an issue and identifying principles involved for the motion, case building will be
much easier. You may employ the information you gain to identify the issues or problems
generating the debate. From your research you also can prioritize which issues come primary
and which issues are just less crucial to be discussed. Once you decide the problems/ issues
you can develop the case by producing arguments. The layers of arguments can be enriched
by the inclusion of principles you have read before from your research materials. The same
system can also be employed when you are preparing your negation. Last but not least, you
can add facts and statistics to complete your arguments and claims. Regarding the use of
facts, you must bear in mind that the facts you use should be the most relevant one. You have
to also ensure that the sources of the facts are credible enough. This is important to prevent
you from delivering erroneous fact during your speech.
You will find that a good bit of your club time will be taken up by researching and compiling
notes on topics for upcoming tournaments or club debates. Students can work on topics in
CONTEXTUALIZATION
What is contextualization?
It is basically the way your team set in what sphere or in what issue the case will be debated.
The intensity of contextualization usually depends on the type of the motion. When it is
closed motion, team would not have to work hard to contextualize the motion as the motion
explains it by itself. But the case is quite different when it comes to open motions. As the
motions tend to be general, the affirmative’s main role is to set the debate by contextualize
the floor of the debate first. There are some steps to contextualize the debate:
1. Identify the problems inflicted by the motion, you can ask this basic question: why are we
having the debate?
2. Explain what causes the problems
3. create your goal; what your team wants to achieve regarding the motion.
4. Set the stance : how you’re going to achieve the goal. This will include a model for you to
propose.
STANCE OF NEGATIVE TEAM:
Problem doesn’t exist
In most debates, this isn’t a good response, as debates usually occur when
there are problems to be solved.
Different cause
Argues that the problem has been identified correctly, however, the cause
behind it is not what the affirmative has identified.
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DEBATE GUIDELINE by Jogja Debating Forum Page 48
DEBATE GUIDELINE by Jogja Debating Forum Page 48
Usually entails that the solution won’t solve the problem.
Argues that the problem and cause have been identified correctly, however, the
affirmative’s solution will not lead to the goal.
Both teams have a common goal, but different ways to achieve it.
Argues that the problem and cause have been identified correctly, however, the
affirmative’s solution will lead to other harms, either directly or indirectly.
Both teams have a common goal, but different ways to achieve it.
Better solution
Better solution
MODEL
What is a model?
Instead of just arguing that a certain idea is good, the team set up a particular
system that they support for reasons that are linked to various parts of the model.
Purpose of a model
‘Hard’ or ‘soft’ refers to the change to the status quo – a soft line changes the
status quo very little, whilst a hard line changes it a lot more.
Hard lines are, in general, better and easier to run than soft lines.
CASE STUDY
“THW introduce compulsory military service”
◦ Soft line: 3 months, 20% lottery for those aged 18, exceptions for
conscientious objectors
◦ Hard line: 2 years, aged 18-30, exceptions only if medically unfit, jail
for objectors
◦ Insane lines
Building a model :
◦ Steal an existing model.
Opposition Options
Option A
• Stance: It is a problem which needs fixing indeed. But this loan system is a
wrong solution. It brings more harm than good.
• Maybe you can add an alternative proposal if you think is better. Then claim
that the core of the problem is not the need of more capital, but something else which
will be included in your proposal
Option B
• Stance: These bankruptcies are not a problem. It is just natural, and is within
the natural selection to create better economy. Thus for a better economy, we want to
stick to the status quo and let it be.
Note:
1st Governments must master this, and try best to use max 30% of time to
explain this. Practice makes perfect.
SPEAKER‘S ROLE
Principally debate is a team-competition in which three speakers constitute a team and share
different roles to achieve the team’s goal: winning the battle. Hence, it is essential to
comprehend the role of each speaker as one’ substantive speech will determine the run and
the result of the debate. As an initial briefing, it is important to note that the simplest role of
each speaker is required to move forward to face the audience, recognise the Chairman and
then address the audience - speakers should avoid addressing the presentation to the opposing
team, it is the audience and adjudicators that they should be seeking to persuade.
2. First Opposition
A. State the stance of the team as the construction of negation toward
government’ stance.
B. Rebut any major points put up by the leader of the Government which can be
effectively countered. (Note: Rebuttals should NOT take more than 3 minutes)
C. Outline the team’s structure; indicate the team’s stance, basic theme (theme
line) of the team’s case, and the aspects to be dealt with by each speaker (team
split)
D. Deliver substantial Arguments; if the debate is a Proposal Debate, then it is
necessary for Opposition teams to bring a counter-proposal. After the mechanism
has been thoroughly explained, deliver arguments relevant to the nature of first
speakers, which are Philosophical Arguments.
E. Summarise.
Definitional Challenge:
In a perfect world, this section would not be necessary – both teams would agree on the same
definition, so there would be no need for definitional rebuttal. In fact, not even a perfect
world would be necessary – most definitional disputes would be avoided if both teams had
chosen an appropriate and even-handed definition.
However, avoidable or not, definitional disputes do happen. What’s more, when they happen,
your adjudicator will expect you to follow a relatively standard approach in dealing with the
situation. Of all the aspects of debate, this is one of the driest; however, it is also one of the
most technically demanding.
2. Second Government
A. Defend the Government’s definition; explain WHY your team’s definition is
perfectly reasonable
B. Rebut the opposition’s definition; explain WHY their definition is incorrect
C. Give the Even-If Rebuttals towards the opposition’s case
D. Deliver the Extensions
E. Summarise
3. Second Opposition
A. Defend the Opposition’s definition; explain WHY your team’s definition is
perfectly reasonable
B. Restate WHY the opposition’s definition is incorrect
C. Give the Even-If Rebuttals towards the opposition’s case
D. Deliver the Extensions
E. Summarise
STYLE
Your style should be able to convince and persuade the judges that your arguments are
better than the other side. In order to do this it is best to:
1. Use eye contact
Remember that when you debate, you should face the judges and not your opponents, as
the judges are the ones you want to convince. You should also bear in mind when it comes
a case of panel adjudicators, you should make sure that you use your eye contact equally
to each of them. Do not also look at your notes all the time. Avoiding eye contact would
make you seem as if you don’t want to connect with the audience or the judges. Eye
contact makes you look confident and that is your initial path to win persuasion.
Tips 1: for those who don’t feel comfortable looking at another person’s eyes, try looking
at their forehead. This makes you more at ease and the audience still feel that you’re
talking to them.
Tips 2 : If you are a type of speaker who can get intimidated easily by adjudicators, try to
look at the most friendly adjudicator to ease your confidence. If none of them is friendly,
don’t forget their forehead !
The use of humor is going to be judged accordingly. It is good to have jokes which will help
explain arguments, or little slapsticks just to cheer things up. But if it takes too much time
and not helping anything anyway, no matter how funny it is it will not contribute positive or
even it might contribute negatively to your speech.
If you are known not to be funny (not “not known to be funny”), maybe the wisest thing to do
is not to try. And a tip is that when you make a joke, say it fast and do not pause unless people
laugh. Because if you pause after the joke but before people laugh, the joke might not be
funny and the pause will only result in extreme awkwardness.
Different people have different styles and there are no absolute rules for style, except that:
1. the use of swear words is extremely prohibited
2. personal attacks or criticizing the person and not the arguments are also prohibited
(for example: “The fat stupid opponents don’t know what they’re talking about.”)
Violation of these two rules could get a debater heavy penalty or even zero in the score.
5. Be confident
Persuasiveness is a life and death matter in debate. It is actually the main goal of all the
fuss about the speech and the battle. But, this key element may be hard to achieve once
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DEBATE GUIDELINE by Jogja Debating Forum Page 60
DEBATE GUIDELINE by Jogja Debating Forum Page 60
you cannot ensure your confidence comes in place. Thus, to achieve the goal of persuading
judges, you have to make sure your confidence reflected in every single word you utter
even when you personally are unsure about the matter you present in the room. So, the
skill of designing or pretending to be confident must be embraced by each debater. This
may come easy for some individuals when they master the topic or the issues that they talk
about, but when it comes to cases when you don’t understand the argument, the skill of
designing confidence comes as a must. So if there is any uncertainty let it dies within you
and not to be shared.
7. Points of Information
Offering and accepting POIs generally should be in the best of manner, although some
competitions may be more flexible.
The general manner of which POIs should be offered should be at least as follows:
Standing up facing the speaker
Proper interruption words, such as “Excuse me, Maam/Sir” or
“Interruption please” etc
Wait silently until the speaker responds
Sit down immediately when speaker refuses
If accepted, go straight to the point and speak for a maximum
of 15 seconds, then sit down
If rejected, do not bounce up and down like a basket ball on
dribble. At least wait for 15 seconds after one POI offer to another.
HAPPY DEBATING
Keinesasih Hapsari Puteri or Inez had always had the tendency to start a quarrel with her
significant others due to the overly-critical nature of her way of thinking. That
only managed to loosen up when she joined the debating team of SMA 3
Yogyakarta, in which she had a mediocre career. However, as a Communication
Science student of Universitas Atma Jaya Yogyakarta, majoring in Media
Studies, she now has several titles up her sleeves, such as 2 nd Runner-Up of
Indonesian Varsities English Debate (IVED) 2007, 10th Best Speaker of IVED
2008, and Runner-Up of Java Overland Varsities English Debate (JOVED)
2008. She also adjudicated several local and national competitions, got “B” Grade
Adjudicator at IVED 2009 and “A” Grade adjudicator at JOVED 2009. She coached the Air
Force Academy’s debating team before she was put in charge of her alma mater high school’s
team, SMAN 3 Yogyakarta, until now. Inez is currently a member of JDF Advisory Council.
Widya Adi Nugroho is currently the president of EDS UII. In debating he has
travels to several national and international competitions. Several achievements
he got lately are winning ALSA Crushbone 2009, National economic debate
2008 and 2009 in Bandung (UNPAD) and Jogjakarta (UGM) stole best speaker
in both competition. Participating in WUDC Turkey 2010 and he also had
broken to several JOVED and IVED. 9th best speaker in IVED 2010, beside those he was the
champion of KOPERTIS NUEDC 2009. In adjudication world he is an A accredited for
Asian/Australs parliamentary and British one. He also adjudicate in GRAND FINAL ALSA
UI 2009, He was the DCA of NEO 2010. In mentoring worlds he was one of coach for
training for trainers conducted by DIKNAS for the entire state. He is now leading SMA 1
Kasihan Bantul and SMAN 7 Yogyakarta.