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.