How to debate World Schools Style by Pofela Ndzozi

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HOW TO DEBATE opposition

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World Schools Style strategy

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A Handbook for High Schoolaffirmative Debaters andadjudication Coaches in Zimbabwe rebuttal

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Micheal Mhlanga

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HOW TO DEBATE

Word Schools Style A handbook for High School debaters and coaches in Zimbabwe Micheal Mhlanga

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ZIMBABWE SPEAKING COMMUNITY Bulawayo

In compiling this handbook, I have drawn extensively on the old mega-manual of South African Schools Debating, the Ferret World Schools Debating Uber Manual by Richard Stupart, Simon Quinn’s Debating in the Worlds Schools IDEA manual, and Steven Johnson’s Winning Debates. I have also drawn from some video workshops given by Qatar Debate, Prof Alfred Snider, on the websites www.triviumpursuit.com, en.wikipedia.org, YouTube training modules I have posted and most importantly from the trainings, workshops and tournaments I have been prevy to take part in. I wish to express thanks to all of these sources.

How to debate World Schools Style: a handbook for high school debaters and Coaches in Zimbabwe / Micheal Mhlanga 2014

Design by Pofela Ndzozi Printed in Bulawayo

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Michael Mhlanga is a Bachelor of Arts Honors Degree in Language and Communication holder from Lupane State University. He is currently involved in High School and University Debate and Public Speaking coaching. In 2011 he was a double finalist in Debate and Public Speaking at the ZNDC, in 2012 his team broke first, was National individual best speaker, debate semi-finalist and public speaking finalist. He has attended Berlin worlds 2013 as a debate media trainee and volunteer. He has also partaken in organizing numerous tournaments. In 2014 he was the Deputy Chief Adjudicator at the Books Botswana Speaking Championship. He thinks debate, eats debate...he is debate

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Contents Introduction to the handbook.........................................................1 WHY DEBATE?........................................................................................2 What is debating? ................................................................................3 THE RULES...............................................................................................4 Definition ................................................................................................9 SPEAKER ROLES:.................................................................................13 MAKING ARGUMENTS.......................................................................24 ARGUING ON FIRST PRINCIPLES..................................................26 BREAKING ARGUMENTS..................................................................28 PREPARING FOR A DEBATE............................................................37 THREE TYPES OF MOTIONS...........................................................40 STYLE .......................................................................................................45 A Summary of it all..............................................................................47 CONCLUSION..........................................................................................53 STANDARD INTERNATIONAL SPEAKER BALLOT..................55 Notes ........ ................................................................................................56

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Introduction to the handbook Zimbabwe’s schools debating circuits’ growing debating culture is a progress worth applauding. To date, more leagues and competitions are being successfully organized and well attended. The circuit has also intensified its participation in regional and international tournaments where they have performed impressively. Among other notable benefits, this has led to even more robust speakers within the circuit, and hence more opportunities for debaters.

The standard for debating in the National Schools Debating Championships – and the various regional and provincial competitions that lead up to it – is the World Schools Style of debating. This style is simple to learn and participate in, but has great aspects to refine and master hence eliminating inconsistencies that mare most debaters in Zimbabwe. It’s exciting and dynamic, both for competitors and for the audience. This handbook is designed to be everything you will need to get started as a speaker in the World Schools Style, and take your first steps towards competing in the regional and provincial competitions for your area. It is broken into a series of neat sections: first it will get you up and running with the rules of the style, and then move on to show you the more advanced tricks of the trade – how to actually make the good arguments that will leave the other team speechless, tips for spotting errors in the other team’s case, how to command the audience’s attention, and many other things.

This manual was compiled by Micheal Mhlanga a member of the Zimbabwe Speaking Community, the national complementary coordinating body for schools and collegiate debating in Zimbabwe. For information and more debating resources, look us up on Facebook: Zimbabwe Schools Debating Column. Happy debating!

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WHY DEBATE?

Competition – If you’re competitive, then you’ll definitely enjoy debating. Every debate is a take-no-prisoners battle to the death between two teams who want victory.

Confidence and public speaking – Debating helps to build confidence, by getting you used to speaking in front of people. This is a useful skill for social situations, as well as for class and in the corporate world. It’s good for your school work and your future – If you can make a good debating speech, you can write a top-notch English or History essay. They use the same skills of critical thinking and research. Moreover, the skills you learn in debating will help you get into university and maybe even get a scholarship. Many of the top scholarships awarded in South Africa every year go to people who did debating in high school.

Great opportunities to meet people and travel – Debating competitions are a great place to meet interesting people from different backgrounds. Many of the friends you make through debating will stay with you for life. Even better, you can see the world while you make friends: if you get involved with debating you stand the chance of being selected for provincial and even national teams, which attend national and international competitions. In some provinces, even the provincial championship is an overnight event. Engage with hot global issues. The argumentative skills that debating teaches you will enable you to engage on the biggest issues facing us today: poverty, AIDS, terrorism, international trade laws… If you can think about these problems properly, you might be able to help save the world. And most of all…

3 DEBATE CLASS It’s fun! – Working with a team to make and defend your arguments, persuading the judges, and winning in front of an audience are all fun and exciting.

What is debating?

A debate is a contest in which two teams present reasons (or ‘arguments’) for and against a topic. One team is in favour of the topic and the other team is against it. Both teams try to persuade the audience and the judges that they are right. The point of debating, then, is to be as persuasive as you can be. The focus is not only on whether you are a good public speaker, but also on whether you can come up with interesting and powerful arguments, present them clearly, and make people believe what you’re saying. And because both teams are meant to have the chance to persuade the judges that they are right and their opposition is wrong, the debate is very interactive. Speakers are allowed to interrupt each other (using ‘Points of Information’ – more on this later) and tell the other team exactly why they are wrong. Just being able to argue well does not make you a good debater – just as being able to kick a ball will not make you a good soccer player. There are rules to debating, and you need to know them and abide by them in order to win a debate. The rules of World Schools Style are really quite easy once you get the hang of it, and change very little from competition to competition. (The only thing that might change is the length of speeches – everything else is the same.)

So, let’s have a look at the rules…

THE RULES

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The teams

There are two teams in a debate. One team is called the PROPOSITION, and it is their job to agree with the topic, and argue for it. The other team is called the OPPOSITION, and it is their job to disagree with the proposition (and the topic). Each team has three speakers on it, and each of them will have a very clearly defined role – more on that later.

The Motion

The topic for the debate is called the “motion”. Every motion starts with the words “this house”. That’s just a fancy way of saying “the proposition team”. It’s important to remember that you can’t have a debate about an issue, like “terrorism” or “global warming” – there must be something for each side to believe in or do, so they can actually prove something. So a motion might be “This house believes that we are losing the war on terror”, or “This house would force developing countries to do more to address global warming”.

The Speeches

After every team member from proposition and opposition has spoken once, one speaker from each team will give a short “reply speech”, which will let them summarise the major issues in the debate and close their team’s arguments. The third speaker cannot do the reply speech, because they won’t have time to sit down and write a reply speech after delivering their main speech. This means that either the first speaker or the second speaker must do the reply speech – you can choose.

The speeches are all done in a specific order, alternating from proposition to opposition. There is one little difference at the end of the

5 DEBATE CLASS debate though. The reply speeches happen the other way around from the rest of the debate. The opposition reply speech will happen immediately after the opposition third speaker speech, and the proposition reply speech will finish the debate. The order of the speeches will look like this: Proposition 1

Proposition 2

Opposition 1 Opposition 2

Proposition 3

Opposition 2

Proposition Reply

Opposition Reply

Points Of Information

Points of information (also known as POIs) are one of the most fun parts of debating. If you have ever debated before, you will know that there are times when you wish that you could tell the speaker just how wrong he/she is. Or throttle him. While you will never be allowed to strangle an irritating speaker, points of information allow you to interrupt his/her speech and challenge him/her on what he/ she is saying. To stop the debate becoming a shouting match between

6 DEBATE CLASS you and the speaker, there are a few rules about points of information that you will need to remember. First, and very important, you cannot just get up and start saying whatever is on your mind. It isn’t your speech after all – so you need to ask the permission of the person who is currently speaking. The way to do this is to stand up and say “Point of information” or “On that point” while holding out your hand, so that the speaker will notice that you have something to say. The speaker can then decide to listen to you, or he/she can choose to ignore your point. If he/she doesn’t want to hear what you have to say, he/she will say “No thank you” or tell you to sit down, or just ignore you. If this happens, you must sit down and offer your point some other time. If the speaker does want to listen to you, then he/she will say something like “Yes, what is it?” or “What is your point?” or often, just “Yes?” That means that you are allowed to start speaking. It is important to remember that you are using up the speaker’s time, so you must make your point quickly. If you take more than 15 seconds to make your point, the timekeeper will tell you to sit down, because you are wasting the speaker’s time. Try to think about what you want to say, so that if your point is accepted you will be able to say it quickly.

You can use a point of information to ask a question about what the speaker is saying (especially useful if you don’t really understand what he/she is saying), to tell the speaker why his argument is wrong, or to correct an important factual inaccuracy in his/her speech. Try not to offer POIs more often than every 15 seconds. If you offer too many points of information, the speaker will not be able to complete a sentence without telling you to sit down. This is unfair. If you offer too many points of information too close together, the adjudicator will tell you sit down for “badgering” or “barracking”.

If you are speaking, and you accept a point of information, you have to reply to what the person says to you. If they question something you are saying, you should answer their question, and if they are challenging something you said, you should explain to them why

7 DEBATE CLASS they are wrong. Points of information are designed to test whether you actually understand what you are saying, and whether you can think on your feet and respond to challenges. You cannot ignore what someone says to you in a point of information. A good tip is to accept POIs only when you think the person is going to ask you about something you understand and think you can answer. In a normal speech, you should accept two (2) points of information. Any less, and it looks like you are afraid to answer the other team’s questions. Any more, and you’ll be so busy answering their questions that you won’t have time to talk about what you wanted to talk about. Although two (2) is the ideal number, you might find yourself speaking in a debate where the other team only offers one (1) or two (2) points during your whole speech. If this happens, you won’t be penalised for accepting one (1) or none. But if you were offered lots of points, then there is no excuse for not accepting two (2)!

Finally, it is important to remember that you are not allowed to offer POIs in the first and last minute of a normal speech, and you are not allowed to offer POIs at all during the reply speeches. If you try it, you will be told that you are out of order and asked to sit down.

Timing

All of the speeches in the debate, except the reply speeches, are 8 minutes long. The reply speeches are four (4) minutes long. (This might be different in your local league – some provinces use seven or five (7/5) minutes with three (3) minutes for leaders reply, and all provinces have shorter times for junior speakers.) The main speeches are “protected” for the first and last minutes – which means that you cannot offer points of information in the first or last minute of a speech. This gives the speaker a chance to start and end their speech well, without interference. To let you know that the first minute of protected time is over (and that you are allowed to offer points of information), the timekeeper will bang on the table

8 DEBATE CLASS once. You can offer as many points of information as you like until one (1) minute before the end of the speech, when the timekeeper will bang again on the table. Once the full eight (8) minutes are up, the timekeeper will bang twice on the table to tell the speaker that they must finish speaking. If you are speaking and you hear the two bangs, you must finish off your speech quickly. If you do not finish within the next thirty (30) seconds (twenty (20) seconds in some leagues) the timekeeper will bang on the table non-stop until you sit down. Now, the adjudicators will stop listening, so there is no point in speaking any longer.

In reply speeches, there isn’t a bang after the first minute, because no points of information are allowed. The timekeeper will bang when there is one (1) minute left though, to let you know that you should start wrapping things up. When your time is up the timekeeper will bang twice, and you will have thirty (30) seconds to finish before she starts banging non-stop on the table. In a neat diagram, the times for a main speech look like this: 0 – 1 minute 1 – 7 minutes 7 – 8 minutes After 8 minutes

Nobody can offer points of information Points of information are allowed No more points of information are allowed. Start finishing your speech

You have 30 seconds before the timekeeper will start banging non-stop

And for a reply speech, it looks like this: 0 – 3 minutes 3 – 4 minutes

After 4 minutes

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The main part of your speech (Nobody can offer points of information) Start finishing your speech You have 30 seconds before the timekeeper will start banging non-stop…

SO HOW DO WE START A DEBATE?

To start off the debate, each team must have a clear understanding of the issues that they will be arguing about. This means that each team needs to bring up some important elements at the beginning of their first speech. In this section, we will talk about those elements. It is important to note that this sequence is not a prescription but a description of a speech structure.

Definition

The proposition

The very first thing the first proposition speaker needs to do is “define the motion”. This DOES NOT mean that you must give the dictionary definition of all the words in the motion! Instead, you must explain what the topic means to your team, and why you are talking about it. The point is to set the boundaries for the debate so that both teams argue about the same thing, and debate about the topic and not about the words in the motion. For instance, if your motion is “This house believes that the USA should withdraw from Iraq”, you don’t need to define “USA” and “Iraq” – everybody knows where those countries are – but you do need to

10 DEBATE CLASS define “withdraw”. Do you want to withdraw soldiers, or all military personnel (including medical and strategic staff), or diplomats, or economic assistance, or American-based corporations, or something else? As you can see, there are many possible ways to interpret the word “withdraw”, and the opposition and the adjudicators need to know how you will be interpreting it in your case. Also, if a motion clearly refers to a recent event in the news, you cannot define it to mean anything else. So for instance, in 2006 the motion “This house would publish the Mohammed cartoons” was a clear reference to the cartoons published by a Danish newspaper that depicted the Muslim prophet Mohammed. The debate needed to be about whether their decision to publish those images was legitimate. Proposition could not define this to be about any other cartoons of someone called Mohammed, because that would not be a reasonable interpretation of the motion in light of current events.

In your definition, you should also lay the parameters for the debate. This means that you should make any reasonable specifications that you want, to make the debate clearer. For instance, you may want to specify that you are only talking about implementing the motion in South Africa, and not in other countries. Alternatively, if there is a word like “school” in the motion, you may want to tell us that you are talking specifically about secondary schools. You can also tell us what you are NOT talking about. For instance, in a debate about whether strippers should be regarded as legitimate professionals, you might want to specify that you are not talking about prostitutes. Otherwise, confusion might arise. The opposition If the definition is a reasonable interpretation of the motion, the opposition must accept it, and debate the case that the proposition presents. So, using the above example, if proposition defines “withdraw” to mean “withdraw soldiers and other military personnel”, the opposition must accept that definition, even if they have prepared a case about withdrawing diplomats. The proposition has the right to

11 DEBATE CLASS define the terms of the debate, and as long as their definition is reasonable the opposition must accept it. If the motion is unreasonable, then the opposition can challenge it. This happens very seldom and always results in messy debates – please do not do it unless it is absolutely necessary! An opposition team that challenges a definition that is reasonable WILL lose the debate. A definition is unreasonable if:

(i) It is a truism (i.e. something that is obviously true) – so for instance if the proposition defines the topic in such a way that they have to prove that guns can kill people, or that the sun rises in the East. Both of these things are obviously true and an opposition team cannot be expected to argue against it. OR (ii) It is unfairly time-set or place-set. So if the proposition defines “This house would ban drugs” to mean “This house would ban drugs, specifically in Spain in the 18th Century”, that is unfairly timeset (to the 18th Century) and place-set (to Spain). Generally speaking if a team wants to limit the geographical reach of a debate it is only reasonable to limit it to South Africa (because we can’t expect all debaters to have an in-depth knowledge of other countries). And debates virtually always happen in the present time. OR (iii) The proposition has defined the words in the motion unreasonably, so that they do not refer to the obvious meaning of the topic. (So for instance the debate about the Mohammed cartoons above.) This is also called “squirreling the motion”. If the definition falls in to one of the above three categories, you are allowed to challenge it. If you decide to challenge the motion, you must do it in the first minute of the first opposition speaker’s speech. Otherwise the adjudicator will assume that you accept the definition. Challenging the definition works like this: (a) Say “We are challenging the proposition’s definition”. (b) Explain

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why the definition given is unreasonable. (c) Offer your own definition, which must be reasonable. (d) Continue with your speech as usual

Be prepared to defend your new definition later in the debate! Failure to do so MAY result in your team loss.

Policy and Counter policy

In many debates you have to argue about doing something, and not just argue about whether an idea is good or bad. For instance, in “This house would legalise prostitution”, the proposition actually wants to legalise prostitution, and not just argue about whether prostitution is good or bad in principle. These debates are sometimes called “change debates” or “policy debates” because you are changing the status quo. In these debates you sometimes need to give a detailed plan of how you would implement the motion – this plan is called the policy. So for instance you might want to say that you would have to be over 18 to be or hire a prostitute, and that the government would implement regular health checks for prostitutes and regulations governing the way prostitutes conduct business.

If you are on opposition, you can often just stick with the status quo – in other words, you can say that keeping things as they are now is better than implementing proposition’s policy. However, sometimes you might want to agree that there is a big problem with the status quo. If you do that, you should probably give an alternative way of solving the problem – an alternative policy, or a counter policy. So, now that everything is clearly set up, what happens?

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SPEAKER ROLES: WHAT EACH SPEAKER DOES

Every speaker on a debating team has a very specific role. If they do not do what they are meant to do, their team is likely to lose the debate (HOWEVER this does not mean an automatic loss). There is no one speaking position that is more important than any of the others. Every speaker plays an important part in winning a debate, and some people are more suited to first speaker, while others do better as a second speaker, or maybe a third speaker. You need to find the positions that you do best in, and practice those. It is normal for good speakers to be able to do at least two out of the three positions.

First Proposition

First proposition is the first person that the adjudicators will get to see, and it is their job to set up the debate clearly. If they don’t do their job properly, the debate will be a mess. That said, you can handle speaking in first proposition quite easily if you follow these easy rules: Explain your position

Explain. Explain. Explain. Explain. If anything might even possibly not be clear to the adjudicators or the other team, explain it in such depth that a class of pre-school children would understand it. This really is that important. If you are not clear when you explain your team’s position, then the opposition can make all sort of weird assumptions about what you mean, because it makes their job of making you look wrong easier if they can say that you said strange and silly things. And they can get away with it if the adjudicators aren’t clear on what it was that you actually said. Stop this before it starts. Make sure that the adjudicators know exactly what you mean, the first time around.

14 DEBATE CLASS To make sure everything gets set up clearly, you need to include the following elements: 1. Definition 2. Parameters for the debate (do not confuse place setting/time setting for parameters. Parameters are specifics of the issues to be debated and their justifications and issues that should not be debated, and also reasons for not including them) 3. Policy (if necessary) We’ve already covered how to do these things – see the previous section for a reminder.

Split the Case

Provide a case split. In debater language, a case split means explaining exactly what issues and arguments your entire team will be dealing with the course of the debate. It’s like a table of contents for what your team is going to say. You do it by listing the arguments that each speaker will deal with. For instance:

“I, the first speaker, will deal with the arguments about Self Defence and the Incompetence of the Police. My second speaker, Zoey, will deal with an argument about Public Perception of Safety.” (You don’t need to tell us what your third speaker will talk about, because a third speaker only ever does rebuttals.)

A case split is important because it gives the adjudicators and the other team an overview of where your team will be going in the course of the debate, and what the issues are likely to be. This is good because it allows them to concentrate on what you and your team members are saying, instead of wondering why you are talking about it and how it fits into your case. Also, it will help the adjudicators judge whether you are working together as a team or not. If you say that your second speaker will be dealing with argument X, and he does, then your team will score for working together. If he doesn’t,

15 DEBATE CLASS then your team will suffer because he is contradicting what you said he would do – and it makes both of you look silly. A case split is very important – always include it.

Give your arguments

Now that you have done all the basics, you can move on to explaining your part of the case split. Use explanations and examples to build good strong arguments that demonstrate why your team is right. For details on how to make a good argument, see the section on ‘Making Arguments’.

Something very important to remember while you make your arguments is something called signposting. Signposting means that you tell the adjudicators every time you move between the arguments that you said (in your case split) that you would deal with. If your case split is a table of contents, you can think of signposts as chapter titles. So, if you said in your case split that you would be dealing with A and B in the course of your speech, just before you start to explain those arguments, take a second to say something like “…and now I will deal with the argument A, which is…” and carry on. Also point out when you finish argument A and start argument B. This way, it is easy for the adjudicators to follow the flow of your speech. They will understand your arguments better, and you will also receive a good mark for structure!

First Opposition

In a lot of ways, the first opposition speaker has the same job as the first proposition speaker, with one major exception. This speaker has the responsibility of dealing with what has already been presented by the first proposition speaker. So, in addition to explaining the opposition team’s case, presenting a case split, and giving arguments, they must also explain exactly why they disagree with the proposition team’s case and arguments.

DEBATE CLASS Explain your position

Explaining your position is just as important for a first opposition speaker as for a first proposition speaker. You need to make it clear exactly what you are saying and how you will disagree with the proposition, otherwise the adjudicators might not understand your case properly. To make sure everything gets set up clearly, you need to include the following elements: 1. Clash- This is simply a statement of difference between your team and proposition that pre-empties your team case. (OR challenge the definition, but only if strictly necessary!).Most teams make the mistake of assuming that they should define the motion too if they are on opposition. If you are agree with the definition, do not waste your time defining KEY terms and “REDEFINING THE KEY TERMS and MOTION”. 2. Counter policy (if necessary)check previous section…..

The clash is a one sentence summary of exactly how and where the opposition team will disagree with the proposition team. This is an incredibly important job, because if the adjudicators can’t understand how you are proving that the proposition is wrong, you will lose. Sometimes, there is more than one way of disagreeing with the proposition. For instance, if you are debating the motion ‘This house would withdraw American troops from Afghanistan immediately’, you can either clash by saying that America should not withdraw its troops from Afghanistan, or by saying they shouldn’t remove them immediately, or both. It needs to be clear from the start what you will be arguing. We already know what a counter policy is. See the previous section for a recap. Split the Case

17 DEBATE CLASS Provide a case split. In debate language, a case split means explaining exactly what issues and arguments your entire team will be dealing with the course of the debate. It’s like a table of contents for what your team is going to say. You do it by listing the arguments that each speaker will deal with. For an example of how to give a case split and an explanation of why it is so important, see the outline for First Proposition. Rebut the proposition

Explain why the major arguments that the first proposition speaker brought up are wrong or irrelevant or simply aren’t important. For more information on how to rebut, see the section called ‘Breaking Arguments’ later on.

You need to do this before you give your own arguments, because otherwise the adjudicators will be thinking about how the proposition’s arguments show that the motion is true, instead of paying their full attention to your case (which shows that the motion is false). You must first show the adjudicators that the proposition’s arguments are wrong and they don’t have to worry about them, before you can convince them that your arguments are the right ones. A SIMPLE STRUCTURE OF A REBUTTAL… i. 1st speaker proposition said….. ii. But we disagree.. iii. Because……..(give the claim, reasoning and evidence why you disagree using the simple argumentation model) iv. Impact…..(show how your reasoning proves the flaw of the argument you are rebutting and do not forget to tie your reasoning to your claim of disagreement) Give your arguments

Now you can move on to explaining your part of the case split. Use explanations and examples to build good strong arguments that

18 DEBATE CLASS demonstrate why your team is right. For details on how to make a good argument, see the section on ‘Making Arguments’. Remember to signpost while you make your arguments! (See the outline for First Proposition for a recap of signposting.)

Second Proposition

The second speaker has the job of explaining the bulk of the proposition team’s arguments. He/she will do some rebuttal of the opposing team, but will focus mainly on making more arguments to support proposition’s case. Give a roadmap

The very first thing you should do is give a ‘roadmap’ of your speech. This is like a case split, but for one speech instead of an entire team. So, tell us what arguments you will be dealing with, and in what order. Rebut the opposition

You will have to do two types of rebuttals: defensive rebuttal and offensive rebuttal. Defensive rebuttal is when you explain why the opposition is wrong in the attacks they made on your arguments. So, the first opposition speaker should have rebutted some the arguments that your first speaker made. You need to tell the judges why that rebuttal does not effectively destroy the points that your first speaker made. This is important because otherwise the adjudicator will continue believing that your first speaker’s arguments are wrong.

Offensive rebuttal is when you explain why the opposition’s own arguments are wrong. This is the same sort of rebuttal that the first opposition speaker made. Here, you need to explain why the major arguments that the first opposition speaker brought up are wrong or

19 DEBATE CLASS irrelevant or simply aren’t important. For more information on how to rebut, see the section on ‘Breaking Arguments’. Give your arguments

Now you can move on to explaining your part of the case split. Use explanations and examples to build good strong arguments that demonstrate why your team is right. For details on how to make a good argument, see the section on ‘Making Arguments’.

Remember to signpost while you make your arguments! (See the outline for First Proposition for a recap of signposting.)

Second Opposition

The second opposition speaker’s job is virtually identical to the job of second proposition. You just have more rebuttal to do, because two speakers from the other team have spoken before you stand up (as opposed to only one, if you were second proposition). Give a roadmap

You will have to do two types of rebuttal: defensive rebuttal and offensive rebuttal. Defensive rebuttal is when you explain why the proposition is wrong in the attacks they made on your arguments. So, the second proposition speaker should have rebutted some of the arguments that your first speaker made. You need to tell the judges why that rebuttal does not effectively destroy the points that your

20 DEBATE CLASS first speaker made. This is important because otherwise the adjudicator will continue believing that your first speaker’s arguments are wrong. Offensive rebuttal is when you explain why the opposition’s own arguments are wrong. This is the same sort of rebuttal that the first opposition speaker made. Here, you need to explain why the major arguments that the proposition has brought up are wrong or irrelevant or simply aren’t important. Although you can rebut arguments that have already been rebutted by your first speaker (especially if the second proposition speaker has done some work to defend and rebuild those arguments), you should spend most of your rebuttal time dealing with the arguments brought up by the second proposition speaker. For more information on how to rebut, see section on ‘Breaking Arguments’. Give your arguments

Remember to signpost while you make your arguments! (See the outline for First Proposition for a recap of signposting.)

Third Proposition

The job of the third speakers is to rebut. You just need to rip the other team’s case to shreds. And then show how that means you win. Give a roadmap

The very first thing you should do is give a ‘roadmap’ of your speech. This is like a case split, but for one speech instead of an entire team.

21 DEBATE CLASS So, tell us what issues you will be dealing with, and in what order. In a third speech, you won’t have any brand new arguments – these should have been brought up by your first and second speakers. Instead, the issues in your speech should be the big “clashes”, or things that both sides have spent a lot of time disagreeing about. You might find a clash where an argument from one team is directly in conflict with an argument from the other team, or it might be where one team’s argument has been repeatedly rebutted and defended throughout the debate. Rebut the opposition

Work precisely through the issues you listed in your roadmap, explaining why the attacks that the opposition made on your case, and the arguments they presented, don’t hold up under scrutiny. Use the normal techniques of defensive and offensive rebuttal to do this. You can’t make any new arguments, but you can use new examples or new rebuttals to go deeper into arguments that have already been brought up. It can also be useful to point it out if the opposition hasn’t dealt with some of your arguments, or has contradicted itself. Your key role as a proposition third speaker is to show that your case still stands after all of the opposition’s matter has been considered.

Remember to signpost while you work through your issues! (See the guidelines for First Proposition for a recap of signposting.)

Third Opposition

The job of the third speakers is to rebut. You just need to rip the other team’s case to shreds. And then show how that means you win. Give a roadmap

The very first thing you should do is give a ‘roadmap’ of your speech. This is like a case split, but for one speech instead of an entire team.

22 DEBATE CLASS So, tell us what issues you will be dealing with, and in what order. In a third speech, you won’t have any brand new arguments – these should have been brought up by your first and second speakers. Instead, the issues in your speech should be the big “clashes”, or things that both sides have spent a lot of time disagreeing about. You might find a clash where an argument from one team is directly in conflict with an argument from the other team, or it might be where one team’s argument has been repeatedly rebutted and defended throughout the debate. Rebut the proposition

Work precisely through the issues you listed in your roadmap, explaining why the arguments that the proposition presented, and the attacks that they made on your case, don’t hold up under scrutiny. Use the normal techniques of rebuttal to do this. You can’t make any new arguments, but you can use new examples or new rebuttals to go deeper into arguments that have already been brought up. It can also be useful to point it out if the proposition hasn’t dealt with some of your arguments (and what that means for their case), or has contradicted itself. Your key role as an opposition third speaker is to show that the proposition’s case does not stand at the end of the debate. Remember to signpost while you work through your issues! (See the guidelines for First Proposition for a recap of signposting.)

Reply Speeches

A reply speech is a biased summary of the debate, given by the first or second speaker of each team. Imagine that you have to explain the most important bits of the debate to someone who has missed the first six speeches, who wants to know who won and why. Remember that you only have 4 minutes, so you can’t just repeat the main arguments – you won’t have time, and you won’t prove anything. Rather, you need to find a way to weigh up what both teams have said, to

determine who wins.

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One way of doing this is to look at what each team needed to prove in order to win the debate, and then show that your team proved what it needed to (using certain arguments and rebuttals), while the other team didn’t. Alternatively, you could look at a few questions that needed to be answered by both sides, and show that your side answered them better. Or, you could look at “clashes” in the debate, like a third speaker would do. (Your clashes don’t have to be the same as your third speaker’s clashes.) You can also use a reply speech to highlight any contradictions or irrelevancies in the other team’s case. Also, you can point it out if they haven’t dealt with any of your arguments – this will show the adjudicators that the other team hasn’t done their job properly.

It’s very important to remember that you are NOT allowed to bring in new matter in the reply speeches. This means no new arguments, and no rebuttal. The other team won’t have a chance to respond to you, so it’s not fair. One last reminder…

Debating speeches are speeches! So even though you need to include lots of technical things like definitions and rebuttals, you also need to remember what you would include in any speech – an introduction and a conclusion. The introduction will help you grab the attention of your audience and your judges, and the conclusion will help to tie everything together and explain why your speech was important. Don’t leave these out – they can make your speech much more engaging and persuasive.

MAKING ARGUMENTS

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When you make an argument, you are giving the adjudicators a reason to believe your side of the motion – and then you are backing it up. In order to back it up properly, you need to prove your argument. But what does it mean to prove something, and why do we need to do it? Proving something means demonstrating that it is true – or at least convincing someone that it is true. Fundamentally, good debating is all about proving things that will convince the judges that you are right. Of course, you also have to be able to destroy the arguments that the other side is making, but even this is a lot easier once you know the difference between a good and a bad proof.

So how is proving things supposed to work? Well, if you’re trying to convince someone that something is true, chances are they don’t believe in it already. The best way to change their minds, and get them to believe you, is to take things they already do believe, and use them to show that what you are saying is true. For example, what if someone didn’t believe that the government should keep drugs illegal? How would we prove that the government should be doing something? Well, it would go something like this: The government has a duty to protect the people of the country from things that will harm them. (This is something that the person would believe to be true.) And…

Drugs harm people in the country. (This is also something that the person would believe to be true.) So…

The government should not let us access drugs.

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You see? We looked at two things that the person would believe are true, and then showed that it meant something else was true. If the person believes that drugs will harm people, and he believes that the government should protect people from things that will harm them, then he has no choice but to accept that the government should protect us from drugs!

Of course, you can’t just assume that the person will believe the statements you make. You have to back those up as well. So you need to tell the adjudicators WHY the government has a duty to protect people in the country, and HOW drugs harm people in the country. Then your argument will be complete. It can be useful to use examples when you are backing up the statements in your proof. Examples show that the statement you’re making is obviously true, because it happens in the real world. You can also use examples to back up your entire argument. This can also be handy – people are more likely to believe your argument when you can show that it has real world consequences, and that it doesn’t only work in Debate Land. But remember – never use an example instead of an argument! An example by itself doesn’t prove anything. You need the reasons of your proof to explain why that example is important. Otherwise, it might just be an exception. (And the same thing applies for statistics.) Making your own proofs (the do-it-yourself guide)

Proving things is easy when you get the hang of it. The only difficult bit to making an argument is choosing the right statements at the start, so people will end up having to believe what you say – but even this is really not so difficult when you get the hang of it. In debating, you are usually trying to prove why something is good/why we should be doing it, or you are trying to prove why something is bad/ why we shouldn’t be doing it. Depending on what you are trying to prove, there are useful recipes for these arguments – they give you an

26 DEBATE CLASS idea of the sorts of statements you should choose in order to prove your point. General Pattern:

(a) To prove X is good or useful (so we should be doing X) Show that doing X will have some sort of effect, on the country or some group of people. And… Show that this effect is something we need/want. So… We should be doing X. (b) To prove X is harmful (so we should not be doing X) Show that doing X will have some sort of effect, on the country or some group of people. And… Show that this effect is something we do not want. So… We should not be doing X.

This is a very powerful and clear way of showing why we should or shouldn’t be doing something. This something could be banning guns, bringing back the death penalty, trading with China, or virtually anything else! Just be sure to follow the recipe and explain all your statements, and you’ll have the judges eating from the palm of your hand.

ARGUING ON FIRST PRINCIPLES

Don’t be overwhelmed by the number of issues, organisations, nations and topics there are to prepare for. As Pofela Ndzozi (ZNDC Best adjudicator 2011, PAUDC 2014 tabmaster, PAUDC Ghana 2015 tabmaster) says, there are only really half a dozen debates - they just have different actors. The issues stay the same.

For example Napster, Hate Speech and Porn are separate debates with their own distinctive matter requirements (which you could be an expert on) but the issue is still the role of government regulation and the merits of censorship. Learn the theory and then all you need

DEBATE CLASS is a little specific jargon to add credibility and you’re all set.

Don’t be daunted and frightened by a motion on a specific topic you know little or nothing about. EVERY debate will have an underlining principle at its heart and the rest is packaging. Look at the general principles expressed in the original motion. What is the basic argument here?

When the motion is announced at any tournament, ask yourself, don’t panic: What is this debate really about? You will have debated the subject many times before. Just step back and don’t get lost in the initial detail. Ask yourself some questions during the debate: What is this Debate really about?

What is usually required to win this debate? What can we add to the debate that hasn’t already been said? Are our arguments convincing? Are our examples good & getting to the heart of the issue or simply taking up time?

Examples of motions and some basic arguments are:

This house supports domestic content quotas in broadcasting. This house would bail out failing industries. Basic Principle: Role of the government regulation & spending public money.

This house believes that making Yassar Arrafat a partner in peace was a mistake. Basic Principle: Democracy and Negotiating with terrorists.

28 DEBATE CLASS This house believes that the west should treat state sponsored sexism as apartheid. Basic Principle: Western culture versus other cultures. “Western Imperialism”. This house believes that civil liberties must be restricted in the interests of security. This house would force feed anorexics. Basic Principle: Rights of the individual versus responsibility of state/society. This house believes that the sexual history of rape victims should be admissible in court. Basic Principle: Rights of the individual versus responsibility of state/society and balancing rights between individuals. (Extracted from SASDB handbook)

BREAKING ARGUMENTS How to rebut arguments

Rebutting the basic statements

This proof stuff can be rock-solid if it’s done right, so it’s very difficult to attack if it is being used against you. It’s not impossible though. As you saw above, if we accept the first two statements, then we don’t have any choice about accepting the final statement (the conclusion). So, to rebut arguments, we need to show that one or both of the first two statements is not always true. Remember, if one of the first two statements is false, we don’t have to accept the conclusion, and the proof collapses. Let’s look at an example:

Criminals would commit fewer serious crimes if we had the death penalty, because they would fear it.

And…

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Zimbabwe needs less serious crime. So…

Zimbabwe should bring back the death penalty.

This argument will fail if the first statement OR the second statement is false. We can’t argue that Zimbabwe needs less serious crime – of course it does – but we can argue whether criminals would really commit fewer crimes if we had the death penalty. How would we do this? The best way is to use a proof of our own: Criminals would only fear the death penalty if they thought they would get caught. And…

Criminals generally don’t expect to be caught. So…

Criminals won’t fear the death penalty, so they won’t commit fewer crimes. (Obviously you need to back up the first and second statements here.)

Rebutting the Conclusion

In the previous section, we looked at rebutting an argument by challenging one of the basic statements. If you can’t do this, or don’t want to do this, there are sometimes ways to challenge the conclusion. (a) One way is to use a counterexample – an example which shows that their argument cannot be true. For instance, you can point out that in many countries that have the death penalty, the seri-

30 DEBATE CLASS ous crime rate is just as high as, or higher than, it is in countries without the death penalty – for instance, the USA and Rwanda (countries that have the death penalty) have very high murder rates, while Sweden (which doesn’t have the death penalty) has a low murder rate. You can then argue that there is no link between the death penalty and the murder rate. (You should note that you might need to add some extra reasons here, which would involve challenging the basic statements.)

(b) Even if we have to agree that we should be doing something, it doesn’t mean that we can do it, and it doesn’t say how we should be doing it. You could argue that the government simply can’t do whatever it is, because it doesn’t have the money, or the skilled people, or the motivation, etc. You could also admit that there is a problem, but that the other team is not offering the best possible solution (this is where you would use a counter policy).

(c) You can argue that the conclusion doesn’t matter, because the opposing team has forgotten to consider something else that is more important. This is called a counter-consideration. For this argument, a possible counter-consideration could be that it is so important for the Zimbabwean government to take a pro-life stance, in light of Zimbabwe’s history and our new constitution, that they should not do anything to undermine that stance, including selective legalising of the death penalty.

Tips on when and what to rebut

Spend most of your time rebutting the big arguments that the other side has made, or defending against attacks that they have made on your most important arguments. Don’t waste time on rebutting small unimportant arguments in too much depth. Only do this if you have some time left over after you’re finished with the big ones. Always respond to the most recent version of an argument. So, suppose the first proposition speaker makes an argument which is rebutted by the first opposition speaker. The second proposition

31 DEBATE CLASS speaker then defends that argument – in other words, he/she shows why the rebuttal against it did not succeed. Then, you, the second opposition speaker, decide that you also need to deal with the argument. You must respond to the ‘fixed’ version of the argument that the second proposition speaker made – it won’t do you any good to rebut the first version of the argument again (your first speaker has already done that). If a speaker from the opposing team made an obvious slip of the tongue (for instance, if he said “ban” when he clearly meant “legalise”), don’t bother rebutting it. It was just a simple mistake and the adjudicators know it as well as you do. It didn’t mean anything.

Remember that your rebuttal doesn’t have to focus only on individual arguments. You can also show problems with the other team’s case as a whole. For instance, if two of their arguments contradict each other, point it out and explain why that weakens their case. Or the opposition case might be irrelevant because even if it is true, the proposition’s case doesn’t have to be wrong. These are important things to point out!

Ways not to make an argument (common logical fallacies)

There are some arguments that seem to come up again and again in debates that are just not good arguments because they don’t prove anything. Some of them might sound very convincing the first time you hear them, but they don’t stand up under close inspection. Here is a list of those arguments. Once you know what they are, you can avoid making them, and you’ll be able to rebut them easily if they are used against you. Many of these mistakes have specific names (you’ll see them below), but it’s not important to know what they are called. It’s much more important to know why these sorts of arguments are wrong when you hear them, and that you tell the adjudicators why they are wrong (either in a point of information or in rebuttal).

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Confusing causation and correlation

This happens when you claim something caused something else, just because they happened around the same time (i.e. they are correlated). This isn’t always true. For instance,

Peru introduced the death penalty, and the violent crime rate dropped, so we can see that the death penalty discourages violent crime. This might be true. On the other hand, it might be that Peru started some social upliftment and rehabilitation programs around the same time, which were the cause of the drop in the violent crime rate. The point is, this argument doesn’t tell us what the link is between the death penalty and the violent crime rate – and without that link, the other team can just give an alternative explanation for the facts. You always need to show how something (the death penalty) caused something else (the drop in the violent crime rate). You can’t just assume it.

Not giving reasons

We should ban drugs because they are bad. We should not allow prostitution because it is immoral.

These are very, very weak arguments. Saying that something is “bad” or “immoral” is no argument at all. What is the definition of “bad”? Who is it bad for? What does it mean to say that something is “immoral”? Whose morals? A better set of arguments might be: We should ban drugs because they damage the users’ health. We should not allow prostitution because it degrades women.

This is better, because it tells us what exactly the reason is for doing something. You’ll still need to do more work, though. You will need to

33 DEBATE CLASS back up these statements. (Exactly how do drugs harm your health? And how does prostitution degrade women?) And you will have to form full bulletproof arguments using other statements to help you. See the section on ‘Making Arguments’ for more detail.

Arguing from authority

When you are debating, it is fine to mention the opinion of someone who is an expert on the topic, but often people will use just any famous figure and expect people to believe that they are an expert on the current topic. So for instance, ‘Simbarashe Mumbengegwi says that HIV does not cause AIDS, so it probably doesn’t’, is not a basis for a strong argument, because Simbarashe Mumbengegwi is not an expert in medical science. But if you were to say:

Simbarashe Mumbengegwi(Zimbabwean Minister of Foreign Affairs) says that the Department of Foreign Affairs is corrupt, so it probably is. Then it would stand more chance of being true, because Simbarashe Mumbengegwi is an expert on things to do with the Zimbabwean government, and particularly on international relations.

Another type of appeal to authority is to say “The constitution says so, therefore it’s right”! This is not a good argument! You have to decide why the constitution says a certain thing, and explain why you think the constitution is right or wrong.

A third common appeal to authority is to say “God doesn’t want us to do it”, or, “it’s against the Bible”. This also doesn’t work, because it assumes that God exists and the Bible is true. In a debate, we just can’t assume those things. You need to prove everything you say, in a way that everyone will be able to believe (no matter what their religious views are).

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Attacking the person, not the argument

How can you talk about women’s rights? You are a man! How would you feel if your mom was murdered – wouldn’t you want the death penalty?!

This is always silly. In the first instance, just because you are a man it doesn’t mean that you can’t have legitimate views on women’s rights. That would be like saying no one can comment on the way we treat those accused of child molestation, unless they are themselves child molesters! In the second instance, someone is missing the point that in debating you don’t have to personally believe what you are arguing for – in fact, you often won’t. But that doesn’t mean their arguments about it will be untrue. It is important to address what a person is saying in the debate, and not think that they must personally believe in what they are saying.

Circular arguments

This is when you use the conclusion of an argument, to prove the foundational statements of the argument, which prove the conclusion. So for example: I know that God exists because the Bible says so, and I know that the Bible is true because it is the word of God.

Obviously the problem here is that if we don’t already believe that God exists, we won’t believe that the Bible is the word of God. And so the claim that the Bible is the word of God cannot prove that God exists. These arguments are not useful in debates because they assume that your side of the debate is true – and so they won’t convince anyone who doesn’t already agree with your side.

Attacking a straw man (i.e. rebutting something no one ever said)

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Sometimes, it is a lot easier to rebut something that is superficially similar to what the opposition said, than to rebut what they actually said. But this is the same as “attacking a straw man” – you won’t win any battles by attacking a straw man, and you won’t win a debate by just making up arguments because they are easier to rebut. You have to attack what the other team actually says. An example of attacking a straw man is:

Team A: We should relax the laws on who can drink beer. Team B: No. Any society with unrestricted access to intoxicating substances loses its work ethic and becomes obsessed with immediate gratification.

You see? While Team A proposed relaxing the laws on beer, Team B exaggerated this to a position harder to defend, i.e. “unrestricted access to intoxicating substances”. If another team does try to make a straw man out of your arguments, point out in your speech that you didn’t actually say that, and so you don’t need to deal with their fake rebuttal.

Over exaggerating (sometimes called a “slippery slope” or a “golden elevator”) If we close the SPCA, then there will be more dogs in the roads, which means more people will be bitten, which means more people will have rabies, which means that more people will go to the hospital, which will lead to the breakdown of the healthcare system, which will cause a revolution! So we should not close the SPCA. The problem here is that someone is taking a fairly small change (closing the SPCA) and using a series of small steps to get to a catastrophe. While each small step might not sound too ridiculous, going from closing the SPCA to a revolution is mad! (You can trust your

36 DEBATE CLASS common sense here – if it sounds too ridiculous to be true, it probably is.) It can work the other way around, too, to show that doing some good thing, will lead to better and better things: If I walk outdoors more often, I might find some change lying around, which might win me some money in the casino, which might be enough for me to buy enough Lotto tickets to become a billionaire, which would mean that I could live in luxury and save the world. So I should walk outdoors more often. The trick with rebutting these sorts of arguments is to find the links in the chain that are the weakest and attack them. Try find a link early on. In the first example, you could argue that the number of dogs infected by rabies, who will bite people who haven’t been vaccinated, is not large enough to trigger a breakdown of the healthcare system. In the second example, you might say that the chances of earning millions of Rand at a casino with some change you find on the street are so small that we can’t base an argument on them.

Contradicting yourself

We should bring back the death penalty to teach people that taking a human life is never OK.

So, to show us how important it is not to kill people, the government should be allowed to kill people? This doesn’t make sense, because the solution is in contrast to what you are trying to achieve. Don’t do this. It makes you sound silly.

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PREPARING FOR A DEBATE

RESEARCHING

Research is vital and cannot be avoided if you want to make a winning speech.

Some people say that only a small portion of your research should appear in your speech and the majority will come into play later. I have yet to see the “later”. This may be in the form of points of information but that is assuming that you can predict what information you will need to contradict what the speaker says. If you have good information don’t keep it to yourself, USE IT.

Look for facts and examples more so than statistics. While statistics can come very handy for filling up a few minutes, they are also boring. Your information should back up your argument and be memorable. If you find a little known fact that will surprise the audience and catch their attention use it strategically. Place it at a crucial stage of your speech in a way that everything falls in together and the audience becomes convinced of the truth of what you are saying. Remember that your argument is the most important part of your speech and your research should back it up, not the other way round.

Sources:

There are invaluable sources of information all around and you will very rarely come across a motion which you can find absolutely no information if you look hard enough.

Internet:

Type any subject into the Internet and you are likely to get back 100 sites with useful information and “Greater than 250,000” of utter rubbish. However there are a couple of good places to start. On the main page of this site you will find links to a couple of research web-

38 DEBATE CLASS pages which give pros and cons about many topics. They are Debatabase.com and Youdebate.com One important thing to also remember is that if you are a student then it is probable that you will have access to many journals (economist, Time, etc.) electronically through the website of your library. I certainly have access to these through my PDA. There is no need to go out and buy these journals where half the pages will be ads. You can search through past editions to find articles you are interested in. You can also easily print good articles to help fill out your case book. It’s free and all you need is a computer with internet access. If you don’t have this then ask your library staff about it.

Library:

Although you may complain about your campus library (I think that’s fairly universal among all students) it is still an invaluable source of information. Look around the sections which relate to your motion and flick through a few books that look relevant. If you don’t know where to go for information take the keywords from the motion and type them into a nearby terminal. It should give you the book references you need.

Journals Rooms:

This is easily the best source of information on any campus library. If you have a motion dealing with a topical political, cultural, or scientific subject then the first thing you should do is look through the back issues of Time and Newsweek. These contain a huge amount of information and not only on current affairs. If you’ve never read them it is well worth spending a short time flicking through them so that you get a feel for the sort of information they carry and where to find it if you need it later. If you want more information then there is bound to be some information about it in other more specialised journals but it may be harder to find. You could also look up the past issues of newspapers on microfilm but you really would want to know exactly what you are looking for. Journals rooms may be increasingly replaced by online tools as mentioned earlier but some

39 DEBATE CLASS articles aren’t made available online until the next edition is printed so sometimes you will have to do it the old fashioned way.

Books:

The problem with books is that by the time they are published they are more than likely out of date. However there are books available which give Pros and Cons of various topics. They should be used with caution and not a complete replacement for your own arguments and research but they are a good start point and particularly useful in the first 2-3 min of your 15 min prep at Worlds style events. Not surprisingly the best of these books is called Pros and Cons

Television and Radio:

While it is unlikely that TV will oblige you by broadcasting a program dealing with the subject behind your motion while you are preparing for it you can still use them for information. If you know that there is a documentary, special report or debate on a topical issue why not watch, or listen to, it. You don’t have to go out of your way or sit there taking notes like a lecture but if you have nothing better to do you might be surprised how much of it you will remember if it comes up later.

Brainstorming:

This involves a group of people getting together to discuss a motion and come up with ideas. The group meets in a room and trash out the various issues involved from a definition and line to examples and the other side’s possible strategy. One member writes down all the ideas and this is best done on a blackboard so a tutorial room is ideal. However these can also become side-tracked (one I was at lasted over three hours and only twenty minutes were spent discussing the motion). If used effectively they should work well and we may start doing them on a more regular and organised basis. Even if you don’t want to hold a brainstorming session don’t be afraid to ask other debaters for ideas, most will be glad to help and may even have debated the motion before. NOTE; this is now banned at Worlds so you must have your brainstorming of possible topics done before Worlds.

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THREE TYPES OF MOTIONS

When you are preparing your case, it is useful to remember that there are three main types of motions. This will help you to approach the motion in the right way.

Change debates/Policy Debates

e.g. This house would legalise all drugs, This house would require doctors to support all cases of suspected domestic abuse, This house believes that America should withdraw from Iraq immediately. Change debates are all about doing something. On proposition, you need to establish three things in order to win the debate: Necessity – that there is a problem that needs to be solved (unless the existence of this problem is particularly controversial, this can usually be done fairly quickly in the introduction to the first speaker’s speech). Effectiveness – that the policy you are proposing does lead to a better situation (this is usually the bulk of your positive matter). Justifiability – that your policy is legitimate, or that its benefits outweigh the costs of implementing it (often this will depend on what the opposition says, and is usually dealt with in rebuttal). On opposition, you have three options. Unlike proposition, you can choose just one of these options! (a) Argue that there is no problem (this is not usually enough for a whole case). (b) Argue for the status quo (i.e. show that proposition’s policy will make things worse than they already are). (c) Argue for a counter policy (i.e. show that there is an alternative solution that is better than the status quo, and better than proposition’s policy).

Just remember that you can’t simply argue (a) with (b) or (c). Because then you are saying “There is no problem. And proposition

41 DEBATE CLASS doesn’t solve the problem.” Which obviously doesn’t make sense. What you CAN do is put everything together using the words “even if”, like this: “There is no problem. But even if there were a problem, proposition wouldn’t solve it”. This is often a very good way to make an opposition case in a change debate.

Normative Debates

(i.e. debates about the way things should be)

e.g. This house believes that terrorism for a just cause is justified, This house believes that abortion is morally wrong, This house believes that freedom of speech should be absolute. Normative debates are all about the way things should be – about what is right and wrong, fair and unfair, just and unjust. In a normative debate, you need to determine:

(a) What makes something right/wrong, just/unjust, etc. (b) Show that what the motion suggests is right/wrong (depending on your side of the debate).

It’s quite possible that proposition and opposition will have different ways of measuring what makes something right or wrong (or whatever), so part of your rebuttal time will have to deal with why your system is right and theirs is wrong.

Evaluative debates

e.g. This house believes that Thabo Mbeki’s presidency was a success, This house believes that the war on terror has failed, This house supports the decision to award the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize to Barack Obama. In these debates you need to establish two things: (a) The best criteria we can use for evaluating the subject under discussion (for instance, what criteria/categories we should use to

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measure the success of a presidency) (b) That those criteria are adequately met (on proposition) or are not adequately met (on opposition).

Impromptu Debates

Some debates are impromptu or unprepared. This means that you do not know what the motion is until one hour before the debate starts. Once your team is given the motion, you are not allowed to talk to anyone who is not on your team – no friends, teachers, coaches or judges. The only thing you are allowed to do is ask a judge if you do not understand what the motion means – but this will only take a minute. You are also not allowed to use technological aids like cellphones or laptops to access outside information. The best way to be prepared for an impromptu debate is to have a good general knowledge. Know what is going on in the world around you, read the newspapers, get someone to tell you some basic facts about global warming or how economies function. All of this will give you very useful background information for debates – if you know what the motion is about, then you will be able to put together a much stronger case. In most competitions, you will be allowed to take written and printed material with you into the prep session. It is a good idea to put together a file of information, arguments and articles that might be useful for a debate. You can include things like notes on debates that you’ve seen or spoken in, articles from newspapers and news magazines, and some people also like to carry around a small encyclopedia or almanac, which contains basic facts about all countries, and many major international events and issues. The other important thing to remember for impromptu debates is that you only have one hour to prepare. You can’t spend ages and ages reading through articles or writing word perfect speeches. You need to use your time effectively. Decide as a team how you want to

43 DEBATE CLASS structure your preparation time, and then make sure that someone keeps an eye on the time and tells you when to move on. Here is a suggestion for how to structure your preparation time:

Individual brainstorm (everyone sits quietly, thinks of arguments, looks up information they need) Report back (everyone tells the team what they 5-15 minutes came up with) Decide what overall approach you will take to the 15-25 minutes debate, group points into arguments, decide on a team case split. 25-45 minutes Develop your arguments. Write speeches (you won’t have time to write 45-60 minutes them in full – use point form). 0-5 minutes

Prepared Debates

Some debates are prepared. This means that you get the topic at least a few days before the debate, usually a week or two, but sometimes as much as a few months before the debate. When putting together a case for a prepared debate, you obviously don’t face the same time pressures as in an impromptu debate. Other than the longer time frame, though, the process is fairly similar. You will cover the following steps: 1. Individual research and brainstorm. Each team member does as much research as possible on the topic – searching online, reading articles, and talking to people. What do other people think about the topic? What is the factual background to the debate? Are there any useful examples or case studies you might be able to use? Each team member should also give some thought to the arguments that you might be able to run. 2. Report-back and discussion. If you can decide now which over-

44 DEBATE CLASS all approach you want to take, great. Group your points into arguments and develop the arguments. If you have several options and you can’t decide between them, go home and do some more research. Think about which case would be strategically smartest (i.e. which one would be the hardest for an opposing team to deal with). Then meet again. 3. Once you have developed your arguments, the first and second speakers should write their speeches (leaving enough time for rebuttal). 4. The first and second speakers say their speeches to the team. The team comments on any problems, and the speakers fix them. Do this until the speech is perfect (if you have the time). 5. Also remember to think about what the other team might come up with, and how to rebut it. When you are in the debate, don’t forget to be flexible! The other team might not say exactly what you expected them to say. Remember that you have to deal with what they actually said, and not what you wish they had said. This means that you have to do good rebuttal, and you might have to change your arguments slightly to make them relevant in light of what the other team has said. This might sound scary, but it’s what you need to do in order to win the debate. And remember…

Debating is a team activity, which means you need to work as a team. You can’t keep all the good arguments for your speech and leave the other speakers with nothing to say. The adjudicators will notice and you will look bad too. You need to work together in the prep session to come up with a strong TEAM case, and you need to work together in the debate, to discuss how to respond to the other team, how to rebut points, and what points of information to offer.

STYLE

(How you speak)

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Debating is all about persuading people that you are right. A big part of persuading people is the way you talk to them. You need to grab their attention, you need to be easy to understand, and most importantly – you need to sound like you believe what you are saying. All of these things are elements of good style. Style is a very personal thing. Some people will naturally tend towards a loud, flamboyant, dramatic style, while other people will speak in a more restrained and clinical way. Neither one is necessarily better than the other. There are all sorts of speaking styles that are very effective and you need to find the one that works best for you. However, there are some things that will always be a part of speaking well, no matter what your personal style is. Here they are: General tools for persuasive speaking

Speed: The worst thing you can do is speak so quickly that the adjudicator doesn’t catch the subtleties of what you are saying. A good guide is to speak a little bit slower than you would in everyday conversation – this is probably slow enough for the judges to hear and record everything you say, but not so slow that you put them to sleep. Eye contact: Studies show that if you look people in the eye, they are more likely to think you are honest, and you believe what you are saying. So look them in the eye! Do as little reading as possible. Volume: Don’t speak too quietly – people need to be able to hear what you are saying. But also remember that it doesn’t help if you shout at people for 7 minutes. They will feel like you are attacking them and they won’t want to listen. Just a nice comfortable volume so that people can hear you at the back of the room. Voice Modulation: Vary the pitch and tone of your voice to match the subject matter. You can sound thoughtful, passionate, or

46 DEBATE CLASS anywhere in between – but make sure you don’t speak in a monotone. It will put your listeners to sleep. Fluency: Try to speak smoothly, without losing your place or stuttering. While the occasional “um” or “ah” is okay, if your speech is full of them it sounds like you have no idea what you are talking about. And it can make it much harder to follow your argument if you are constantly restarting your sentence. Remember, you know how the argument goes – you spoke about it in the prep session – so just relax and explain it to the judges. Draw attention to the important stuff: If something is particularly important, emphasise it so the audience and judges pay extra attention. You can emphasise something by SLOWING DOWN, speaking more LOUDLY or SOFTLY, and by PAUSING afterwards, so that people have time to absorb what you’ve just said. Your body language is also important. Don’t rock or sway. Rather, keep a fixed stance. Also, avoid repetitive and distracting hand motions. (Natural hand motions are fine.)

The use of cue cards or A4 or counter books is not an issue to be marked on in WSS or any debate. What is important is the presentation not the source of the case. You are free to use cue cards, A 4 papers, counter books or text books.

Do not move a lot, I always advise my students not to move the lower part of their body but to effectively imitate a choirmaster who moves the upper body the most.

A Summary of it all

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Speech Structure

1. Opening – “Tell them what you’re going to Tell them” • •

Attention grabber Introduction of arguments by name and order

•

Arguments (see argument structure) separated by Flag-Posing

2. Body – “Tell Them”

3. Summary – “Tell them what you told them” •

Reminder of the main points of the speech

Argument Structure

Assertion/Idea: A short, easy to comprehend phrase, capturing the essence of the argument. Example: “If we force students to wear school uniform, we will harm their ability to express themselves. Reasoning: A twofold logical explanation: a. Why the statement is true b. Why the statement is important (“why is that good?” “why is that bad”?)

Evidence: Something – a story, an event or a person – from real life that serves to prove and illustrate the point. Case Studies, statistics, news re-

48 DEBATE CLASS ports, journals. DO NOT FORGET TO TIE YOUR ARGUMENT WITH THE ASSERTION/IDEA. Conclusion: Connecting the argument back to the debate, showing why it proves our side of the motion.

Speaking Style Do’s • • •

•

• • • • •

Don’ts

Standing Straight back • Move around too much Move around a little • Stand with legs or feet in When standing - feet in a litany other way, especially tle V shape, both feet facing ways that attract attention the audience

Eyes Maintain eye-contact with • Look at feet/ceiling/random the entire audience point in the air • Look only at one part or one person in the audience Hands Keep between waistline and • Keep between waistline and chest-chest line chest-chest line Move naturally • Move naturally Voice Speak in a volume suited to • Talk too softly or too loudly the venue and audience • Talk too quickly or too slowPlay with volume, tone and ly speed • Swallow words Observe diction • Be monotonous

Definition

49 DEBATE CLASS Sometimes the motion in a debate is crystal clear. For example, in “This house would lower the voting age for the Knesset from 18 to 16” there is absolutely nothing that needs clarification – we all understand exactly what the debate is about. Sometimes, however, the motion is a bit ambiguous. In “This house believes Israel should withdraw from the territories”, are we talking about every single piece of land Israel gained control over in 1967? Are we talking about withdrawal in the framework of an agreement, or uni-lateral? In “This house would ban Harry Potter”, are we talking only about the books, or more? And what do we mean by “ban”? In order for us to have a proper debate, there needs to be an agreement on what it is that we’re debating. If one team debates about the Golan Heights, and one team debates about Hebron, then we have no debate. To avoid such instances, in a debate the First Prop – i.e, the first speaker of side proposition – gives the definition to the debate. He/ she explains in detail what it is that the proposition actually proposes, so we can all debate the same thing. For example: When opening a debate on “This house would use corporal punishment in schools”, we expect the 1st Prop to begin the debate saying something like this: Ladies and gentlemen, we have a grave problem in our society today, that of misconduct by pupils that leads to inefficient education. We intend to solve that problem using corporal punishment in schools. But, what exactly do we mean by that? We mean that if a pupil – from age 8 to 18 – is found guilty in a severe disciplinary offence in school (such as yelling at a teacher, failing to complete tasks more than a reasonable number of times, skipping class a few times, etc.) then the principal will be allowed to administer corporal punishment, using a wooden cane, on the students’ hands, for no more than 5-10 times. Please mind that only the principal can do this, and this will indeed be reserved to major cases, certainly not for every single talkback or incomplete homework.

Now we can debate.

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Since the definition only comes up in the prime minister’s speech, the opposition obviously does not know it in advance. That means the proposition has a certain advantage. However, their definition must adhere by two rules: 1. Debatable – one that allows for an argument 2. Reasonable and fair – one that encompasses the essence of the topic, and one that the opposition could have predicted For example: 1. If, for the motion “This house believes men are better than women”, I define “better” as “physically stronger on average”, that is a biological fact that cannot be argued upon, and thus an illegal definition. “Better = contributing more the Israeli society” would be a legal definition, as it is perfectly possible to argue. 2. If, for the motion “This house would ban fast food” I define “fast food” as “popcorn for microwave”, I do not encompass the essence of the motion, and so it’s an illegal definition. BUT….”Fast food = McDonald’s “ is a legal definition. 3. If, for the motion “This house would ban Harry Potter” I define “Harry Potter” as a real person who is named Harry Potter, it is an illegal definition, because the opposition could have never predicted it. If the proposition gives a definition that is debatable, reasonable and fair, and the opposition still had not prepared for it – then tough luck for the opposition! Opposition should prepare for every reasonable definition.

If a definition given is illegal, the leader of opposition (and only the leader) can challenge it, say “this is an illegal definition” and explain why, and provide an alternative definition. However, sometimes it’s better to keep debating even an illegal definition. For example: if proposition defines “ban Harry Potter” as “we will forbid to sell only the 3rd book of the series”, then certainly it is unreasonable and unfair. However, it is such a foolish definition, that

51 DEBATE CLASS opposition should win the debate easily if they argue according to it! How on Earth is proposition going to defend only forbidding to sell the 3rd book?! In any case, we do not expect a need to challenge the definition to ever arise in our competition. Finding arguments The best way to think of relevant arguments for a debate is remember the four different potential areas of clash in every argument: 1. Problem – is there any need to do anything about the current situation? 2. Solution – is the proposition going to solve the problem? 3. Principles (justification) – is the proposition acceptable according to our morality, principles, norms and so on? 4. Consequences – is the proposition going to yield more harms or more benefits? Each of these headlines can lead us to numerous arguments. For example: there are many reasons why banning kavei mehadrin can be principally justified – it negates equality, it enforces private norms in the public sphere, it infringes on the freedom of movement of women, and so on. Another example: There are many harms to using corporal punishment – it can lead to psychological trauma, it can lead to a more violent society, it can impair with the child’s ability to learn, and more. The trick is to think what is going to be the clash(es) in each topic. For example: In “This house would attack the nuclear facilities in Iran”, I (as government) find that it is unlikely that opposition would argue that nuclear in Iran is a problem; I find it quite likely that they would claim a military strike can’t really delete the knowledge or even destroy all the facilities; I find it unlikely that they would make a principle argument, and if they do I would negate that easily; and I find it very likely that they claim a strike would lead to terrible consequences – mainly all-out war. Therefore, after I spend 20 seconds explaining what the problem is

52 DEBATE CLASS (like every debate starts) and giving a definition explaining exactly who strikes what how and when, I will present the following arguments: 1. How a strike can get rid of the nuclear project or at least delay it sufficiently 2. Why acting will bring better consequences than not acting 3. Why Iran will not retaliate, and if it does, why we can definitely win 4. How the strike will serve as a deterrent for other nations Another example: In “This house would punish parents for the crimes of their children”, I find it unlikely that opposition claims juvenile delinquency is not a problem; I find it quite likely that they claim this will not solve the problem; I find it very likely that they claim it is unjustified to punish someone for the crimes of someone else; And I find it likely that they claim this will lead to bad education. And so, my case after presenting the problem (you have to present the problem in every debate!) and giving a definition explaining what I mean exactly to propose, my case will be: 1. How this will make parents educate and supervise their children better 2. If children commit crimes it means either that the parents did not do their job educating them properly, or did not watch them carefully. In either case – it is justified to punish them 3. How this will lead to better education (parental involvement, stronger connection, etc.) Please notice that the two examples above were from the point of view of the proposition, who tries to guess where the areas of clash are going to be. The opposition should prepare for the debate in exactly the same manner, with one exception – they don’t have to guess what they are going to argue on, they can decide for themselves. Once you figure out your arguments, you turn them into SEXC arguments!

CONCLUSION

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If you’ve reached this bit, then congratulations! You have just finished reading one of the most comprehensive guides to World Schools debating in Zimbabwe. But there is a lot more out there! The information in this handbook will give you a good grounding in debating, but there is always more to learn. The best way to learn is to get involved in as many debates as possible – it is only through trial and error and constant improvement that you will be able to take your place in the provincial and national championships – and who knows, you might even represent Zimbabwe on the world stage. So join or start a debating society at your school, and get talking! For more information on debating, the following sites will get you started:

This handbook is one of a series of handbooks on all things debate-related. On our Facebook page ‘Zimbabwe Schools Debating Column’ you will also find handbooks on adjudicating, coaching, organising tournaments, and more. You will also find contact details for the provincial debating organisations in each province. • Debateable: www.debateable.org. This is a website set up by a debater who represented Singapore, one of the world’s top debating nations, at multiple World Championships. It features some introductory guides to debating, videos of international debates, and some very useful background articles on all sorts of topics that come up in debates. • Debate Training in Audio: http://debate.uvm.edu/low.html. This website features low bandwidth, audio-only workshops in debating, given by some of the best coaches in the world. • The Australian Capital Territory Debating Union: www.actdu.org. au. This website has some good training material for debaters and adjudicators at beginner and intermediate level. • The World Schools Debating Championships: www.schoolsdebate.com. The official website of the World Schools Debating Championships.

•

54 DEBATE CLASS YouTube: www.youtube.com. YouTube has a lot of channels on debate, in World Schools style and other styles.

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STANDARD INTERNATIONAL SPEAKER BALLOT

we treasure your efforts and realize that completing this ballot takes certain time; nevertheless we ask you fill this document in thouroghly abd completely. Please turn this ballot in as quickly as possible after the round is over. Thank you. Round Motion 1

Venue

Proposition Team

Surname

Name

Content

Style

Strategy Total

2 3 R

Team Total Proposition Team

Surname

Name

Content

Style

Strategy Total

2 3 R

Team Total WINNING TEAM:

Chair

Panelists

NB Content : 24-32 Style : 24-32 Strategy : 12-16

Notes

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Notes

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DEBATE CLASS 3rd speaker post hoc fallacy

argument

framing truism evidence

whip

policy

normative

push burden

reasoning

point

analysis debating

evaluative motion logos

1st speaker

pathos

case split

speech

claim

normative motion

case split logic

straw man fallacy

rebuttal

clash shaft

small government

Zimbabwe Speaking Community Zimbabwe Debate @zimdebate1o1

zimdebate1o1@gmail.com

2nd speaker

big government

consequential reasoning