Introduction to policy debates

The Rules of Debating – World Schools Style

KIRAN IYER: We’re not going to spend much time on the rules of debating in this course, because there are loads of different styles of debate used around the world. Plus, rules are pretty boring!

However, if you don’t understand some of the basic rules, much of what follows in this course won’t make sense. In this section, we are going to look at the rules of the two styles that are most often used in international debating tournaments: World Schools Style and British Parliamentary Style.

Let’s start with World Schools Style. There are two teams in a World Schools debate. One team is the Proposition, or Affirmative, and the other team is the Opposition, or Negative. Each team has three speakers.

The teams debate a motion (for example, ‘That we should ban smoking’). The Proposition team argues in favour of the motion: ‘yes we should ban smoking’. The Opposition team argues against the motion: ‘no we should not ban smoking’. You don’t usually get to choose which side of the motion you are on, which is great, because you learn how to argue different viewpoints.

All six speakers get to speak for a maximum of eight minutes. The speaking order alternates: first the first Proposition speaker, then the first Opposition speaker, then the second Proposition speaker, second Opposition and so on.

After all six speeches are completed, one speaker on each team delivers what’s known as a reply speech – a speech of maximum four minutes in length, which summarises the issues in the debate and tries to prove why that speaker’s team won. The Opposition gets the chance to give the first reply speech, before the Proposition reply speech. You can’t put any new material in a reply – it is essentially a biased summary of the debate.

As I mentioned before, all six speakers get to speak for a maximum of eight minutes. Between the first and the last minute of the eight minute speeches, members of the other team can stand up and ask the speaker a question or make a comment. These interjections are known as ‘Points of Information’ or POIs. It looks something like this: ‘Point of Information!’.

The speaker can refuse a POI by saying ‘No thank you’ or waving down the opposition. But he or she should accept between one and two POIs in every speech.

After the debate, the adjudicator decides whether the Proposition or Opposition won the debate, based on which team was most persuasive. Persuasiveness is based both on the style of presentation and the content of the speeches.

Introduction to policy debates

The Rules of Debating – British Parliamentary Style

KIRAN IYER: Let’s now turn to British Parliamentary, or BP Style, debating. As with World Schools Style, the teams debate a motion – one side argues in favour of it – the Proposition – and the other side opposes it – the Opposition.

The difference with BP Style is that there are two separate teams on each side of the debate – two Proposition teams and two Opposition teams. Each team has two speakers. The debate is divided into two halves, an opening half and a closing half. The teams in the closing half are expected to provide what is called an ‘Extension’ – new material supporting their side of the debate.

So putting all of this together, we have four teams in a BP debate – the Opening Proposition, the Opening Opposition, the Closing Proposition and the Closing Opposition. Each of the speakers within the debate has a particular title and the speaking order is as follows. First, the Prime Minister, secondly the Opposition Leader, thirdly the Deputy Prime Minister, fourthly the Deputy Opposition Leader, fifthly the Proposition Member, sixthly the Opposition Member, seventhly the Proposition Whip and eighthly the Opposition Whip. Each gets to speak for a maximum of seven minutes.

One helpful way to think about this type of debate is that the teams on each side (known as the Proposition or Opposition ‘bench’) are in a form of coalition. They are working together to get the policy passed or voted down, but they are also competing against each other in order to win votes for having the best reasons why a particular policy is good or bad. So it’s possible to have the Closing Proposition finishing first in a debate and the Opening Proposition finishing last, even though they are on the same bench.

At the end of the debate, the adjudicator will rank the teams from 1 to 4 based on their persuasiveness. So to rank first, you need to beat the teams on the opposing bench and also the other team on your own bench. Each team will try and present better arguments than the team on their own bench, without contradicting them explicitly.

This style of debating also allows for Points of Information to be asked to speakers by members of the opposing bench between the first and last minutes of each speech. Once again, the speaker may choose to refuse these points, but should accept between one and two points in every speech.

So those are the absolute basics. Check out the videos below if you want to see real debates in these styles.