Each round is decided by a judge or a panel of judges (a panel always has an odd number of judges, so that there is a clear majority that decides the winner, no ties are allowed). Some judges have debated themselves, and are thus familiar with the debate structure and jargon; they are known as flow judges. At the tournaments we will attend, however most judges will be the parents of the debaters at the tournament (everyone who signs up commits to bringing an adult who can cover their judging commitment, but only about a quarter of the judges actually get selected to judge). Those judges are known as lay judges.
A lay judge does not know all technicalities of debate, and thus his presence requires judge adaptation. That means that first, you should avoid running arguments that you don’t think your parent would agree with (such as arguments with extreme impacts). Second, you need to explain the judge the structure of the round if you are at a structural advantage. For example, if your opponents forgot to have a standard, “no standard, thus our opponents can’t impact” would suffice for a flow judge, but a lay judge needs to be explained what a standard is and why its absence matters.

ETIQUETTE

Points of Information
- To ask a POI, stand up and wait for your opponent to acknowledge you. Say “Point of Information” if you have reasons to believe your opponents might not notice you or chose to ignore you. A formal parliamentary point of information includes placing you left hand on your head (holding an imaginary wig) and stretching out your right hand; nowadays, some debaters find this custom silly and don’t use it.
- When accepting a POI, remember that it is being asked during your speech time, so you don’t have to take it right away, or even take it at all.  If you don’t want to take a POI, just say “No, thank you” or “Sorry, not this time”.  You should always finish your thought before taking a POI, but if you make your opponents wait for too long, some judges might consider this rude.  However, if you have a judge that doesn’t care, you can have your opponents stand there for a at least a minute.
- If you are forced to stand for a POI for too long, remember three things. First, don’t stop flowing and thinking of responses. Second, do not forget your question; write it down if needed. If it so happens that you did forget your question, make it up when called on (such as “could you reexplain your previous argument”). Third, after you have ensured that your opponent and the judges noticed you standing, just be cool and don’t get irritated.
- A POI should be well delivered (think of what are you going to ask before standing up) and should last no longer than 15 seconds.
- Unless you have a reason to believe your judge would like it otherwise, do not accept over 3 POIs per a constructive speech, try to average at 2. If rebuttals allow POIs, do not take more than 1, 0 is also a good number.

Thank-you’s
- Once you are more experienced, you can start having weird introductions, but for now, just use a set intro that goes like this: “Before my time begins, I’d like to thank everybody for being here and making this debate possible”.  You can then chose to thank each person in specific:  “First of all, I’d like to thank my partner for supporting me, my opponents for giving me the pleasure to debate them, and, of course, my judge, for taking time of their weekend and judging.  The resolution that we are presented today is…”.  Depending on how much your judge seems to like the thank-you’s, you can give them in the beginning of every speech or only in the beginning of the first constructive.
- Some debaters believe think that “thank-you’s” can be delivered before time starts and that there is a grace period after you speech to let you finish up your idea. This is true, but parent judges don’t know that, so keep your speech 7 minutes exactly.

- Establish all the rules that might be disagreed upon (which speeches allow POIs, are POOs allowed etc.) before the round.

- Ask the judge about their judging preferences before the round.

- If you like an argument that your partner made, don’t applaud.  Instead,  knock on your desk.

- Refer to your opponents as “our opponents” not “they”. Refer to yourself as “my partner and I” or “we” not “I”.

- After you are done with debating, say “Good debate” and shake hands with your opponents and the judge.  Although if the judge looks like he would rather not shake hands, don’t force him to.

SPEECHES
The speech order is:
Preparation time: (prep time) 15-20 minutes after the resolution is announced. If a resolution is announced at a central location, this includes the time it takes you to walk to your room.
GOV: Prime Minister Constructive (PMC, first speaker) 7 minutes
OPP: Leader of Opposition (LOC, first speaker) 7 minutes
GOV: Member of Government Constructive (MGC, second speaker) 7 minutes
OPP: Member of Opposition Constructive (MOC, second speaker) 7 minutes
OPP: Leader of Opposition Rebuttal (LOR, first speaker) 5 minutes
GOV: Prime Minister Rebuttal (PMR, first speaker) 5 minutes
MOC+LOR=Opp Block

NEW ARGUMENTS
Most people believe that new arguments are allowed in constructives, and not allowed in rebuttals, with an exception of clarifications and examples supporting old arguments. This is not entirely accurate.
The rule of thumb is: an argument has to be made on the first opportunity to make that argument. That is, all original arguments have to be made in the first speech by that side, all responses to them have to be made in the speech right after them, all responses to those responses have to be made on the first opportunity to do so and so on. The LOR has no new arguments, and the PMR can only make new responses if it is answering a new point brought up in the Opp Block.

EXTENSIONS & DROPS
In order to become a reason to vote for your side, an argument has to 1) be introduced in a correct speech (see “new arguments” section) 2) be extended in every speech following the time it was introduced.
Extending an argument means 1) answering all objections to it made by your opponents 2) briefly restating the argument, including mentioning all three elements of it (claim, warrant, impact).
Dropping an argument means forgetting to answer it on the first opportunity you are presented with (see “new arguments”). A dropped argument is considered to be automatically true.

RESOLUTION TYPES
Policy resolution: typically begins with “This House would” and questions a specific action. Requires a plan.
Ex: THW pull out of Iraq.
Value resolution: questions a general concept rather than an action. Doesn’t require a plan. Value debates tend to be confusing, so you can specify it down to a policy resolution.
Ex: specify “Fair trade is better than free trade” to “US should tax outsourcing”.
Fact resolution (more accurately referred to as “opinion resolution”): begins with “this House believes that” and questions whether something is factually true.
Ex: This House believes that Sarah Palin was an important factor in John McCain’s loss.
In order to frame the debate as a fact, define “this House” as the judge. If you convince the judge that “X is true,” then the resolution “This House (this judge) believes that X is true” becomes true.

Metaphorical resolutions: can be policy, value or fact. They are resolutions that absolutely cannot be debated without being taken as symbolic for something specific. They are interpreted in a two-step process.
Ex: This House would go home.
Step 1: extrapolate a phrase to a general action. In this case “going home” symbolizes “leaving”.
Step 2: specify a general action to a real world situation. E.g. “US would leave (withdraw troops from) Iraq”.

POINTS
Point of Information (POI): a question or an argument disguised as question you ask during your opponent’s speech. Points of Information count as part of the speech time. The process is: 1) you stand up 2) your opponent recognizes you 3) you ask a question 4) they answer it. The speaker holding the floor doesn’t have to accept the question right away or even at all. It is best to finish up your thought before taking a question, and not take questions when you have a lot to get through. Say “No, thank you” to decline a question. Try to take about 2 questions per speech. First and last minutes of each speech are protected time and no questions can be asked during them. Also, some tournaments don’t allow Points of Information during rebuttals, so clarify the rules with your judges before the round starts.
Point of Order: made when your opponent breaks a rule (makes a new argument in a rebuttal). Points of Order do not count as part of the speech time. A speaker has to stop when a Point of Order is made; he cannot decline it. After the point is made, the speaker has an opportunity to defend himself, after which the speech resumes. Some tournaments do not allow Points of Order, so clarify the rules with your judges before the round starts.

FLOW: write down all arguments in the round. You need three separate pieces of paper, one for Gov case and responses to it, one for disads and responses to them, and one for notes to your partner. Try to use printer paper for flowing. Divide your paper into six columns (vertically, that is, the long side of the column corresponds with the long side of the paper), corresponding to each speech, and write down arguments for each speech in the appropriate column. Write down responses to these arguments in the next column right across from the original argument. Remember to use shorthand as much as possible to save time. Listen to an argument first and make sure you understand it before flowing it, don’t write down incomprehensible sentence fragments. If you do not understand an argument, make a POI asking your opponents to clarify it. If your speech is next, pre-write your arguments in the column for your speech, so that you don’t forget to make them.

SIGNPOSTING
Make it easier for the judge to flow/follow you speech.
1) When presenting your case, introduce each of your contentions with a number and a tagline. A number refers to the order in which the argument appears chronologically in your first constructive. If your argument has several sections, you can refer to each as a subpoint and label each subpoint with a letter. A tagline is a succinct one-sentence thesis/claim/summary of your contention. It is the specific rhetoric you want your judges to put down on their flows, or, if your judge is not flowing, a mental hook that will help them remember your argument.
2) In the subsequent speeches, tell the judge the number and the tagline of the argument you are extending before going into detail and answering your opponents’ refutations. This gives the judges time to find on their flows the argument you will be addressing.
Ex: Go to contention 1 (<- number), subpoint C (<- letter), where we tell you that death penalty does not deter crime (< - tagline). Our opponents refute this by saying X (<- opponents' tagline) , but they are wrong because of Y (<- your in depth argument).

FIRST GOV SPEECH

1) FRAMEWORK
A PMC starts with setting the rules for the round.  While we generally know that each team needs to prove or disprove the resolution, it is often unclear how do we know whether the resolution is proven or disproven. The Gov team needs to tell the judges how to decide the round, clearly distinguishing between which arguments are “Gov ground” and which arguments are “Opp ground”. (Think of it as a net in tennis. In order to know who won after the ball fell somewhere, we need to know whether it fell on one player’s “ground” or another, and we have a net to define whose “ground” is whose. Only in debate, there is no established “net”, so you get to argue about where it should be located). Typical framework arguments include:
Definitions: your interpretation of what the resolution means.  Have to be very specific, regardless of whether a resolution is metaphorical or straight-forward.  If the resolution begins with “This House would”, “this House” should be defined as the most appropriate agent for the action proposed.
Standard (similar to Value, Criterion): something used to evaluate the merits of something else. Every action is taken to achieve some basic overall goal, and what that goal is determines which actions to take. Standards are often derived from obligations, for example, every government has an obligation to promote the welfare of its citizens, so Societal Welfare is a common standard for resolutions that have a government actor, that is, we evaluate action based on how they affect the society overall.
Ex:  what’s worse, a risk of a terrorist attack or bad US image? To answer this, we’d need to specify the question, that is, explain, bad for what. Isolation can be worse for economy, but a risk of terrorist attack can be worse for security. Economy and Security are thus standards that you can use to compare the harms and benefits of actions.

2) PLAN & CONTENTIONS
Plan: Explains what are you going to do to achieve the resolution and how are you going to do it.  Avoid the mistake of presenting a plan and then going on to prove the resolution in general, forgetting about your plan. For example, in the example below, you need to prove that pulling out of Iraq in the specific manner you described is good, not that leaving countries is good in general. Use the specifics of the plan to preclude objections. For example, in the example below, training Iraqi police precludes your opponents from making the argument that there won’t be enough people to stop terrorism if we pull out so many troops.
After saying your plan stop and ask you opponents if they have any questions about it; this prevents them from accusing you of not being specific enough later on.
Ex: if the resolution is “This House would prefer leaving over staying”, the plan would be something like “the United States Congress would pass a law requiring our military to pull out 60,000 troops from Iraq by January 1, 2009 and to train the Iraqi police to take their spot.  The plan is going to be enforced by the  General Headquarters is going to be funded by the U.S. Treasury”.
Note: changing your plan or adding to it in the last 4 speeches is called shifting advocacy and is prohibited for fairness reasons.
Note: Only use if the resolution is calling for an action (which is most of the time), and not a fact resolution.
Contentions (a.k.a. advantages, if you have a plan): reasons for why you win under your framework. They are basic arguments (ex: pull out of Iraq to save money) and need to follow the claim-warrant-impact structure.

FIRST OPP SPEECH

1) ATTACK FRAMEWORK: your opponents set the rules for the round, but you don’t have to accept them.  There are two reasons to reject a Gov framework
Logically their framework doesn’t make sense or has no warrants
Abuse: their framework is unfair towards you (makes it harder to disprove a resolution than to prove it). The impact is that if your opponents are abusive, proving the resolution doesn’t win them the round. The ballot asks your judges to pick the better debaters, and if your opponents have a framework that makes it too easy for them to prove a resolution, then proving it doesn’t make them better than you, since their framework gave them a head start.
Note: when arguing abuse, you need to provide a better, non-abusive framework.

2) DISADVANTAGES (a.k.a. disads a.k.a. DA’s): your opponents’ case might have advantages in the area that they are talking about, but have greater disadvantages in another area.
Ex: pulling out of Iraq might save us money, but will send out a message that we will not go through with our threats, encouraging more terrorism.

3) CASE OVERVIEWS: without answering each Gov argument specifically, you can disprove a Gov case as a whole. Typical overviews include:
Inherency: the Gov case is based on a factually incorrect assumption.
Solvency: the Gov plan can be carried out, but doesn’t solve the problems it attempts to solve.
Implementation: the Gov plan cannot be carried out.
Topicality: the Gov case has nothing to do with the resolution.
Counterplan: a.k.a. CP, you agree that the status quo is bad (unless you run a counterplan, you ground is to defend the status quo and show how it’s better than what the world would be after the implementation of your opponents’ plan) , but you claim that there are better ways of solving harms than the one Gov had provided.
Note: the counterplan has to be mutually exclusive with the Gov plan, otherwise it doesn’t disprove the Gov case, because we can do both plans at the same time.
No Plan: the Gov doesn’t provide a plan, or their plan is not specific, so we don’t know what exactly they are advocating, and can’t vote for it.
Note: The above overviews are structural in nature (that is, you opponent is missing an element of a structured case, such as good definitions for topicality). You can also run substantive overviews, which just point out the same flaw contained in all of your opponents arguments.

4) DIRECT RESPONSES: answer your opponents’ contentions by attacking either their warrants or their impacts or both.

OFFENSE VS. DEFENSE
Offensive argument gives a judge a reason to vote for your team. I.e. “we save lives”. For the Opp, disads, and turns (see later) are offensive, while case overviews (other than counterplans) and non-turn direct responses are defensive.
Defensive argument is a reason to ignore an offensive argument. I.e. “they don’t save lives”.

STRAIGHT ANSWER VS. TURN
Turn: an offensive direct response to your opponent’s contention (as opposed to straight answer). For example, a straight answer to “we save lives” is “you don’t save lives” while a turn is either “you kill more people than you save” (link turn) or “saving lives is bad, we should kill everyone” (impact turn). If you win a turn, their argument doesn’t just go away, it becomes an offensive reason to vote for you.
Link Turn:- If your opponents say that what you are doing destroys some really good thing, you can say that not doing your plan would be even more detrimental to that good thing.
Impact Turn:- If your opponent says that what you are doing destroys some really good thing, you can say that the thing you are destroying is actually bad.
Note: you cannot run both of these turns at the same time. If it helps, think of what would happen if you turned something around twice in real life. In the “lives” example above, if you prove that both they are killing more than saving, and that killing is good, you are saying that what your opponents are doing is good, and have thus “double-turned” yourself.

UNIQUENESS
In order for an advantage/disadvantage to have an impact on the round, it has to apply to one team but not the other, otherwise it is called “non-unique”.
Ex: Opp accuses Gov of polluting the environment, causing Global Warming.  The Gov destroys the link between pollution and Global Warming by bringing evidence that Global Warming is a natural process. The “Global Warming disadvantage” is now non-unique because it will happen and will not decrease/increase regardless of whether the Gov or the Opp plan passes.

REBUTTALS are a time when you tell the judge why you’ve won the round. Instead of going down all the arguments again, you need to select a few (not all, just the best ones!) offensive arguments you are winning that you think can win you the round and make each one a voting issue. Number your voting issues and remember that you can reform the numbering in rebuttals, that is, contention # 1 can become voting issue # 3. Then you need to weigh your arguments against your opponents’ arguments, that is, explain why the impacts of your voting issues are more important in terms of the standard than anything your opponents might be winning (weighing early is also good, don’t wait for your last speech to do it). Finally, if your opponents have any offensive arguments left that are hard to outweigh, answer them in your last voting issues that you’d label “they have no offense now”.

Formal Dress

• For guys: dark shoes, dark socks, formal pants, collared shirt, suit jacket, tie
• For girls: blouse, suit jacket, dress pants/skirt, dress shoes (not too flashy, must be comfortable enough to walk/run across campus, both heels or flats are okay), black socks if dress pants, tights if dress skirt, no tie