What is policy debate?
From Debate One World
WHAT IS DEBATE?
Debate is about change. We are constantly engaged in a struggle to make our lives, our community, our country, our world, our future, a better one. We should never be satisfied with the way things are now - surely there is something in our lives that could be improved.
Debate is that process which determines how change should come about. Debate attempts to justify changing the way we think and live. In the real world, debate occurs everyday on the floor of the United States Senate and the United States House of Representatives. Debate occurs at the United Nations, the faculty meetings at your school, and at your dinner table. The procedures for these debates may differ, but the process is the same - discussion that resolves an issue which will determine whether change is good or bad. The United Nations debated whether or not the Iraq invasion of Kuwait was good or bad; the faculty meetings debate school policies; you may recently have debated with your parents after dinner about the size of your allowance or when you can begin to drive your own car.
In the classroom, we will attempt to"formalize"this debate process.
1 . You will work with a partner. You and your partner form a"debate team". Sometimes you will have to be for the issue (the affirmative) and sometimes you will have to be against the issue (negative). In any instance, you will have plenty of time to get ready for the debate.
2. You will deliver speeches in a format that is unique to debate. The speeches are called constructives and rebuttals. Each person on each team will speak twice. There are affirmative constructives and negative constructives. There are affirmative rebuttals and negative rebuttals.
You will learn rules and techniques that will seem strange to you. The way we learn how to debate may at first seem difficult. But once you take on the challenge, you will begin to understand its relationship to debating. The most difficult part of debate is the first few weeks, after that it gets easier and easier once you have learned the rules. We will debate only one resolution. Most of our emphasis will be on competitive or tournament debating. In order to compete at tournaments and to give the debaters sufficient time to prepare, a standard topic or resolution is used all year. Thousands of high schools at this very minute are researching and debating the very same issues and ideas that you will be. The resolution determines the debate area. From this area there can be thousands of issues so that all of the debates are never the same and are always changing. Those students who want to be challenged can participate in debate tournaments against other high schools during the school year.
