Basic Terms
- Judge: The person, whom you try to convince to vote for you. Always speak to the judge. Never address your opponents directly.
- Government/Affirmative/Pro (gov, aff, pro): Is the team that has the burden to uphold the resolution (topic). They must stay on topic, while laying the framework for the debate round.
- Opposition/Negative/Con (opp, neg, con): Is the team, which must show that the government should not win. They may do this, by negating the resolution (topic), or showing in ANY other way, why the government team should lose the round.
- Rounds: Each individual debate match, between the two opposing sides.
- GO/GO/GO or GO/GOOG: G stands for Government and O for Opposition. These are the two speaking orders, in which the teams might speak during a debate. There are 3 speeches per team. The order is always decided on beforehand, and will never change, once a debate has started.
- POI: Stands for “Point Of Information”. The team not giving their speech, uses a POI to request permission, in order to ask a question, during the OTHER teams speaking time. The team asking the POI, does not take control of the floor, unless the team receiving the POI accepts their question. A POI may be refused, without penalty.
There are 3 basic options upon reception of a POI: 1) You take it right away. 2) You state a condition, under which you will take it (i.e.: After you are done with this point, At the end of the speech, if you have time, etc.). 3) You refuse the POI outright.
Generally three or less POI are acceptable per Debate. - PPP: Stands for “Point of Personal Privilege”. A PPP, is an emergency in the round. It need not be a matter of life or death. It is a request, to STOP the time of the current round, and address an issue, from outside the round (i.e.: Restroom break, Broken pen/pencil, so one cannot take notes, Or some other issue, which could disturb the round). During a PPP, the judge should stop the time of the round, and acknowledge the request.
- Times: The length, each speech is allowed to take, for each side of the debate.
- Prep: Describes the short period of time, after being given the topic and before the start of the debate. This is to try and prepare your structure and arguments for the debate. During this time, you plan much of the tactics you will use during the round.
- Constructive Speeches: Are the first two speeches for each team. The first two speeches are used to construct the arguments for the debate as a whole.
- Rebuttal Speeches: Is the final speech for each team. During this speech, you state your reasons why the judge should vote for you, and counter any final arguments from the other team.
- Voters: Your team’s reasons why the judge should vote for you.
Terms for Parliamentary Debate
- CWI: Claim, Warrant and Impact are the basic structure of a solid argument.
- Claim: Anything you say is true (Even if you are saying it is true, that something else is false.).
- Warrant: A reason to believe someone (i.e.: Logic, evidence, reasoning etc.).
- Impact: Why something matters in the real world.
- On Case: The arguments you created that support your position.
- Off case: The counter arguments to negate the other side’s position, and prove why they are mistaken/wrong.
- Framework: The definition, criterion and weighing mechanism for the round. This is the portion which holds the debate together.
- Definition: The definition for the words/terms in the topic (resolution).
- Criterion: The goal for BOTH teams during the debate round. It should be as neutral as possible, and not favor either team.
- Weighing Mechanism (WM): The tool for a judge to weigh who has achieved the criterion (goal) for the round. Again, it should favor neither team and be neutral.
- Substantive Arguments: Arguments made, after the framework for the round has been laid. These are the arguments to convince the judge to vote for you.
- Contentions: The reasons you lay out, to prove the judge should vote for you.
- Fact: A round in which you show that something is true or false.
- Policy: A round in which you use a plan to solve a problem/s.
- Value: A round in which you either, say something is more valuable than something else, or how much you value something.
- Value (*2nd meaning): In a value round, you may replace a criterion with a value (This is different from the name of the round. This is a good thing both sides aim for.).
- Value Criterion: The weighing mechanism for a value round (How you know, if you have achieved your value.).
- Status Quo: How things are currently in the real world.
- Harms: Real problems which exist in the status quo.
- Plan: Your idea to solve a problem/s, including sufficient details.
- Solvency: Stating how/if your plan will solve your harms (problem/s).
- Uniqueness: Showing that your plan is not yet being done in the status quo.
- Significance: Showing that your changes are meaningful.
- Advantages: Good things, which come from a plan, besides solving the problem/s.
- Counter Plan: A plan made by the opposition that they claim, will work better than the government’s plan. In this type of round, the opposition acts as a second gov team.
- Burden: A job placed upon a team, which they have to do.
- Topicality (*T): States that the government team did not uphold its burden, by sticking to the topic. If they do not stick to the topic in a fair way, the government loses, even if they win the rest of the round (This is always at the discretion of the judge.).
- Alternate Framework: Arguing that you should change a core rule of debate, or have a different framework, than the one initially proposed.
- Abuses: The argument that a team has broken some fundamental value, which everyone should uphold in debate (Typically saying a person, rather than an argument is unfair in some way.). A judge may choose a winner based on an abuse, if they feel it is severe enough.
- Kritique (*K): The idea, that something one team said, is so vile, that they should lose for supporting the position. This argument is very rare, since we want an open forum to discuss controversial ideas in debate. We try to give debaters a wide berth and encourage free speech. This would be used for overtly racist, sexist, classist or in some other way bigoted ideas and speech.
- House: A term used in topics, which means anything you can theoretically be a member of.
- Prime Minister (P.M.): First and last speaker for the government team.
- Member of Government (M.G.): Second speaker for the government team.
- Leader of Opposition (L.O.): First and last speaker for the opposition.
- Member of Opposition (M.O.): Second speaker for the opposition.