Ok, so i'm going to be guessing that most of you guys don't understand what exactly policy debate is, but it's for sure something I enjoy, and a lot of my friends enjoy as well, and we all want to try and spread it to as many people as is possible, and if theres anywhere that likes good intellectual debate, it's TL. So I'm going to begin with a brief overview of how exactly debate works:
Policy Debate is a game of enacting into life real world policies, and discussing the impacts and endgames of such a plan being enacted. There are two sides, the affirmative and the negative. In basics, the affirmative promotes a plan, which is then contested by the negative. A judge then decides whether the plan: A. Adequately solves for the risks it presents B. Overcomes the disadvantages the negative presents to the plan This is the basics of debate, without incorporating any of the more complex and complicated arguments, which i'll discuss later on in the thread. So, now that I've completed the overview of basic debate, let's move on to debate structure.
Debate is separated into 8 speeches, four given by each side, two given by each partner. There are two types of speeches: Constructives and rebuttals. Constructives are generally 8 minute speeches, in which the affirmative and negative teams present and develop their arguments. Rebuttals are 4 minute speeches in which the two teams tune up their arguments and present their final arguments to the judge.
The order goes: 1AC->1NC->2AC->2NC->1NR->1AR->2NR->2AR
C Standing for constructive, and R stands for rebuttal. In between each of the constructive speeches, there is a three minute period known as Cross examination or cross ex. During cross ex, one team will attempt to point out clear flaws in the arguments of the other team, and set up the arguments they're going to make in the next speech. Cross ex seems like a very small part of the debate, but I have been in many debates in which Cross ex had made the debate. So, since I've finished the explanation of the structure of debate, i'm going to list a couple terms, relevant arguments and important things about policy debate in general, that you'll need to know to understand anything about it as a whole
1. The resolution: This is basically the outlined topic for the year. The resolution is what guides people as to how they're going to choose their plan and do their research
2. Evidence/Cards: While it is possible to have a debate mainly on your own analytical arguments, when talking about real life policy and real life possibilities, it's best to have a qualified author backing you. Policy Debate takes excerpts from certain articles and uses it to help qualify exactly what the team is saying.
3. Disadvantage: A negative argument in which the Negative team presents a reason as to why the plan is bad, mainly how the action of enacting the plan causes something bad to happen.
4. Counterplan: This is basically a strategic negative alternative to the plan. The only rules to what your counterplan can be is that it has to be either mutually exclusive to the plan, or have a net benefit to it. A net benefit is basically something that the plan causes/ does which is bad that the counterplan doesn't do. Otherwise, GO NUTS!
5. The Status Quo: While I'm sure all of you know the meanings of these words in general, in debate, the Status Quo is used to describe the current world and the world with out any other options(i.e Counterplans). Basically it is what the negative advocates unless it has a Counterplan or a Kritik in the debate
6. The S.H.I.T.S: Yeah, yeah, I know its' profanity, but these are actually important things to debate as a whole. The Shits, aka stock issues, are the original way that debat used to work. They made sure that an aff's plan was: A. under the resolution B. Able to solve significant harms C. Able to overcome the negative's harms D. Not happening currently E.Actually making a difference
7. Kritiks: Basically a philosophical indict of the plan's philosophical underpinnings. A kritik says that the idealogical system that you work under is flawed, and that idealogical system is what causes your harms to happen. Therefore, your plan can't really solve any of its' harms. Kritiks usually come with alternatives, which presents a way to transition away from the mode of thought currently in the status quo.
8. Spreading: Speed reading. This is what makes policy debate as daunting as it is, because debaters read at 9 million miles per hour.
You thought i was kidding didn't you. Debate at the highest competitive level is like this, and it is an attempt to get through as many arguments in 8 minutes as is humanely possible
9. Flowing: A specific style of how one writes down the arguments read by each time. Generally you have a different piece of paper for each general argument(ie disad, kritik, advantage etc) and you flow down for each speech. Every card read is tagged once, and every analytical is usually pretagged, so flowing shouldn't be too hard if you understand those
10. Advantages: Reasons as to why enacting the plan is good
11. Topicality: One of the stock issues, topicality is basically an argument highlighting why teh affirmative's plan isn't under the resolution. The Negative provides a definition as to why your specific plan isn't in line with a specific word in the resolution, and because of that, the Aff can lose the debate
So this is the basics of policy debate, and I encourage discussion about it. To any of you still in high school or college, I'd encourage you to sign up.
Some rules for the Forum:
1. No shit talking debate: It's exactly like the IdrA fanclub, if you have nothing nice to say, don't bother saying it.
2. Don't cry imba: Don't let everyone how good kritiks are, and they should be banned, we don't really care about that shit.
3. Don't whine: don't yell at me that you lost your break round, or that kritiks are stupid.
EDIT: Lol this year's Policy topic is hella complicated. Resolved: The United States federal government should substantially increase its exploration and/or development of space beyond the Earth’s mesosphere.
On February 16 2012 13:07 1Eris1 wrote: Are you telling me I actually have to professional and articulate when I argue?
omggggggggggggggggg..............
Uh, alright. Whats the first topic?
Not necessarily articulate. You can say random bullshit that doesn't make sense in debate too.
The 2012 resolution is: The United States Federal Government should substantially increase exploration and/or development of Space beyond the earth's mesosphere.
On February 16 2012 13:08 Jaso wrote: LD is totally better... ^^
-preparing for tournament in 2 days lol-
EDIT: Lol this year's Policy topic is hella complicated. Resolved: The United States federal government should substantially increase its exploration and/or development of space beyond the Earth’s mesosphere.
Not complicated no. It's just space. Launch into space. Do something in space
Out of curiosity, is Policy normally this much more empirical? The fact that you need to know stuff about space and atmospheres is a lot different from LD's philosophical tendencies.
edit: Idk, seems like it requires a lot more background knowledge.
On February 16 2012 13:11 Jaso wrote: Out of curiosity, is Policy normally this much more empirical? The fact that you need to know stuff about space and atmospheres is a lot different from LD's philosophical tendencies.
True true. Policy debate is less philosophy and much more actual evidence and empirical background. And you only really need to understand what your evidence says
EDIT: Not that much background knowledge is necessary
On February 16 2012 13:02 ticklishmusic wrote: Are you referring to LD Debate? I did that for three years in high school.
Policy not LD. Different things in their entirety. But any form of debate is good for all the others
Hmm, the format you outlined seemed similar to what I remember of LD. Escalation to thermonuclear war argument was so imbalanced.
I was considered pretty decent at doing Cross-ex in my area, but then I watched some videos of debaters at nationals, and it was innocent question 1, innocent question 2, and SO I HEARD YOU LIKE DEAD BABIES. Those people are scary. :X
On February 16 2012 13:02 ticklishmusic wrote: Are you referring to LD Debate? I did that for three years in high school.
Policy not LD. Different things in their entirety. But any form of debate is good for all the others
Hmm, the format you outlined seemed similar to what I remember of LD.
I was considered pretty decent at DOING Cross-ex in my area, but then I watched some videos of debaters at nationals, and it was innocent question 1, innocent question 2, and SO I HEARD YOU LIKE DEAD BABIES. Those people are scary. :X
On February 16 2012 13:07 1Eris1 wrote: Are you telling me I actually have to professional and articulate when I argue?
omggggggggggggggggg..............
Uh, alright. Whats the first topic?
Not necessarily articulate. You can say random bullshit that doesn't make sense in debate too.
The 2012 resolution is: The United States Federal Government should substantially increase exploration and/or development of Space beyond the earth's mesosphere.
Basically It's space
I am a fan of space and space travel. I would like us to know more about our own planet before bullshitting around in space though, at least if we're prioritizing one over the other.
I find it funny as all hell that the people supporting this idea in the US government are the same people complaining that we spend our money horribly. Frankly I think this is solely coming up as a political response to the democrats taking more money out of nasa.
On February 16 2012 13:02 ticklishmusic wrote: Are you referring to LD Debate? I did that for three years in high school.
Policy not LD. Different things in their entirety. But any form of debate is good for all the others
Hmm, the format you outlined seemed similar to what I remember of LD.
I was considered pretty decent at DOING Cross-ex in my area, but then I watched some videos of debaters at nationals, and it was innocent question 1, innocent question 2, and SO I HEARD YOU LIKE DEAD BABIES. Those people are scary. :X
Yeah, cross-ex is the same, but you aren't going to come around a form of debate without it. Policy is a lot less philosophical and moralistic and a lot more HOLY SHIT NUCLEAR FUCKING WAR kind of stuff
On February 16 2012 13:02 ticklishmusic wrote: Are you referring to LD Debate? I did that for three years in high school.
Policy not LD. Different things in their entirety. But any form of debate is good for all the others
Hmm, the format you outlined seemed similar to what I remember of LD.
I was considered pretty decent at DOING Cross-ex in my area, but then I watched some videos of debaters at nationals, and it was innocent question 1, innocent question 2, and SO I HEARD YOU LIKE DEAD BABIES. Those people are scary. :X
Yeah, cross-ex is the same, but you aren't going to come around a form of debate without it. Policy is a lot less philosophical and moralistic and a lot more HOLY SHIT NUCLEAR FUCKING WAR kind of stuff
Straight-up stock issues maybe, but not with the K, or with performance.
On February 16 2012 13:07 1Eris1 wrote: Are you telling me I actually have to professional and articulate when I argue?
omggggggggggggggggg..............
Uh, alright. Whats the first topic?
Not necessarily articulate. You can say random bullshit that doesn't make sense in debate too.
The 2012 resolution is: The United States Federal Government should substantially increase exploration and/or development of Space beyond the earth's mesosphere.
Basically It's space
I am a fan of space and space travel. I would like us to know more about our own planet before bullshitting around in space though, at least if we're prioritizing one over the other.
I find it funny as all hell that the people supporting this idea in the US government are the same people complaining that we spend our money horribly. Frankly I think this is solely coming up as a political response to the democrats taking more money out of nasa.
Please don;t bring your own personal political views into the fray. I love debate and all, but don't be the dick that says it's all the democrats fault. But to link this back, You can make disads off of too much deficit spending. so there
On February 16 2012 13:02 ticklishmusic wrote: Are you referring to LD Debate? I did that for three years in high school.
Policy not LD. Different things in their entirety. But any form of debate is good for all the others
Hmm, the format you outlined seemed similar to what I remember of LD.
I was considered pretty decent at DOING Cross-ex in my area, but then I watched some videos of debaters at nationals, and it was innocent question 1, innocent question 2, and SO I HEARD YOU LIKE DEAD BABIES. Those people are scary. :X
Yeah, cross-ex is the same, but you aren't going to come around a form of debate without it. Policy is a lot less philosophical and moralistic and a lot more HOLY SHIT NUCLEAR FUCKING WAR kind of stuff
Straight-up stock issues maybe, but not with the K, or with performance.
Yeah, but you as a policy debater know that while the K comes up often, performance isn't that big of an issue. Theory is really a much bigger deal than performance Ks. But even then, there are more straight up policy teams than K hacks
On February 16 2012 13:07 1Eris1 wrote: Are you telling me I actually have to professional and articulate when I argue?
omggggggggggggggggg..............
Uh, alright. Whats the first topic?
Not necessarily articulate. You can say random bullshit that doesn't make sense in debate too.
The 2012 resolution is: The United States Federal Government should substantially increase exploration and/or development of Space beyond the earth's mesosphere.
Basically It's space
I am a fan of space and space travel. I would like us to know more about our own planet before bullshitting around in space though, at least if we're prioritizing one over the other.
I find it funny as all hell that the people supporting this idea in the US government are the same people complaining that we spend our money horribly. Frankly I think this is solely coming up as a political response to the democrats taking more money out of nasa.
Please don;t bring your own personal political views into the fray. I love debate and all, but don't be the dick that says it's all the democrats fault. But to link this back, You can make disads off of too much deficit spending. so there
I didn't say anything about it being the democrats fault? Reading comprehension?
On February 16 2012 13:07 1Eris1 wrote: Are you telling me I actually have to professional and articulate when I argue?
omggggggggggggggggg..............
Uh, alright. Whats the first topic?
Not necessarily articulate. You can say random bullshit that doesn't make sense in debate too.
The 2012 resolution is: The United States Federal Government should substantially increase exploration and/or development of Space beyond the earth's mesosphere.
Basically It's space
I am a fan of space and space travel. I would like us to know more about our own planet before bullshitting around in space though, at least if we're prioritizing one over the other.
I find it funny as all hell that the people supporting this idea in the US government are the same people complaining that we spend our money horribly. Frankly I think this is solely coming up as a political response to the democrats taking more money out of nasa.
Please don;t bring your own personal political views into the fray. I love debate and all, but don't be the dick that says it's all the democrats fault. But to link this back, You can make disads off of too much deficit spending. so there
I didn't say anything about it being the democrats fault? Reading comprehension?
And...am i missing the point of this thread? o.o
Actually I'm so sorry, you're right, reading comprehension error. Please go along with business as usual
You should link to this Wikipedia article in the OP so the unwashed understand you aren't actually debating policy but rather talking about the unique activity.
EPT
