POLICY DEBATE
Policy debate is an intensive debate event requiring two people per team. In a round, an affirmative team proposes a policy that would pass through the U.S. federal government (i.e. legislative, executive, or judicial); there is also an opposing negative team trying to find the faults in the affirmative policy.
A policy debate round lasts approximately 90 minutes. Each participant in the debate gives two speeches and has a chance to ask and answer cross-examination questions. The first group of speeches are eight minutes long. They are known as constructives. The debate round begins with the l Affirmative Constructive (A.C). This speech is eight minutes long and contains the policy proposal and its advantages. The 1AC. is followed by the 1 Negative Constructive (N.C.). This speech also lasts eight minutes. The 1NC is for making negative arguments against the affirmative policy. The next speech is the 2AC followed by the 2NC. Each speech is eight minutes long and is used to refute one another’s arguments. Between each constructive speech is a three minute cross examination used for clarification.
The rebuttals follow the last constructive speech. The rebuttals are short five minute speeches that end the debate round. Each of these speeches is meant for making closing arguments. The rebuttals are in the following order: 1st negative rebuttal, lst affirmative rebuttal, 2nd negative rebuttal, and last the 2nd affirmative rebuttal. The affirmative team gives the first and last speech of the debate round.
The format of the debate round is important, but the substance of each speech and the burdens that each team must meet are at the heart of the debate. The affirmative team must prove that their policy is advantageous in comparison with today’s current situation.
The affirmative team must win the five stock issues: inherency, significance, harms, solvency and topicality. Inherency is the current situation, the affirmative needs to prove why their affirmative policy has not already been done. Significance and harms comprise the problem the affirmative is trying to solve. Significance talks about how large the problem is. It is a quantitative measurement. Harms on the other hand is qualitative, harms asks how bad the problem is. Solvency is how the affirmative policy goes about actually solving the problem. If the affirmative team cannot defend all five stock issues the ballot is awarded to the negative team.
Policy debate requires evidence to support claims and arguments. Evidence is necessary for a policy debate to take place, but analytical arguments are just as important. If either team cannot explain the evidence they read, the evidence means nothing. Often teams will just try to read evidence against one another without any explanation. Policy debate is all about analysis.