General Definition: Any action, attitude, or behavior that is used to relay a message to an audience, including gestures, facial expressions, voice quality, eye contact, posture, and other body language. Public Forum: see general definition. World Schools Debate: see general definition. British Parliamentary: see general definition. Canadian National Debate Format: …
General Definition: Arguments reversing or “stealing” the impact of an opponent’s argument, showing how an argument actually benefits the other team. Also known as a “Turn“, offense is often framed as reasons the judge should vote for your team. Offensive arguments are generally stronger and more strategic than “Defensive Arguments”, …
General Definition: The side opposing the motion in a debate Public Forum: Opposition is not a common phrase in PF, where “Con” or “Negative” are used instead. World Schools Debate: see general definition. British Parliamentary: see general definition. Canadian National Debate Format: see general definition.
General Definition: A judge’s educational philosophy; a perspective that guides a judge’s decision. All judges have assumptions about the relative importance of substance, style, technical argumentation, and even format, and while judges are instructed not to allow their personal bias to influence their decision, debaters should do their best to …
General Definition: Appeals to emotion; rheoric designed to persuade an audience with emotionally impactful stories or examples. Public Forum: see general definition. World Schools Debate: see general definition. British Parliamentary: see general definition. Canadian National Debate Format: see general definition.
General Definition: A point of clarification is offered if the speaker has said something that the opponent missed or did not understand. See also “Points of Information“. Public Forum: Not used in PF, where “Crossfire” and “Grand Crossfire” are used for asking questions instead. World Schools Debate: see general definition. …
General Definition: A point of information is a question or statement posed to a speaker during the unprotected time of their speech. Questions offered should be limited to 15 seconds in length and should not be offered more than once every 20 seconds during an opponent’s speech time. See also …
General Definition: Going down the flow in order and addressing each argument one-by-one, or “point-by-point”. See also “Line-By-Line“. Public Forum: Not a common phrase in PF, where “Line-By-Line” is used instead. World Schools Debate: see general definition. British Parliamentary: see general definition. Canadian National Debate Format: see general definition.
General Definition: Time alloted for debaters to prepare upcoming speeches. Public Forum: In PF, debaters have 4 minutes of prep time over the course of the entire debate to use as needed. Typically, debaters will keep track of how much time they have used, although the judge may time debaters …
General Definition: A topic announced days or even weeks prior to a tournament where students are given time to prepare their cases, research, and strategies. Public Forum: Not a common phrase in PF, although all PF motions are announced in advance of a tournament and debated for a period of …
General Definition: A form of impact weighing that analyzes the likelihood of an impact to occur. See also “Likelihood“. Public Forum: In PF, probability is developed through both the specificity of examples or analysis, as well as statistical analysis drawn from expert research. World Schools Debate: Though not a common …
General Definition: A method for demonstrating why a claim might be true, including examples, logic, data, and expert opinion. Public Forum: see general definition. World Schools Debate: see general definition. British Parliamentary: see general definition. Canadian National Debate Format: see general definition.