Also known as Team Debate, CX Debate, or speed
reading for
fun. No exact
'rules' exist to
govern this form of
debate, there are only
fundamental principles (sometimes disputed) and
a lot (in
piles as scattered and huge as
elephant defecation) of
theories. Primarily concerned with policy changes, especially on the
federal and
foreign level. Two
teams of two
people compete, and
argue based on their
understanding of
debate theory. Within policy debate, there are two big
camps, from which
a lot of the other
theory evolves. One camp believes debate is 'resolution-based', meaning that the
affirmative team (the team
advocating a change; affirming the
resolution) must prove the resolution correct, while the
negative must prove the resolution wrong. The other camp follows the
pedagogy of 'plan-based' debate, which believes the affirmative chooses their
case from the resolution, but that the negative team must only negate the affirmative
plan, not the resolution itself. For an example of a
resolution, here's the 2000-2001
National Forensic League (National Forensic League) policy deabte topic for
high school competition:
Resolved: That the
United States Federal Government should significantly increase
protection of
privacy in one or more of the following areas:
employment,
medical records,
consumer information,
search and seizure.
The resolution (or topic) is chosen each year by a
committee open to submissions from
coaches, members of the debate
community,
professors of
argumentation,
idiots, and even
people. From there each team writes affirmative cases (advocating the resolution) as well as negative positions (sometimes called briefs). All this goes together to make for an
activity some people
hate, some people don't
know about, and some people
love.