Debating formats?
If you look to the enormous amount of existing debating formats, one could easily get overwhelmed: British Parliamentary debate, Canadian Parliamentary debate, Oxford style, mace, Lincoln-Douglas debate,… To simplify this, we should look to some common elements present in all formats:
· First of all, each debate has a motion, which sets the topic of the debate. A good motion is clear and its limits are well defined.
· The preparation time can vary from no preparation time (impromptu speaking) to two weeks. Generally in ‘parliamentary style debates’ participants get 15 minutes preparation time.
· The jury decides who won the debate. Generally this consists of a chair, one or more assessors and a timekeeper. These can also give qualitative feedback after the debate. The chair of the jury is generally also the moderator.
· Speaking time: generally everybody gets the same speaking time, but it’s also possible to define only the ‘total debating time’ after which each person can speak as long as he or she wishes.
· Interruptions: interruptions can be allowed in debates. These interruptions should be requested by the team who is not speaking and should be allowed by the person who is speaking. He always should allow at least some interruptions, but if he allows too many interruptions it will risk his own speaking time. If an interruption is allowed, one gets about 10 seconds to ask a question or to make a remark.
By combining all these elements in different ways one gets various debating formats. One general format is called ‘parliamentary debate’ which we use in Brussels Debaters. Here, it’s all about teams of two or more persons debating a motion. The ones defending the motion are the ‘government’, the attackers are the ‘opposition’. This can vary according to number of people in one team, but there can also be more teams which further opens the debate.
Conclusion: despite the enormous variation of existing formats, they all vary around the same elements going from largely predefined to completely open, from a limited number of participants to large groups.
· First of all, each debate has a motion, which sets the topic of the debate. A good motion is clear and its limits are well defined.
· The preparation time can vary from no preparation time (impromptu speaking) to two weeks. Generally in ‘parliamentary style debates’ participants get 15 minutes preparation time.
· The jury decides who won the debate. Generally this consists of a chair, one or more assessors and a timekeeper. These can also give qualitative feedback after the debate. The chair of the jury is generally also the moderator.
· Speaking time: generally everybody gets the same speaking time, but it’s also possible to define only the ‘total debating time’ after which each person can speak as long as he or she wishes.
· Interruptions: interruptions can be allowed in debates. These interruptions should be requested by the team who is not speaking and should be allowed by the person who is speaking. He always should allow at least some interruptions, but if he allows too many interruptions it will risk his own speaking time. If an interruption is allowed, one gets about 10 seconds to ask a question or to make a remark.
By combining all these elements in different ways one gets various debating formats. One general format is called ‘parliamentary debate’ which we use in Brussels Debaters. Here, it’s all about teams of two or more persons debating a motion. The ones defending the motion are the ‘government’, the attackers are the ‘opposition’. This can vary according to number of people in one team, but there can also be more teams which further opens the debate.
Conclusion: despite the enormous variation of existing formats, they all vary around the same elements going from largely predefined to completely open, from a limited number of participants to large groups.