Part 1
Beginners and Asian Parliamentary Format
1.1 What is Asian Parliamentary format?
1.2 AP Rules
1.3 Argumentation
1.4 Rebuttals
1.5 POIs
1.6 Speaker Roles
1.7 Definitions and Policy
1.8 Note Taking
1.9 Preparation Time
1.10 Common Rookie Mistakes
1.11 How to be Better at Debate
1.1 What is Asian Parliamentary format?
Just a heads-up before we begin: when we say “debate”, we’re not doing those TV debates where several different people all have different opinions. Nor are we doing 1 vs. 1, where each person is by himself or herself.
But we do have several rules in order to facilitate debate in an orderly fashion, and also to make things fair. Those certain rules, including team size, speech time and requirements for each speaker, constitute what we call a format. Korean (and Northeast Asian) debating societies have to practice two debate formats – Asian Parliamentary (AP) in the spring-summer season, and British Parliamentary (BP) in the fall-winter season. You don’t need to know what BP is yet, but for now you’re probably reading this in the spring, so off to describing AP.
The Asian Parliamentary format is modeled after some Asian parliaments, hence the quite obvious name. The purpose of a parliament, or any legislative branch, is to decide whether a certain legislative bill or government policy should be executed or not. Anything from allowing homosexuals to adopt children to eliminating unemployment benefits to giving conditional aid to Third World countries might be a government policy that has to be discussed.
But how do you know whether any policy is justified or not? Good or bad? That’s where you have political parties. On one side you have the “Government” or “Affirmative” party, who supports the motion. In political terms, this would mean the political party current ruling the government, and is led by this parliament’s Prime Minister. On the other side you have “Opposition” or “Negative” party, who opposes the motion. In political terms, this is the party that’s not in power, but can still vote to oppose the ruling party’s legislation or policies.
Speaking of policies, that’s what parliamentary debate is basically about. You have a motion, or the topic/policy that you will debate about. For instance, “This House Would legalize abortion.” (“This House” meaning this government, but you can define that a bit differently according to debate. More on that later). The Government side would support abortion or argue for passing it. The Opposition side would argue for banning abortion. Government (GOV) will have reasons to pass it, Opposition (OPP) will have reasons to oppose it. They’ll also try to bring down each other’s reasons, saying that they’re not valid. That’s the debating bit.
The goal for each side is to try to convince a third party that their side argues about the motion better. This third party then decides which side won. This is called the adjudicator. The adjudicator is there to judge who did a better job about explaining about the motion and their arguments better.
If there is one thing debate is different from politics, it’s that debate is about what direction we as a society should take. We’re not concerned with where the tax money will come from, or how the paperwork will be distributed. We are much more concerned with why we should be allowing or disallowing these motions in the first place.
This usually means that you can’t oppose something simply because it’s too expensive or it’s too difficult to do. Let’s face it, parents find raising children expensive and difficult, but if by chance the child were mugged, the parents’ first reaction would not be “Oh good, we can save on food expenses.” They will go around screaming and calling the police, because they believe in values such as familial love and parental responsibility. Ultimately, we shouldn’t oppose something because it’s too expensive, but more because there is something fundamentally wrong with that something.
The intention with the AP format is that you learn about the basics of debate –analyzing motions, making arguments, learning how to rebut others, and learning how to become a better speaker. Whatever format you will be debating in, this is a basic skill, and AP is great for this.
Now that you should understand the mindset behind the Asian Parliamentary format, let us begin.
1.2 AP Rules
Remember how a debate format is basically the rules you follow in a debate? You’ll need to know them in order to debate properly.
In AP, debaters argue over a topic called the motion. A motion may typically begin with the abbreviations “THBT (This House Believes That)”, “THW (This House Would)”, “THS (This House Supports)”, or simply “TH (This House)”. The teams must debate on that motion.
Each team is divided into two sides – the Government or Affirmative (GOV) side, which supports a motion, and the Opposition or Negative (OPP) side, which opposes the motion. The Government team is composed of 3 members: the Prime Minister (PM), Deputy Prime Minister (DPM), and Government Whip (GW). Similarly, the Opposition team is composed of the Leader of the Opposition (LO), Deputy Leader of the Opposition (DLO), and Opposition Whip (GW).
Each speaker makes one substantive speech each, lasting 7 minutes. This can be extended up to 7 minutes 30 seconds, at which the speaker will have to end his/her speech and sit down. After all six speeches, each team has to provide a reply speech, summarizing the debate. The reply speech is 4 minutes long, which can be extended up to 4 minutes 30 seconds. A reply speech cannot be done by a whip speaker. The speaker order goes as such:
Prime Minister
Leader of the Opposition
Deputy Prime Minister
Deputy Leader of the Opposition
Government Whip
Opposition Whip
Opposition Reply
Government Reply
Each speaker also has distinctive roles:
Prime Minister: Sets up the debate
Provides definitions to clarify the motion
Provides a policy/model to show what the GOV team would propose
Provides the team line/stance to show what the team wants to present in whole
Provides the case split to announce which arguments will be mentioned by whom
Provides argumentation for the GOV team
Leader of the Opposition: Sets up the debate
Provide a definition challenge if the GOV’s definition is deemed unfair
Provide a policy/model if the OPP team has one to propose
Rebutthe GOV’s argumentation
Provides the case split to announce which arguments will be mentioned by whom
Provides argumentation for the OPP team
Deputy Prime Minister, Deputy Leader of the Opposition: Defendshis/her own team
Rebut the other team’s argumentation
Provides argumentation for his/her own team
Government Whip, Opposition whip: Provide a summary for the debate
Rebut the other team’s argumentation if necessary
Provide clashes in which the two teams conflicted on
Opposition Reply, Government Reply: State your team’s impact to the debate
Provide issues within the debate, and why his/her own team won them
During each speech, between 1:00 and 6:00, the speaker’s speech is open for Points of Information (POIs), in which the opposing team can request the speaker to answer a question at any time. The speaker may choose when to accept the POI. A POI should last up to 15 seconds, at which point the adjudicator stops by saying “Out of order.” POIs may not be given during reply speeches.
After all 8 speeches, the debaters will “cross the floor” and shake hands. The adjudicator asks the debaters to wait outside while he/she judges which team won.
Each team and speaker will be judged on these criteria:
Matter: The actual content of your speeches, and the logic/depth/relevance of the argumentation provided
Manner: How you deliver the speech – this includes verbal and non-verbal elements, including but not limited to tone, volume, and hand gestures.
Method: How well each speaker fulfills the role that he/she is supposed to do in the debate, and how well the speech is organized.
Matter accounts for 40% of the speaker score, manner 40%, method 20%. The scores are usually between 70 and 80, with 75 being the score of an average speaker.
There is a distinction we’d like to make: unlike public speaking, in which a speaker’s style is quite important, debate is a much more logical exercise. This is why in adjudicating, a debater will (and should) be judged primarily on their matter. Although we say matter and manner have equal weight, adjudicators will primarily judge the teams in the order of matter, then manner, then method. You do not win a debate only by being charismatic, although it does help.
After the adjudicator decides the outcome, he/she will allot speaker scores to each speaker. Then the adjudicator calls the debaters back into the room, and gives them feedback.
I understand there are a lot of concepts that you have no idea what they are. We’ll go through them one by one.
1.3Argumentation
The very first thing you need to learn in order to debate is how to make arguments.
Argumentation is the set of your arguments in order to support or oppose a motion. You know, the reasons why you support or oppose something. All debaters have to master this in order to become better. It’s obviously crucial that your team provides argumentation to show why you support or oppose something.
So what is an argument? What goes into it?
1.3.1 Assertion-Reasoning-Example (ARE)
Seung-hun and I have seen many different names and acronyms for the different components within an argument, but essentially any argument has these components – assertion, reasoning, and example.
Assertion: The name of the argument. This should be a single phrase to call your argument.
Reasoning: Your logic that supports the assertion
Example: Any real-life cases that support your reasoning
Take the motion, “THW use population control measures to combat global warming,” What would GOV say? One obvious and important argument is how population control actually lessens global warming, or how it is the most effective way of combating global warming. Let’s name this argument in a single phrase so that it’s easy to refer back to in later speeches.
Assertion: Population control can effectively combat global warming
But that’s not going to be enough. Why is population control necessary? Population control means that you put limitations on how much the population can grow – basically, how many children you can have (ex. China has the One Child Policy, liberal democracies provide contraceptive methods to prevent random pregnancies). So your reasoning here requires an explanation of how an increase in population leads to increase in pollution and global warming.
You can probably think of this line of reasoning by now – if there are more people, they will require more resources, and they will consume more resources, such as oil, water, and coal. More resource consumption leads to more carbon dioxide emissions and other forms of pollution, which inevitably leads to the causes of global warming. So we have this line of reasoning:
Reasoning: More people → More resources consumed → More pollution
Are there any examples that you can bring up? The United States and China both have high population (300 million and 1.4 billion respectively) and high population growth, and also they are the two biggest polluters on the planet.
Example: United States, China: High population, high population growth → High pollution
Now you see the anatomy of an argument in action. This is the most elementary way you can devise and structure arguments. Our example has led to:
Assertion: Population control can effectively combat global warming
Reasoning: More people → More resources consumed → More pollution
Example: United States, China: High population, high population growth → High pollution
In any argument, expect the ratio between assertion, reasoning and example to be around 10% - 80% - 10%. Reasoning should take the largest bulk of your argument and the time you allot to it.
From my experience, you will always need an assertion and reasoning in order to clarify your speech for adjudicators. Examples are not always necessary, and don’t strain yourself too hard if you can’t think of one. But of course, real-life examples give much more credence to your argument.
A typical rookie problem is to list a lot of examples and show that they prove something. This is a weak tactic at best, mainly because 1. You still don’t show why your argument works in the real world, and 2. It’s easy to provide a counterexample and bring down your argument. If the New Deal is an example of government intervention saving the economy, we also have the 1970s-80s Warsaw Pact as an example of government intervention harming the economy. But if you provide reasons why government intervention can help the economy, it makes your argument much more believable.
1.3.2 Link
So the motion is something about farming subsidies, and your argument is about astronauts. While your argument may be fantastic in a motion about space travel, it simply does not fit in a debate about farming subsidies. This of course is a wild example, but it does illustrate the need of a link – the importance of your argument to the motion. Why did you say this entire argument in the first place?
Going back to our example from 1.3.1. Why did we need this argument for this motion? “We need population control because a rising population is the main reason behind global warming, and our policy solves that problem.” In this case you identified the main cause or problem behind the motion, and you showed that your policy solves that problem.
For that example, the link was easy to find. For other arguments, it won’t be as obvious. So adjudicators will find it easier to follow your speech if you show the link between your argument and the motion.
1.3.3 L-Ring (“Erfan Method”)
This is something Seung-hun learned from an Indonesian debater named Erfan. According to him, this is a method that all Indonesian societies use to create arguments. He also would like to tell you that since he learned this the hard way, he really doesn’t want this secret to be leaked too easily.
The L-Ring improves upon the traditional ARE structure, in that it strengthens the arguments’ reasoning. Basically, it explains the reason behind the first line of reasoning, and then the reason behind thosereasons, and this continues as long as it’s necessary (this is the ‘L’ bit). You can even provide different reasons for that argument, which is what we call multiple levels of analysis. This makes your argument even stronger by supporting it with more reasons, because your opponent now has to rebut all those levels of analysis, leaving less time for his/her argumentation.
After you finish explaining your reasoning and your example, then you remind the adjudicator of why you talked about this argument in the first place. You link all the reasoning and examples that you have back to the argument and the motion, to form a full cycle to the beginning once again (this is the ‘Ring’ bit). This is what it looks like in practice:
As you see, the concept itself is not entirely new – we’ve already talked about assertion-reasoning-example and the link back to the motion. But sometimes rookie debaters don’t realize that their arguments need more substantiation, or forget to mention how their arguments even relate to the motion, leaving adjudicators puzzled. The L-Ring method is designed to remind debaters of those problems.
Let’s use the example from 1.3.1 again to see how this works in practice.
Assertion: Population control can effectively combat global warming.
Reasoning A: Population growth is the main cause of global warming.
Reasoning A.1: Population growth leads to more people.
Reasoning A.2: More people leads to more resources consumed, for the consumption of each individual person.
Reasoning A.3: If more resources such as coal and oil are consumed, there will be more pollution which leads to global warming.
Example: The United States and China both have high population growth, and as a result they are the two largest polluters on the planet.
Reasoning B: Population control stops global warming.
Reasoning B.1: In order to combat global warming, we need to control the main cause behind it.
Reasoning B.2: As we have seen above, global warming is mainly caused by population growth.
Reasoning B.3: Population control measures can control population growth.