Of course, with everything needs structure, parliamentary debate not withstanding. There are two opposing sides, Aff and Neg. Their meanings are fairly self-explanatory: Aff argues in the affirmation of the resolution, while Neg argues in the negation. Of course, we will go through all this information and more at an actual meeting, but check out this document here to see the breakdown of a whole debate. 

The resolution is basically the topic of the debate, it's what you're going to be arguing about. There is a whole wide range of things you could do from the typical border wall debate to USFG (United States Federal Government) funding issues to fracking. Side note, acronyms are very commonly used, and they also sound smart, most of the time. This document just lists out some practice resolutions for you to peek at. 

This is a shortened version of the full length parliamentary debate style This one lasts around 20 minutes only, so its a nice shortened version for when we're short on time. 

There are 3 types of resolutions: fact, value, and policy. All of those are illustrated within the document but I'll summarize them here 

Fact: It's basically true of false, and can be troublesome sometimes

Value: You're deeming the value of something, whether it is good or bad

Policy: You're crafting an actual policy, bill, or proposal. 

However, if you want a better view of each of these, I highly recommend you look at the document 

This document is an example outline of the A.R.E method. 

A - Assertion (AKA contention) 

R - Reasoning 

E - Evidence 

Its a basic outline that can be used by everyone. Essentially its for formatting, if you have your own preferences to outline your A.R.E go at it . 

This goes over some terms that you might not be familiar with, and does a good job of going over Resolution types as well. It also touches on "Weighing Mechanisms" which there isn't a document here for, but that will be explained at an actual meeting. 

Now, if you checked out the Speech page, you might've seen these before, but it also applies in debate. You want to sound smart and sound like you know what you're talking about, even if you have no actual idea. That's the whole premise of debate. There may be topics you have no idea about, but as long as you sound confident, you'll be solid.