Policy Debate

In policy debate, two teams of two people will debate a proposed plan, or policy, that falls under a larger resolution. The affirmative team will argue their plan as a good idea, and the negative will argue against the theoretical implementation of that plan. It is generally the 'deepest' form of debate, and many, many topics are covered under the year-long resolution.

This year's topic is all about the protection of water resources! The exact resolution is

Resolved: The United States Federal Government should substantially increase its protection of water resources in the United States.

There's a LOT to unpack in that seemingly short, simple resolution. If it seems boring, trust me, it's not. There are a million things you can debate under this resolution. If it seems intimidating, that's ok. Debate is hard, but in your novice year, you won't write any cases. You'll be well taken care of and very, very prepared for any tournament situation. Give policy a shot! Did I mention you don't have to write any cases?

Policy is a pretty lengthy debate. Each team gets two 8-minute constructive speeches followed by a 3 minute questioning period after each speech. Then, each team gets two 5-minute rebuttal speeches that are not followed by any questions. During any of the time above, there is 8 minutes of preparation time for each team that can occur between speeches. A full list of speeches is below.

1st Affirmative Constructive (1AC) -- 8 minutes

Cross Examination (CX) -- 3 minutes

1st Negative Constructive (1NC) -- 8 minutes

Cross Examination (CX) -- 3 minutes

2nd Affirmative Constructive (2AC) -- 8 minutes

Cross Examination (CX) -- 3 minutes

2nd Negative Construction (2NC) -- 8 minutes

Cross Examination (CX) -- 3 minutes

1st Negative Rebuttal (1NR) -- 5 minutes

1st Affirmative Rebuttal (1AR) -- 5 minutes

2nd Negative Rebuttal (2NR) -- 5 minutes

2nd Affirmative Rebuttal (2AR) -- 5 minute

*notice, the negative gets the first rebuttal right after their second constructive. We call this the negative block, or neg block, or simply the block.

Eastern Missouri Policy Debate is very different from policy debate in other areas. This is because of speed reading (spreading, for short). In most other areas, spreading is common, and debaters speak very quickly. This is NOT the case in our district. If you'd like, you can look up policy debate on YouTube and see plenty of examples of high-speed debate, but know, this is NOT what you will be doing in our debates. If you want to see a more EastMO-friendly example, reach out to any of the policy members at West!

Everyone should try policy at least once. There are potentially infinite arguments you can make, and you will learn a LOT from the experience, check us out!

Come to any meeting or reach out to the captain!