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ISDC
Tournament Guide
 Contents
1. Tournament Format

2. Debate Format and Rules

3. Motions and Speaker roles

4. How debates are evaluated

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Tournament Format
 Tournament Format
• 5 online preliminary rounds (all teams participate in), and 3 in-person (in Chennai) ‘out’
rounds (Quarters, Semis, Finals) that top 8 teams from the prelims rounds enter
• 2 prelim rounds (Rds. 1, 3) are prepared - topics and sides are released in advance, and
students can access external support (coaches, internet, etc.)
• 3 prelim rounds (Rds. 2, 4, 5) are ‘impromptu’ - topics will be released 45 minutes before the
debate starts, and teams will prepare together in Zoom breakout rooms with no other external help
• After each round teams will receive a full decision and feedback from judges
• Speakers are given individual speaker scores for every speech they give in the tournament and
independent of team performance, are eligible to win speaker awards

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Debate Format and Rules
 Debate Format: Modified WSDC

1st Proposition 1st Opposition

5 minutes 5 minutes
Constructive

3 4 Points of Information (PoIs) can be offered

nd nd
2 Proposition 2 Opposition by the other team during constructive
5 minutes 5 minutes
speeches

Reply speeches can only be delivered by

5 6
the first and second speaker
3rd Proposition 3rd Opposition
5 minutes 5 minutes

8 7
Proposition Opposition
Reply

Reply Reply
3 minutes 3 minutes

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 Points of Information (POIs) and Protected Time

Points of
Information can be
0:00 1:00 4:00 5:00
asked
PROTECTED: PROTECTED:
No Points of No Points of
Information Information

A PoI is a short interjection (usually a question) from a member of the

other team to the person of your team who is currently speaking

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 POIs – Do’s and Don'ts
Asking:
• Say POI and wait to be accepted. Do not blurt out the question or write it on chat: One person at
a time unmutes and says POI during unprotected time or writes “POI” in the chat. You can only ask your
question if you are accepted.
• Spend no longer than 10 seconds asking the PoI. Do not go on beyond this, as the speaker can cut you
off if you cut into too much of their speaking time.
• Only offer PoIs every 20-30 seconds. These are not cross conversations, so no follow-ups
allowed. Any further questions, clarifications or POIs regardless of how much you desperately disagree with
their response to their initial PoI can only be asked after ~20-30 seconds. As a team, offer ~5 POIs across
unprotected time.

Answering:
• Say yes if to accept a POI. The person asking can only do so if you accept.
• Accept at least one POI in your speech. This is a sign of engagement.

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 Preparation Time
• For impromptu debates, topics are released 45 minutes before the debate must commence. In these
45 minutes, teams must prepare in Zoom breakout rooms
• In some cases, unclear terms in the motion might be defined on an ‘Information-slide’ by the Chief
Adjudicators to provide clarity and knowledge necessary for a functional debate. Any information on
this slide is assumed to be true for the debate
• If there is a word or phrase in the motion that is unclear to you, you may ask the members of the
CAP for a clarification within the first few minutes of motion release in the Zoom main hall

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Motions and Speaker roles
 Each motion starts with This House (TH)...

This House Would

Ban alcohol
This usually refers to a
government in general, and not a
specific country or place. It is
important to be reasonable here -
TH is not likely inclusive of
dictatorships like North Korea,
Russia, etc. but certainly includes
developed countries like USA, UK,
etc. and developing countries like
India, Malaysia, etc.).

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 Each motion starts with This House...

This House Believes That

In this type of debate, This Parents should not allow
House is read as "As a
society, we”; meaning as a their children to access
society, we believe that
parents should not allow social media
their children access to
social media.

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 The first Proposition speaker should define the topic, set up
the debate, and provide two arguments (1/2)
• Definition: A definition clarifies key words in the topic in the context of the debate.
• E.g., in ”This House would ban alcohol”, the definition of ban alcohol is that producing, selling, and buying
alcohol for recreation will now be illegal. The definition of alcohol is NOT that it is a chemical compound
produced in the lab. Therefore, definitions are context based and not dictionary definitions.
• Additionally, you also have to define the topic in the spirit of the motion. This topic is not about banning
alcohol in medicines, it is about the addiction to alcohol that happens because of more general and wide
consumption, like in bars and pubs, and at home for recreation
• To arrive at a fair definition in the spirit of the motion, think about why the debate is even occurring
• Set-up: Debates often require a short explanation of how their policy or world might look and how the other
team’s world and their counterfactual world would look like
• E.g., to ban alcohol, the policy would involve giving a window of time for bars to shut down, placing a fine
on people that continue to sell alcohol after that time, and setting up rehabilitation centers for addicts.
• There are more motion types than specified, you can find a list below:
• This House Would motions
• This House Believes That motions
• This House Prefers motions
• This House Opposes/Supports/ Regrets motions
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 The first Proposition speaker should define the topic, set up
the debate, and provide two arguments (2/2)
• Two arguments: The first Proposition speaker provides two constructive arguments.
• A constructive argument is a well-explained reason why the topic is true. E.g., if you are arguing in favor of
banning alcohol, a argument might be that “Banning alcohol improves public health.”
• Such an argument has three parts. It has a claim, which is a single sentence that acts as a title for the
whole argument (such as the above claim on banning alcohol). It has an explanation, which answers the
question “why is the claim true?” and usually involves many reasons. It has an impact, which answers the
question “why does the claim matter?”.
• For example, for the claim that “Banning alcohol improves public health,” you may want three justifications
under the “explanation” and then two results under the “impact.” Everything that you say in an argument
needs to be proven true – you cannot merely state something without proving it logically.
• A good first Proposition speech to watch is the first Proposition speech in this debate:
• The topic is: “This house would ban free-to-play games”

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 The first Opposition speaker should set up the opp case,
rebut Prop’s arguments, and arguments of their own (1/2)
• Stance: The Opposition in a debate also has a stance, which is a statement of what they support.
• This might be simply the current situation (“status quo”), in which case the Opposition has to describe what
that is.
• This might also be a set of alternative proposals. For example, on the topic ”This House would ban
alcohol,” the Opposition might advocate alcohol remaining legal, but with many alternative policies in place
– for example, preventing minors from consuming it and offering free rehabilitation for people who are
alcoholic/addicted.
• Rebut the Proposition’s arguments: The first Opposition speaker needs to rebut the two arguments provided
by the first Proposition speaker.
• Rebuttal is when a speaker responds to the arguments from a speaker on another team
• In the first Opposition speech, you should structure your rebuttal by addressing each of the two arguments
from the first Proposition speaker chronologically and disproving them.

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 The first Opposition speaker should set up the opp case,
rebut Prop’s arguments, and arguments of their own (2/2)
• Two arguments: The first Opposition speaker also has to provide two constructive arguments.
• Each of the constructive arguments needs to have a claim, an explanation (often with three justifications
for the claim), and an impact (result).
• The two most important constructive arguments from the Opposition team need to be in this speech.
• The first Opposition speaker needs to spend more time on the constructive arguments than on the rebuttal.
However, the rebuttal must come first.
• A good first Opposition speech to watch is the first Opposition speech in this debate:
• The topic is “This house would allow ex-convicts to apply to join the police force”

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 Second speakers should rebut the other team’s arguments,
defend their arguments, and provide a new argument
• Rebut the other team’s material/defend your material: The other team’s speaker presented one to two
constructive arguments. Second speakers must rebut these arguments. Additionally, they must rebut the other
team’s rebuttal of their material

• Provide a new argument: The second Proposition speaker provides one constructive argument.

• A good second Proposition speech to watch is the second Proposition speech in this debate:
• The topic is “This House believes that charities and humanitarian aid organizations should not use graphic
images of suffering in their advertising campaigns.”
• A good second Opposition speech to watch is the second Opposition speech in this debate:
• The topic is “This House supports academic tracking in primary and secondary education.”

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 Third speakers’ responsibility is to exclusively rebut the
other speakers, and defend their team’s existing arguments
• Third speakers should not have any new arguments in the debate. They should organise the
material from previous speeches into themes, recount what has occurred in the debate on the issue,
and then provide new rebuttal to recent material. They have two themes in a five min speech.
• In a debate about alcohol, whether banning alcohol improves public health problems or worsens
public health concerns by driving people into an unsafe and unhealthy black market can become a
theme called “What is the impact of banning alcohol on public health”?

• A good third Proposition speech to watch is the third Proposition speech in this debate:
• The topic is “This House would require professional sports teams to be owned by
their local communities, rather than by individuals or corporations.”
• A good third Opposition speech to watch is the third Opposition speech in
this debate:
• The topic is “TH would impose additional taxes on employers who use
automation to replace human workers.”

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Reply speeches
• The role of the reply speeches is to sum up the debate from the team's viewpoint, including a
response to the other team's overall case and a summary of the speaker's own team’s case
• The reply speaker may be either the first or second speaker of the team, but not the third
• Neither reply speaker may introduce a new part of the team case
• A reply speaker may respond to an existing argument by raising a new example that illustrates that
argument, but may not otherwise introduce a new argument. Good reply speeches do not just report
on the debate that happened, but contribute to the team’s overall strategy and approach in the
debate, in order to shape how the debate has evolved and panned out
• Reply speeches can definitely swing the result of a debate
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How debates are evaluated
 Based on the speeches of either side, Judges track the
important issues in the debate and decide the winner (1/2)
• Judges track all speeches of the round and decide on the major issues that both teams
are pointing out in the debate
• They then evaluate the issues that teams have identified
• This is done by comparing all contributions of the two teams on a given issue (arguments + rebuttal +
PoIs) and checking how they interact with each other

• They decide which team ultimately won the particular issue – was there important material that stood
at the end that was unresponded to by the other side? Did the existing responses adequately take
down the core of a point a team made?

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 Based on the speeches of either side, Judges track the
important issues in the debate and decide the winner (2/2)
• Judges then decide the importance of each of the issues to the debate
• In many debates, it is possible that one team has clearly resolved all the issues in a way that is
favourable to their side. However, in some debates that are particularly close, different teams may
have won different issues.
• Judges will defer to using metrics that Teams provide in the debate to decide which issues are
relatively more important than others. In the absence of this, judges will use implicit metrics, e.g.: time
spent, extent of strength of the argumentation in each issue, intuitive metrics that an average
intelligent voter would use, etc.
• A winner is determined
• The team that wins a majority of the important issues in the round is declared the winner by the judge.
Judges proceed to then giving an elaborate justification of their decision and will
provide feedback for both teams on their performance after taking questions from
the teams, if any

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 Speaker Scores
• Judges award each speaker with a speaker score for every speech (including reply speeches)
• These speaker scores are from a range of 60-80 and 30-40 for reply
• A speaker score is calculated based on evaluation of the speech under 3 categories:
• Content (Contributes 40%)
• Style (Contributes 40%)
• Strategy (Contributes 20%)

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 Content is scored from a range of 24-32 and contributes
40% of your overall score
• Good content in arguments is:
• Using a diverse range of arguments about different stakeholders. E.g.: principles, different types of
practical arguments
• Having clear analysis, this constitutes:
• Using rigorous Logic: Every argument is explained step by step and taken to its logical conclusion.
If X happens, this leads to Y, which leads to Z harm
• Going beyond assertions: Each step in a logical chain has a reason. If X happens, it leads to Y
because of A reasons. That leads to Z which harmful for B reasons.
• Using a number of relevant examples to support your arguments
• Explaining why your arguments are important and relevant to the debate
• Good content in rebuttal is:
• Ensuring your responses to arguments well explained, and covering the important material from the other
side. Saying something is wrong is different to proving that it is wrong using logical steps.
• Taking care not to misrepresent the other side

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Style is scored from a range of 24-32 and contributes 40%
of your overall score
• Good style ensures that speakers are easy to follow
• Well paced - speakers should not speak too fast
• Clear - Speakers should enunciate and avoid swallowing sentence ends, mumbling, etc. that would
reduce the ability of a judge to understand them, pause as necessary, and use clear signposting to
move through different parts of their speeches to increase intelligibility.

• Good style also makes speakers more engaging

• Speakers should induce emotions in their speech as necessary, e.g.: hopeful, sarcastic, sad, etc.
• Speakers should use convincing/powerful illustration to explain points. For example, ‘Poorer parents
find it difficult to help their children with their studies’, vs. ‘When you work three jobs to put food on
the table, you have very little time to explain calculus to your child.’
• Bad style is bad content, e.g., speaking too quickly makes your content harder to follow. At the same
time, using only rhetoric/quotes to the exclusion of content is shallow
• Note: for prepared debates, reading paragraphs off entirely from articles is bad style
Strategy is scored from a range of 12-16 and contributes
20% of your overall score
• Good Strategy is when speakers prioritise material consciously
• Both while making arguments, and while rebutting arguments, speakers should prioritise delivering material that is
most important and hard hitting in the debate and gets to the heart of the debate, and material that works well with
the other material their team is running to ensure consistency
• Each speaker should also be able to identify where they are winning the debate and explain why that is critical to the
round, and similarly, where they are losing the debate and close the gaps
• Speakers should also be able to highlight material dropped by the other side and explain its importance

• Good Strategy is when speakers manage time well

• Speakers’ content should be such that they neither underuse their time, nor overshoot time
• Repetition to make time is poor both strategically, and is bad content

• Good Strategy is when speakers fulfill their roles

• Speakers playing their respective roles on the team makes the overall team more strategically sound, and individual
speeches clearer and more strategic in the round. First speakers
forgetting the model and making second speakers do it reduces strategy points
for the first speaker, and the amount of time second speakers can use rebutting
the other team, and hence strategy points for the second speaker as well, and
so on
Speaker score ranges

Standard Overall (/100) Style (/40) Content (/40) Strategy (/20)

Exceptional 80 32 32 16
Excellent 76-79 31 31 15-16
Extremely Good 74-75 30 30 15
Very Good 71-73 29 29 14-15
Good 70 28 28 14
Satisfactory 67-69 27 27 13-14
Competent 65-66 26 26 13
Pass 61-64 25 25 12-13

Improvement Needed 60 24 24 12
Speaker score ranges
Mark Standard
• Content is not relevant to the motion and what the team needs to prove.
60 • All points made are claims, with no analysis, and are confusing.
• The speech is hard to follow throughout, so it is hard to give it any credit.
• A few marginally relevant claims.
61-63 • No analysis provided in the claims, which are mainly lines without explanation.
• Parts of the speech are clear, but significant parts are still hard to follow.
• Some of the points made are relevant to the debate.
• Arguments / rebuttals are made with some explanation and analysis, but with significant logical gaps
64 - 66
in the explanation.
• Sometimes the speech is difficult to follow.
• Most of the points made are relevant to the debate.
• All arguments / rebuttals have some explanation, but it still has logical and analytical gaps in important
67 - 69
parts of the argument and lacks evidence.
• Mostly easy to follow, but some sections may still be hard to understand.
• No major shortfalls, nor any strong moments.
• Arguments are almost exclusively relevant, although may fail to address one or more core issues
sufficiently.
70 • All arguments have sufficient explanation without major logical gaps and some examples, but are
simplistic and easy to attack.
• Easy to follow throughout which makes the speech understandable, though style does not necessarily
serve to make the speech more persuasive.
Speaker score ranges
Mark Standard
• Arguments are all relevant, and address the core issues in the debate.
• All arguments have sufficient explanation without major logical gaps and most have credible evidence.
71 - 72 Some points raised may have minor logical gaps or deficits in explanation.
• Easy to follow throughout. On occasion the style may even serve to make the speech more engaging
and persuasive.

• Arguments are relevant and engage with the most important issues. Arguments have sufficient
explanation without major logical gaps.
• Occasionally, the speaker provides more sophisticated and nuanced analysis, making their arguments
73 - 76
hard to attack.
• Easy to follow throughout. On occasion the style may even serve to make the speech more engaging
and persuasive.

• Arguments are all relevant and well-illustrated, and address the core issues in the debate, with
77 - 79 thorough explanations, no logical gaps, and credible examples, making them hard to attack
• Easy to follow throughout. The style serves to make the speech’s content more engaging.

• Plausibly one of the best debating speeches ever given in a schools competition.
80 • It is incredibly difficult to think up satisfactory responses to any of the arguments made.
• Flawless and compelling arguments, made with outstanding delivery.
 Website:
www.indianschoolsdebatingsociety.com

Instagram/Twitter:
@TeamIndiaWSDC

Facebook:
ISDS: Indian Schools Debating Society

Email:
[email protected]
[email protected]
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