What is Policy?
Policy debate is a competitive form of debate practiced on both the high school and college levels, in which two teams of two debate an assigned “resolution.” This resolution is a topic chosen by coaches across the country, and lasts for the entirety of the year-long season. The resolution generally takes the form of a statement that calls for domestic or international policy change by the United States federal government. For example, the 2023-24 high school resolution: “The United States federal government should substantially increase fiscal redistribution in the United States by adopting a federal jobs guarantee, expanding Social Security, and/or providing a basic income.”
Affirmative and Negative
In a policy debate, there is an “affirmative” and “negative” team.
The affirmative’s job is to affirm the resolution. They do this through a “plan,” which is a proposal for a way the resolution can be implemented. For example, on the 2023-24 high school topic, a plan could be, “The United States federal government should substantially increase fiscal redistribution in the United States by providing a universal basic income funded by a wealth tax.”
The affirmative must defend their plan and prove it is a good idea. They do this through advantages. The aff’s set of advantages presented in the first constructive is generally referred to as “case.”
On the other hand, the negative team’s job is to negate the affirmative and disprove the affirmative plan being a good idea. This takes the form of several arguments: kritiks (K), counterplans (CP), disadvantages (DA), or negative case arguments. There are also procedurals – these refer to arguments (theory and topicality) that pertain to the rules and procedures of the debate itself, rather than the substantive issues being discussed. The negative arguments introduced by the negative in the first negative constructive (kritiks, counterplans, disadvantages, theory, topicality… anything that is NOT negative case arguments) are called “off-case.”
Speech Times and Speaker Roles
Each speech in a policy debate is assigned a certain time. Each member of the team is required to give two speeches – one constructive and one rebuttal. We’ll go through what each speech looks like here.
| Speech Time (HS) | Speech Time (College) | |
| First Affirmative Constructive (1AC) | 8 min | 9 min |
| Cross Examination (CX) by the 2N | 3 min | 3 min |
| First Negative Constructive (1NC) | 8 min | 9 min |
| Cross Examination (CX) by the 1A | 3 min | 3 min |
| Second Affirmative Constructive (2AC) | 8 min | 9 min |
| Cross Examination (CX) by the 1N | 3 min | 3 min |
| Second Negative Constructive (2NC) | 8 min | 9 min |
| Cross Examination (CX) by the 2A | 3 min | 3 min |
| First Negative Rebuttal (1NR) | 5 min | 6 min |
| First Affirmative Rebuttal (1AR) | 5 min | 6 min |
| Second Negative Rebuttal (2NR) | 5 min | 6 min |
| Second Affirmative Rebuttal (2AR) | 5 min | 6 min |
Cross examination is a 3 minute questioning period after each constructive. After a constructive, the person who gave the speech will be cross examined by the member of the opposing side who is not giving the next speech.
Notice how the affirmative gets the first and last speech. That is one of the advantages of being affirmative – the affirmative team gets to set the terms of the debate and leave the final impression in the judge’s mind. In return, the negative gets two speeches back to back – the 2NC and 1NR, which are called the “negative block” and give the negative 13 minutes to put as much pressure on the affirmative as possible.
As each member of the team is required to give 2 speeches, there are several methods of splitting speaker positions. The most common method is where one member is the 2A/1N, and the other is the 2N/1A. Therefore, when affirmative, the 2A will be the second speaker who gives the 2AC and 2AR, while the 1A is the first speaker giving the 1AC and 1AR. When on negative, the 2N will be the second speaker who gives the 2NC and 1NR, while the 1N gives the 1NC and 1NR. Some teams will have a person be the second speaker for both affirmative and negative – this is called “double 2-ing,” as the member is both the 2N and 2A. This is heavily discouraged, as it leads to unfair prep division and a disproportionately heavier burden of prep on the person double 2-ing.
In addition to the speech times listed above, each side has an allotted amount of prep time. For high school, each team gets 8 minutes of prep time, and for college, teams get 10 minutes of prep time. Prep time can be taken before a speech or even before CX (we will discuss later where that may be strategic).
It is highly recommended to time all speeches in the debate, even your opponents, as well as CX and your opponent’s prep.
Flowing
Debaters keep track of all the arguments using something called “flowing.”
We’ll talk about how to flow later. For now, all you need to know is that there are several sheets of paper in use over the course of the debate. Each paper tracks one certain argument. Each advantage has its own sheet of paper, and each off-case has its own sheet of paper.
Cards
In policy debate, a lot of evidence is read. A piece of evidence is called a “card” – it typically looks like this:
Let’s go through the different parts of a card.
At the top is a tag – this is a short summary of the argument the card is making. Underneath the card is the citation – while there are no precise rules as to how the citation must be formatted, it should include the author name, qualifications of the author, the date of publication, the title, and who published it. If the evidence is from an online source, you should include a URL. If the evidence is from a book, you should include the page number.