1. Introduction

What is debate?

Is it arguing? Yelling at people? Getting into fights?

Well… no. It’s a much more formal and structured way of persuasion. Does that sound really boring? What if I told you that debate gives you the skills to convince others why you’re right? We’ll guide you through the basics of debating and in no time, you’ll be a little debater yourself! 

Why do we debate? And what do we debate about?

We debate about almost everything under the Sun, like changes in the world. However, we don’t debate about things that people generally agree on, like is 1+1 = 2? Or should students go to school? (Yes please do!) What we DO debate about are more ambiguous and disputable topics like whether making all students do homework allows students to learn better. So, debate is really about finding what both sides are likely to disagree with, and then persuading the audience or the judges to believe in your point of view!

How do we persuade people?

Visual aids are often a powerful tool – seeing is indeed believing! We can’t use pictures in debates. However, we can use our words to paint a picture in our audience's minds!! But before we persuade our audience — we need to believe in what we’re saying too. So we need to picture what the change the motion is asking for by painting it with our words.