Debate terms, explained

Debaters use a vocabulary their coaches teach them in the first week, and nobody teaches it to judges. Here is all of it, in the terms you would have heard in the round.

You do not need any of these words to judge well. They are here because the students will use them, and because DebateFlow uses them on screen - where every one of these terms is also a tooltip you can tap.

Argument

A claim, a reason it is true, and why it matters. All three, or it is only an assertion.

In a round: "Rejoining fixes the nurse shortage (claim), because it restores free movement of workers (reason), which saves lives (why it matters)."

Also written: contention

Drop

An argument nobody answers, or one a team stops making. Either way it is abandoned: an argument the other side never answered usually stands, and one a team stopped making usually cannot win them the round.

In a round: Con never mentions the nurse shortage again - Con dropped it. Or Pro raises the nurse shortage and then leaves it out of their last speech - Pro dropped their own argument.

Also written: dropped, drops, abandoned

Extend

To carry your own argument into a later speech and add to it. Repeating the title is not extending it.

In a round: Their summary says "our nurse argument stands, and here is the new figure" - that is extending. Saying only "extend our nurse argument" is not.

Also written: extended, extension, extensions

Frontline

Answering the attacks on your own argument and rebuilding it, rather than just repeating it.

In a round: Con said your evidence is out of date; you explain why the date does not change the result.

Also written: frontlined, frontlining, rebuilt

Turn

Taking the other side’s argument and making it a reason to vote for you. Stronger than refuting it, because now it counts against them.

In a round: "Their own plan lowers GDP, which costs more nurses than it saves" - the harm they warned about happens under their advocacy.

Also written: turned, turns

Weigh

Comparing impacts and saying why yours matters more - bigger, more likely, sooner, or wider.

In a round: "Even if their jobs argument is true, lives outweigh it because the harm is permanent."

Also written: weighing, weighed

Collapse

Choosing one or two arguments to win in the last speeches instead of going for everything.

In a round: A team with three contentions spends the whole final focus on the strongest one.

Also written: collapsed, collapsing

Voting issue

One argument the round can be decided on. You decide each one, then decide which matters most.

Also written: voting issues

Shortlist

The few arguments you say the round came down to. You tick them before you decide any of them, and the ones you leave unticked still reach the students in their feedback.

In a round: Six arguments survived to the last speech. You tick the two your decision really rests on and leave the other four.

Also written: shortlisted

Unanswered

The other side never argued against it. An argument nobody answered usually stands, so these are the ones a round most often turns on.

In a round: Pro argued the policy costs jobs, and Con never mentioned it again.

Contested

Both sides argued it, and at least one of them said why it should matter more than the rest of the round. You have two versions of it to choose between.

In a round: Pro said the jobs argument outweighs because the harm is permanent; Con argued back on it.

No weighing

Both sides argued it, and neither said why it should decide the round. Nothing tells you how to rank it against anything else, so it is hard to build a decision on.

In a round: Both teams spent a speech each on school funding, and neither said why it matters more than jobs.

Clash

One argument and everything the other side did to it: the attacks, the answers, and how it ended up.

Also written: clashes

New in final focus

An argument that appears for the first time in the last speech, when the other side has no speech left to answer it. Most judges will not vote on one.

Also written: too late

Crossfire

The question-and-answer periods. They are timed but not recorded, so anything conceded there is yours to note.

You are not required to use any of this

Decide on the arguments the debaters actually made, in the way they explained them. If a team used a word you did not follow, that is worth saying in their feedback - it is not a reason to doubt your decision.