Hong Kong Interschool Debating Organization Guidelines & Regulations 1.

Timeline Date 1st of December Event Invitational package emailed and applications opened Details 1 - 4 PM @ Ting Ka Ping Lecture Theatre (TU101), Hong Kong Polytechnic University Email/Website/Facebook Prepared round Email/Website/Facebook Prepared & Impromptu Round

15th of January

Pre-tournament workshop

4th of February

Motion released for first preliminary round First preliminary round

18th of February Motion released for second preliminary round 3rd of March Second and third preliminary round

All venues and times will be confirmed via email, website and Facebook before every round. Details for later rounds will be released after the first three preliminary rounds. 2. Format The Hong Kong Interschool Debating Championships (HKIDC), organised by the Hong Kong Interschool Debating Organisation (HKIDO), is open to a maximum of 24 teams this year. The tournament consists of three non-eliminating preliminary rounds, which provides three guaranteed debates for all participating schools. The first two preliminary rounds are debates on a prepared motion, which will be released two weeks before the debate. The third preliminary round will be an impromptu debate. The tournament will adopt a modified local style. In each debate, 4 speakers from each side will deliver 4 speeches of 5 minutes long. After the opening, first and second speakers from each side will deliver their speeches; an 8-minute free debate session will take place, with 4 minutes given for each side. After the free debate session, the concluding speaker from the opposition side will give his/her speech, followed by the concluding speaker from the affirmative side. No new material is allowed in the free debate session and the concluding speeches. 5. Motions 5.1. Prepared debates: Motions will be provided by advisors and will be released two weeks before the debate. 5.2. Impromptu debate: Motions will be provided by advisors and released by a person who is not involved with any teams on the day. 6. Adjudication 6.1. Chief & Deputy Chief Adjudicators For the 2012 HKIDC, the returning chief adjudicator will be Mr. Roy Allen and the deputy chief adjudicator will be Mr. Steven Lee from Heep Yunn School. 6.2. The Mark Sheet The standard mark sheet for HKIDC takes into account the criteria as seen on the table on the right. In the free debate session and concluding speeches, the marks are halved. 6.3. Content Content Style Strategy Total 40 40 20 100

HKIDC 2012 Guidelines & Regulations Content covers the arguments that are used, divorced from the speaking style. It is as if you are seeing the arguments written down rather than spoken. You must assess the weight of the arguments without being influenced by the magnificence of the orator that presented them. Content will also include an assessment of the weight of rebuttal or clash. This assessment must be done from the standpoint of the average reasonable person. The adjudicator's job is to assess the strength of an argument regardless of whether the other team is able to knock it down. If a team introduces a weak argument, it will not score highly in content even if the other team doesn't t refute it. Two consequences flow from this, however: First, if a major team argument is plainly weak, an opposing team that doesnt refute it may well have committed a greater sin than the team, which introduced it. In effect the team has let the other team get away with a weak argument. This is not an automatic rule, but is true in many cases. Of course, it must be a major argument, not a minor example that the opposing team correctly chooses to ignore in favour of attacking more significant points. Second, adjudicators have to be careful not to be influenced by their own beliefs and prejudices, nor by their own specialised knowledge. For example, if you are a lawyer and you know that the International Court of Justice debunked a teams argument last week, you should probably not take into account this special knowledge unless the ICJ's decision was a matter of extreme public notoriety. 6.4. Style The term is perhaps misleading. Adjudicators are not looking for speakers who are stylish, but rather they are looking at the style of the speakers. This category should target things ranging from fluency and confidence in command of the language to the ability to characterise arguments and points and deliver them with rhetorical excellence. In judging style, eye contact and over-reliance on notes will be a factor, but this should definitely not be the deciding factor over content. Also, the types of notes used, e.g. Small cue cards juxtaposed with large sheets of paper should not be a factor in the overall decision both are acceptable 6.5. Strategy Strategy is concerned with the structure and timing of ones speech, and also whether the speaker understood the issues of the debate. Good speech structure is a component of strategy. A good speech has a clear beginning, middle and end. Along the way there are signposts to help us see where the speaker is going. The sequence of arguments is logical and flows naturally from point to point. Timing is also important, but it must not be taken to extremes. There are two aspects to timing. One, speaking within the allowed time limit, and Two, giving an appropriate amount of time to the issues in the speech As to the first, a speaker who goes significantly over time (for example, 6 minutes in a 5 minute speech) ought to get a penalty. Equally, a speaker who goes significantly under time (for example, 4 minutes in a 5 minute speech) in most cases would get a similar penalty. Bear in mind, however, that timing is only one element of strategy. As to the second, a speaker ought to give priority to important issues and leave unimportant ones to later. For example it is generally a good idea for a rebuttal speaker (i.e. Anyone other than the first speaker for the affirmative) to begin with the attack on the other side before going on to the speaker's positive case. This is because it is more logical to get rid of the opposing arguments first before trying to put something in their place. A speaker should also give more time to important issues. Critical points should take a larger amount of time to ensure they are properly established. Fairly trivial points should deserve no more than a trivial amount of time. The adjudicator must weigh up not only the strength of the arguments in the content category, but also the proper time and priority that was given to them in the strategy category. Closely related to the last point is that debaters should understand what the important issues were in the debate. A good understanding of the important issues leads to higher marks for strategy. It is very important that adjudicators understand the difference between strategy and content. Imagine a debate where a speaker answers the critical issues with some weak rebuttal. This speaker should get poor marks for

HKIDC 2012 Guidelines & Regulations content, because the rebuttal was weak. But the speaker should get reasonable marks for strategy, because the right arguments were being addressed. 6.6. Rules of Free Debate In Free Debate session, each team will be given a total of 4 minutes. Speakers will be given a maximum of 10second preparation time for each speech before the delivery. It is the choice of a speaker whether to consume the total 10 seconds each time. The 10-second preparation time will be counted separately from the 4-minute free debate time. Timekeeper will ring the bell once to start the 10-second preparation right after the speaker has delivered his/her speech. When the 10-second preparation time ends, timekeeper will ring once and the speaker of the opponent team should start to deliver the speech. Once the 10-second preparation time ends and the bell rings, the time keeper will start and continue counting down the 4-minute free debate time whether the speaker is delivering the speech or not. The affirmative team will start the Free Debate followed by the opposition team. Each team can use the 4 minutes by separating them into several speeches. However, only one debater is allowed to deliver his/her speech at one time. Each individual speaker is obliged to participate during the free debate session. Non-participation of a single speaker means a reduction of 50 points out of the teams total score. There is no grace period in the Free Debate session. Speaker must end his or her speech after the bell rings. Otherwise, the adjudicators reserve the right to deduct the marks. 6.7. Scoring Guidelines Substantive speeches Standard Exceptional Excellent Extremely Good Very Good Good Satisfactory Competent Pass Improvement Needed Overall (100) 80 76-79 74-75 71-73 70 67-69 65-66 61-64 60 Style (40) 32 31 30 29 28 27 26 25 24 Content (40) 32 31 30 29 28 27 26 25 24 Strategy (20) 16 15-16 15 14-15 14 13-14 13 12-13 12

Free debate and reply/summary speeches Standard Exceptional Very Good to Excellent Good Pass to Satisfactory Improvement Needed Overall (50) 40 36-39 35 31-34 30 Style (20) 16 15 14 13 12 Content (20) 16 15 14 13 12 Strategy (10) 8 7.5 7 6.5 6

In marking concluding speeches it might be easier to mark them out of 100 and then halve each mark. That will leave you with half-mark steps, but that is not a problem. Thus a concluding speech could be given, say, 13.5 for content, 14.5 for style and 7.5 for strategy, for a total of 35.5. 7. Final Note

HKIDC 2012 Guidelines & Regulations The Executive Committee of the HKIDO reserves all rights and powers to final interpretation and decision-making in cases of enquiries. 8. Extra Notes Write down any notes from the workshop in the space below for future reference. ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________