The tournament follows the World Schools Debating Championships (WSDC) format of parliamentary debating.

In this format, two teams of three speakers each debate upon a topic that is initially announced. After the announcement of the topic, the teams are assigned the role of proposition and opposition. Parliamentary debate has a set procedure which must be followed at ALL times. The debate begins with the first speaker of the proposition, followed by the first speaker of the opposition. Second Prop and Second Opp follow, after which Third Prop and Third Opp take the floor. The debate concludes with the Opposition Reply and the Proposition Reply in that order. Each speaker speaks for eight minutes, while reply speeches are four minutes each. During the quarter-finals however speeches will be six minutes long and there will be no replies. Both teams have a burden of proof in a debate. This is not always clear at the outset, but during prep both teams can identify their burden of proof and then look towards proving it. For example in the topic This house would legalise all drugs (stupid topic, but just for an example), Props burden of proof is to show why legalising ALL drugs would solve the problem prevailing with regards to the illegal drug market etc. Opps burden of proof in such a debate would be to prove why legalising all drugs would NOT be the best way to solve the problem. In every debate, a problem exists; Prop tries solving the problem by PROPOSING something. Opp does not necessarily propose an alternative solution; it only tries to cast sufficient doubt in what Prop is saying. Put it this way: Prop needs to make a building, and keep it standing. Opp needs to make the building fall. Simple. Each speaker has a very specific job to do in the course of the debate. The first speaker of Team Proposition must come and define the key terms in the motion and basically set out the parameters of the debate. It is imperative for a first speaker to be extremely organised and logical as if he or she does not speak well, the entire debate usually ends up falling apart. After defining the motion and the boundaries of the debate, a first speaker needs to introduce his teams case (the teams lines of argument). Usually a team prepares a case with three lines of argument, with the first two being dealt with by the first speaker and the third by the second speaker; however, anything between two to five lines of argument is acceptable, and second speakers can also take two arguments if need be. Each argument should have an initial statement and forthcoming analysis supporting the statement with reasons, logic and examples. The speaker should conclude by summarising the key points of his or her speech (ideally this goes for all speakers, but time may not always allow this). First Oppositions job is initially to outline the main refutations that his or her team will make to the Propositions case. After this rebuttal, he or she should introduce the teams case, outline the lines of argument and deal with the primary arguments. Second Proposition comes next, and he or she shall refute Oppositions first speaker while defending the teams case. Ideally Second Prop will refute the opposing team for a longer timeperiod than that spent by First Opp. After this refutation, Second Prop presents the next arguments for the teams case and with this, the positive case of the Proposition should come to an end. Remember, Second Props arguments need to be independent of those presented by First Prop; they should, obviously, lead to the same conclusion though.

Second Opposition will come and refute the points of both First and Second Prop speakers, and his or her refutations will be the longest and most detailed of the lot. After this the speaker presents the final positive case arguments for his or her team and concludes the speech. Again, Second Opp arguments need to be independent of First Opps arguments, but lead to the same conclusion with respect to the topic. Third Prop and Third Opp have very similar jobs to do; and it is one which cannot really be prepared for in the half hour of prep. Both speakers use their eight minutes to identify the clashes in the debate and rebut the other teams case as much as possible. Third speakers usually have to write their speeches during the first four speeches of the debate; nevertheless while sitting in prep you can usually infer what the other team will be saying and prepare refutations accordingly. It is also important that unless in a very special case, third speakers should NOT bring up new positive content in their speeches they can, however, introduce new levels of analysis while defending their teams positive case. The debate then concludes with four-minute reply speeches, with Opposition Reply going first. A reply is simply a biased summary of a debate. Both speakers come up and summarise what exactly happened, who presented what, and why their team should win the debate. Replies do generally seem similar to third speeches as they too need to be written during the actual debate, but third speeches differ in the sense that they consist mainly of refutations while replies are summaries showing that they said this, we said that, and we win because of XYZ reasons. Only the first or second speaker can issue the reply speech from both teams. After the replies the judge (or panel of judges) gives the verdict on who won the debate. There can never be a draw in a debate. After announcing the winning team judges usually give a short critique. All speeches are marked out of 100. 40 marks are for content, 40 for style and 20 for strategy. Content is about the strength of your arguments and what youve really said; style is about how you say it; and strategy is to do with the format and organisation of the speech. Reply speeches are marked out of 50, with 20 for content and style each and 10 for strategy. During speeches points of information can be raised by the opposing team. These can be rejected or accepted by the speaker. The purpose of a POI is to throw the speaker off-guard by asking a question. POIs should not be more than 10-15 seconds long. Ideally one should take TWO POIs during a speech, however this number is also flexible. Topics are generally of two types: THBT (This House Believes That) or THW (This House Would). A THBT topic is a belief debate; it only involves a theoretical belief and does not imply putting anything into practicality. A THW topic is a change debate; in such a debate Prop need to provide a solid policy by which they would go about making a change in the status quo. Prop need to show not only why their policy is effective, but also why it is justified.