NOTE: As of May 2009, the information below is also the style guide for the parliamentary division of the seventeenth annual Yale University Invitational Tournament.
The Osterweis tournament is conducted in a modified version of the parliamentary format used in many college debates. To learn, follow the links below.
The Basics
The Resolutions
The Cases
The Positions
The Speeches
Questions During Debate
College Debate
Parliamentary debates feature a Government team and an Opposition team, each with two debaters. The Government strives to prove the given resolution is correct, the Opposition to prove the resolution is incorrect. Teams alternate between Government and Opposition each round.
During the twenty-five-minute debate, each team gives three speeches. A judge will evaluate both the arguments and the speaking skills of each debater. The team that best supports their side of the resolution wins.
The resolution is a short statement of fact that serves as the topic of debate. Three resolutions will be given before each round—the Government team chooses which to debate. If they wish, they may interpret the resolution more narrowly than given (e.g., “Court penalties should be determined by judges, not juries” may be applied only to civil cases, rather than criminal cases). All Osterweis resolutions will concern American political issues that should be familiar to the average high school student.
All debaters will go to their rooms after pairings are read, where judges will read the three resolutions. Then,
1. There will be a coin flip.
2. The winner of the coin flip will decide whether that team would like to pick resolution or side.
3. The resolution will be chosen.
4. The team that did not choose the resolution will choose their desired side.
5. Each time has 15 minutes to prep.
Some sample resolutions:
This house believes assisted suicide should be legal in the United States.
This house would allow foreign-born citizens to be president of the United States.
This house would use force to spread democracy internationally.
Every round, both teams will write a short "case" with 2-3 reasons their side of the resolution is correct. The Government will be permitted ten minutes to prepare their case before the debate. Statistics, expert quotes, and remote facts are discouraged because they cannot be readily verified. The Opposition team must write a case during the round to oppose the Government’s interpretation of the resolution.
On each team, one debater is the lead speaker and the other is the member. The leader delivers the opening and closing speeches for their team. The member presents the middle speech.
For the Government, the leader is known as the Prime Minister (PM) and the member is called the Member of Government (MG). On the Opposition team, the debaters are the Leader of Opposition (LO) and the Member of Opposition (MO).
Prime Minister Constructive (PMC): | 4 minutes |
Leader of Opposition Constructive (LOC): | 5 minutes |
Member of Government Constructive (MG): | 5 minutes |
Member of Opposition Constructive (MO): | 5 minutes |
Leader of Opposition Rebuttal (LOR): | 2 minutes |
Prime Minister Rebuttal (PMR): | 3 minutes |
Rebuttals: These are the last speeches given by each side, intended to emphasize the team’s strongest points and explain why they should win the debate. This process is known as crystallization. New points cannot be raised in the rebuttals, but new examples to illustrate previous arguments are encouraged.
PMC: Outlines the Government “case,” 2-3 major points to support the resolution.
LOC: Refutes the Government’s case and then presents the Opposition case, 2-3 points opposing the resolution.
MG: Refutes the points raised in the LOC speech.
MO: Presents any new arguments for the Opposition and refutes the points from the MG speech.
LOR: Concludes the round for the Opposition, explaining why the Opposition team wins the round. No new arguments are allowed.
PMR: Concludes the round, explaining why the Government should win. Although no new independent arguments are allowed, this rebuttal can respond to points voiced in the MO speech.
The non-speaking team is allowed to interrupt a speaker to ask two types of questions:
Points of Clarification: The clock stops while the opposing team briefly asks the speaker for further details about their case. The speaker (usually the Prime Minister), must accept these questions.
Points of Information (POI): The clock continues while a member of the opposing team stands, receives consent from the speaker, and inserts a short statement or question, intended to undermine the argument being made. However, the speaker may refuse to allow any POI to be spoken.
Osterweis debates are very similar to the parliamentary format used by college teams like Yale that compete through the American Parliamentary Debate Association (APDA). The main difference: all APDA speeches are three minutes longer.