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ELINOR STEPHENSON: Hi. I'm Ellie, and this is Indigo, and we're the CHS coaches, and what we're going to be doing in this video is explaining to you different types of motions that you might encounter if you are on the CHS representative debating team, and that's just because reps debating features some unfamiliar and potentially difficult sorts of topics that you might not have seen before and that it can be useful to be introduced to. So we're just going to go through what the main types of topics are and explain roughly how you can tackle them on both sides.

INDIGO CROSWELLER: So, the first kind of topic that you might get is policy debates, and these you'll be familiar with. These topics will usually include the words 'that we should' and require you to propose a change to the world, for example, the topic 'That we should ban zoos' or the topic 'That we should ban smoking'.

The affirmative should have a brief plan or policy-- you might know this as a model or definition-- about how the change will work. The affirmative also needs to prove that their model will do more good than harm, and the negative needs to try to prove the reverse. Really basic.

ELINOR STEPHENSON: Great. So, here's where it gets a little bit more tricky. The second type of topic that you might encounter at reps debating is an empirical topic, and what we mean by that is a topic that requires you to debate about whether the topic is true, whether it's a true statement about the world.

So, here, you're not necessarily proposing a change. You're merely debating about whether the topic is true or not. So, a hypothetical example what this kind of topic could be 'That zoos are cruel'. So, we're not proposing a change. We're just talking about whether that is true.

Affirmative in these debates have to prove that that argument, that claim, is overall true, that it's more true than it is false, and the negative has to prove the reverse. One thing to remember for this type of topic is to think about some criteria that you can use to judge how true or false a statement might be. So, what does it mean for zoos to be cruel? Defining that will really help you to pin down what you need to do in the debate in order to win.

INDIGO CROSWELLER: The next kind of topic you might encounter are called regret debates, and these debates typically involve the words 'That we regret ...' something and require the affirmative to argue that the world would be a better place if that thing had never happened. So, for instance, one example of this kind of topic is that we regret the rise of ecotourism.

In these debates, the affirmative should explain the counterfactual, which is a description of what the world would look like if it had not had this thing, and the negative might argue that, in fact, that thing was positive, and therefore we should embrace the status quo with that thing existing.

ELINOR STEPHENSON: Another type of motion that you might encounter, and where it's really important to be familiar with the wording that they might use, is actor debates, and this is a type of topic that specifies a particular stakeholder or actor who is involved in the debate, and you need to focus on the benefits and objectives for that stakeholder, not for the world generally.

So, as an example, if you had a topic that was 'That we, as North Korea, would give up our nuclear weapons,' that means you have to think from the perspective of North Korea, not from the perspective of the world generally. So, the argument that this would make the world safer would not be a particularly persuasive argument unless you prove that that is something that North Korea would care about.

As another example, if you had the topic 'That we, as the feminist movement, would refrain from criticising conservative women,' that again requires you to think about what the goals, objectives, et cetera are of the feminist movement. So, make sure that you set that up at side affirmative's first speaker. But, also, you can contest that on negative if you disagree about what their objectives are. That is within the debate.

One important note on this type of topic is that topics that say, 'That we as North Korea,' that's an actor debate. But a topic that says 'That North Korea should' is not an actor debate. You're still talking about an action that North Korea should take, but you don't need to confine yourself only to the stakeholder's perspectives. You can think about benefits to the world more broadly.

So, taking that example about the feminist movement, a topic that said, 'That feminists should just refrain from criticising conservative women,' you don't need to think about what feminists care about, just whether that would be good for the world generally. Whereas if it said that, as feminists, we would do this, then you must think about what feminists specifically want, and you must explain what their interests and goals are.

INDIGO CROSWELLER: The final kind of topic that you might encounter is a prefer debate, and these topics are phrased that we prefer x thing to y thing. They require the affirmative team to explain why the x thing is better than the y, and the important thing to know about these topics is that-- their kind of unique contribution is that they dictate what the negative must support in the topic. So, for instance, the negative must pursue y thing, not some different alternative they prefer.

So, one good illustration of this is the topic 'That governments should pursue the prevention of climate change over adaptation to climate change,' and this topic says that the affirmative team has to support the pursuit of prevention strategies, and it points to the negative having to support the pursuit of adaptation over that prevention. So, it really dictates what the kind of constraints of the debate are for both teams, and you should pay attention to those wordings in the kind of Combined High Schools experience in whatever kind of debates you might do.

So, that's all of the different kinds of motions you might experience across the whole Combined High Schools journey, from trials to the squad to the competition. We hope it's been useful.

ELINOR STEPHENSON: Thanks. Bye.