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The Nature of Debate ? What is debate? In its essentials, debate is an extended argument. Two groups of people dispute whether a statement is true or false. The Affirmative team in the round supports the statement, while the Negative team opposes it. Once all the arguments have been put forth, an impartial judge decides the matter in favor of one team or the other. The decision is based only on the material presented during the debate...the judge’s personal feelings do not enter into his decision. What’s really being decided is not whether the statement — usually called the resolution, proposition, or topic — is true or false, but which team is better able to sustain its arguments. ? What sort of things are debated? There are three types of statements that are suitable for argumentation. The simplest are propositions of fact. Debates of this sort hinge on whether something is true or false; often they try to establish a cause and effect relationship. Of course, some propositions of fact are so simple that there are no grounds for argument among reasonable people: The sun rose at 6:15 this morning is such a statement; it would not require great persuasive skill to prove this either true or false. Other propositions of fact are less easily determined, and thus are more suitable for debate: Lizzie Borden killed her parents, for example, or the statement that Rock music leads to devil worship. Evidence is available for both sides in these matters. The chief place where propositions of fact are disputed are in courts of law. There the defense and the prosecution argue whether a certain person is guilty of disobeying a particular law. The second type of statement is the proposition of value, which suggests the relative worth of one or more things. Governmental funding for abortion is immoral, is one example. Most such propositions weigh two or more factors against each other: Smith would make a better governor than Jones, for instance, or College academic work is mor