A SHORT GUIDE TO COMPETITIVE DEBATE FORMATS

There are a lot of different competitive debating formats in the world. This can be confusing as one encounters an alphabet soup of names. I hope that this very short introduction can assist you in locating the format that is relevant to you.

University level competition:
 WUDC/BP World Universities Debating Championship
 NPDA/APDA American Parliamentary Debate, USA only
 Policy Debate CEDA, NDT, USA only
 Asians Format AUDC, NEAO, Asia only
 Australs Australasian format, Australasian only
 CUSID Canada only
 NFA Lincoln Douglas, USA only High school level competition:
 WSDC World Schools Debating Championship
 Karl Popper Debate IDEA
 Policy Debate, USA only
 Lincoln-Douglas Debate, USA only
 Public Forum Debate, USA only

UNIVERSITY LEVEL COMPETITION: WUDC/BP
 Topics: New topic for each debate. '
 Teams: Teams of 2, 4 teams in one debate, 2 proposition, 2 opposition, judges rank teams 1-4.
 Length: 60 minutes
 Preparation: 15 minutes before the debate, no electronic access, only talk to partner.
 Interaction: Points of information from one side to the other.
 Content: No quoted material, usually. Very few procedural or definitional arguments.
 Style: Faster than normal conversation, but accessible to all people.
 Events: Worlds, Euros, Asians, Pan Africans, US, etc. NPDA/APDA
 Topics: New topic for each debate. Topic more binding for NPDA than APDA.
 Teams: Teams of 2, 2 teams, proposition and opposition.
 Length: 45 minutes
 Preparation: 20-30 minutes open preparation.
 Interaction: Points of information.
 Content: No quoted material.
 Style: Some jargon, some procedural arguments,
 Events: NPDA tournaments, NPTE, APDA tournaments.

POLICY DEBATE
 Topics: One topic for entire academic year.
 Teams: Teams of 2, 2 teams, affirmative and negative.
 Length: 2-2.5 hours.
 Preparation: Intense preparation during the entire year, extensive research. Ten minutes preparation time to be used by each team during the debate.
 Interaction: Cross examination
 Content: Lots of quoted material, lots of jargon, many procedural arguments, but very open to innovation if you can defend it.
 Style: Usually very rapid speaking.
 Events: NDT, CEDA tournaments. ASIAN
 Topics: Three topics before each debate, teams determine which to debate.
 Teams: Teams of 3, 2 teams, government and opposition.
 Length: About one hour.
 Preparation: 30 minutes.
 Interaction: Points of information.
 Content: No quoted material, usually.
 Style: A little faster than conversational, but understandable by all.