Debate nerdery, at its finest.

So, just over a week ago, I went to an IV - this stands for inter-varsity, and it's what we call debating competitions. The fine institution of Cambridge was hosting this. They changed from open motions to closed. Let me explain to you what this means, for you non-debaters and noobs out there.

When we debate, we have two teams pretending to be the government in power, and two pretending to be the opposition. We speak alternately - prop, opp, prop, opp - until everyone has spoken once. We debate about motions, things that should be either put into law, or considered as a moral standpoint. The first speaker proposing the motion has to set up the debate. They clarify key words, if necessary, and then outline a procedure if they want to implement some sort of scheme related to the motion.

This is the type of motion you see in closed motion debates.

This House Would Legalise Drugs.
This House Believes That The USA Should Pay War Reparations to Vietnam.

The motion is clearly telling you the debate is about drugs, or Vietnam, and that is what you debate. If you're not debating that, you will not win. If the first proposition team decide they want to debate about monkeys and housepets, they will lose.

Open motions are another kettle of fish. You get almost non-sensical motions, such as:

This House Would Fear The Reaper.
This House Would Raise The Roof.

You're not supposed to literally debate reapers or roofs. If you are the first proposition team, you will have come to the competition with your favourite motion to propose. The motion is purposely vague so that the debate is basically about whatever the first proposition want it to be. In this case, if they want a debate about monkeys and housepets, as long as they can tenuously create a link between their motion and the "motion" set before them, they are good to go. (Of course, if it's a silly idea, the opposition should tear them to shreds, and the proposition will lose.)

For both styles, you are told what side of the debate you are on, and you have fifteen minutes from the announcement of the motions to prepare for the debate.

In closed motions debate, everyone has fifteen minutes to say, "This motions is about Vietnam and reparations, okay. Let's think about those things." In particular, opposition know what they are facing and can prepare ideas that will most likely be relevant in the context of what the first team say.

In open motions, the first proposition team have fifteen minutes to perfect their brainchild. The other three teams have fifteen minutes to grab some coffee, take a slash, flirt with the judges, and wonder what the frak they are going to eventually debate about.

What this means is that, in open motions, the first speaker for the opposition has the length of time that the first proposition speech takes up to prepare.

Some love the thrill of not being prepared and just running on adrenaline. Others dislike the inevitable drop in quality of debate (although some open rooms get fabulously zany).

So, some people liked the change to closed, others did not.

The general consensus was that Cambridge did it to improve the image of the IV from "fun open tournament" to "Worlds prep", where Worlds is the World University Debating Championships and is considered to be A Big Deal to debate folks like myself.

Coming in the next installment... how your intrepid author got a room with a Euros finalist, ignored the advances of a soon-to-be lawyer and got medical advice from a drunken med student.