The first speaker: building the house everyone lives in

The introduction: frame before you argue

The opening thirty seconds should make the judge see the motion your way before a single argument lands. Three devices do this reliably:

1. 1

   A historical example. A well-known case that embodies your side of the motion. Debating a ban on private education? Open with a country whose two-track school system entrenched a two-track society. The judge now has a picture, and it is your picture.

2. 2

   An emotional appeal. Put the judge in your key stakeholder’s shoes: the student, the worker, the small nation. Not melodrama, just one concrete, human sentence that makes your impacts feel real before you prove them.

3. 3

   A logical link. A short chain of reasoning so hard to deny that accepting it quietly commits the judge to your case. If they nod at your first sentence, your first argument is already half-built.

The set-up: five sentences that decide the round

After the introduction comes the least glamorous, most consequential minute of the debate. Five jobs, in order:

• Definitions: clarify genuinely ambiguous terms only. A fair definition buys credibility; an unfair one starts a definitional fight you will be blamed for.
• The trade-off: name the core tension honestly: what your side gives up and why it is worth it. Judges trust teams that acknowledge costs and win anyway.
• The stance: one clean sentence: "We believe that…" Every later claim must be consistent with it.
• The split: announce which arguments you will deliver and what your second speaker adds. This is the judge’s map of your case. Without it, your material reads as improvisation.
• The metric: tell the judge how to decide the round: "Vote for the side that protects the most vulnerable people in this debate." Set the test now; your whip wins on it later.

The metric deserves special respect. Most young teams argue hard and let the judge pick the measuring stick; strong teams hand the judge the stick in minute two. When the third speaker says “judge this round on the metric we set in the first speech,” that only works if the first speech actually set one.

The arguments: two, fully mechanized

Each argument runs the four-layer structure (tagline, mechanisms, impact, weighing) that we break down fully in how to build a debate argument. For the first speaker, two things matter most. First, mechanisms over assertions: “private schools entrench inequality” is a headline, not an argument, until you show the two or three causal pathways that make it true, each with reasoning and a real example. Second, weigh as you go: end each argument by telling the judge why its impact outranks whatever the opposition is about to say. Weighing delivered before the clash starts frames the clash.

The caseline: one sentence, three speeches

Close with a sentence that captures your entire case (“Education should be a ladder, not a moat”) and make sure your teammates end their speeches with the same line. To a judge flowing eight speeches, a repeated caseline is the difference between a team with a case and three individuals with speeches. It costs ten seconds per speech and buys coherence nothing else can.

Where first speeches go wrong

• Skipping the metric: the most common omission, and the one your whip pays for in the final speech.
• Three thin arguments: depth beats coverage. Judges score developed mechanisms, not lists of headlines.
• Defining the obvious: thirty seconds explaining what "school" means is thirty seconds of scoring time gone.
• Reading, not speaking: Style is 40% of the score. A first speech recited from a script loses marks a livelier, looser delivery would keep. See how judges score it in our judging guide.

The full scoring breakdown is in how World Schools judging works, and the fill-in version of this whole role is on the printable cheat sheet.

Common questions