The National Parliamentary Debate Association (NPDA) is one of the two national intercollegiate

parliamentary debate Parliamentary debate (also referred to as "parliamentary" or "parli") is an academic debate event. Many university-level institutions in English-speaking nations sponsor parliamentary debate teams. In addition the format is currently spreading to ...

organizations in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

. The other is the

American Parliamentary Debate Association The American Parliamentary Debate Association (APDA) is the oldest intercollegiate parliamentary debating association in the United States. APDA sponsors over 50 tournaments a year, all in a parliamentary format, as well as a national champion ...

. Its membership is national with participating schools throughout the country. In 2015, NAPA was the largest debating organization in the United States with around 200-250 participating schools in any given year.

The Rules of NPDA Debate

In tournaments sponsored or sanctioned by the NPDA, teams of two debate head-to-head. Tournaments issue a new topic each round, generally on issues such as politics, philosophy and current affairs. After the announcement of the topic, the two teams have a limited preparation time, which is 15 minutes plus the time it takes to walk to the furthest away round in which debates will be taking place (usually rounded to 20 minutes), during which to write out their respective cases. The standard time limits for an NPDA debate are: * First Proposition Speaker: 7 minutes * First Opposition Speaker: 8 minutes * Second Proposition Speaker: 8 minutes * Second Opposition Speaker: 8 minutes * Opposition Rebuttal: 4 minutes * Proposition Rebuttal: 5 minutes There are tournaments, however, at which these are modified, generally to a 7-7-7-7-5-5 format. The

Claremont Colleges The Claremont Colleges (known colloquially as the 7Cs) are a consortium of seven private institutions of higher education located in Claremont, California, United States. They comprise five undergraduate colleges (the 5Cs)— Pomona College, Sc ...

tournament, for instance, uses this 7-5 format. During constructive speeches, debaters may introduce new arguments and the speaker's opponents may rise to ask questions of the speaker. Constructive speakers can accept or reject any given question. Rebuttals are exclusively for summarizing the arguments that were made during constructives. Over the past few years, many coaches and competitors have referred to the official title of speeches with different names. These are unofficial yet very popular with many judges: * Prime Minister Constructive * Leader of Opposition Constructive * Member of Government Constructive * Member of Opposition Constructive * Leader of Opposition Rebuttal * Prime Minister Rebuttal There is a ban on quoted evidence. This simply means that the debaters may not bring in printed, published evidence and consult it during the round. It is expected that debaters will use their own pre-existing knowledge and research conducted prior to the start of the actual round to back their arguments with reasoning and empirical data. This places parli in stark contrast to the other common intercollegiate debate format, policy debate, where debaters may utilize quoted evidence. Any mature debate circuit will develop its own customs and practices. Some people argue that the NPDA rules are very ''laissez-faire'', preferring to let the norms of what constitutes valid argumentation be subjects for the debate itself. Others believe that, in recent years, the NPDA has been hesitant to allow its participants to engage in controversial, ''avant garde'' or "non-traditional" debate practices at its national championship tournament.

The NPDA Championship Tournament

The NPDA runs one debate tournament each year: the NPDA Championship Tournament, held in late March or early April at rotating host sites. While the inaugural tournament in 1994 only hosted around 40 teams, the 2004 Championship Tournament had over 300 in the field from over a half-dozen nations. The tournament's practices are generally modeled by smaller invitational tournaments, which provide the bulk of year-long competition. NPDA sanctions many of these tournaments, and the school that does the best at sanctioned invitationals over the course of the year is awarded a year-long sweepstakes championship.

Relationship to other tournaments and organizations

There are usually several NPDA-sanctioned invitational tournaments in the US to choose from on almost every weekend of the academic year. The largest of these tournaments include the Mile High Swing held in Januaryd co-hosted in recent years by

Texas Tech University Texas Tech University (Texas Tech, Tech, or TTU) is a public research university in Lubbock, Texas. Established on , and called Texas Technological College until 1969, it is the main institution of the five-institution Texas Tech University Sy ...

and the

University of Utah The University of Utah (U of U, UofU, or simply The U) is a public research university in Salt Lake City, Utah. It is the flagship institution of the Utah System of Higher Education. The university was established in 1850 as the University of De ...

Salt Lake City Salt Lake City (often shortened to Salt Lake and abbreviated as SLC) is the capital and most populous city of Utah, United States. It is the seat of Salt Lake County, the most populous county in Utah. With a population of 200,133 in 2020, th ...

Utah Utah ( , ) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. Utah is a landlocked U.S. state bordered to its east by Colorado, to its northeast by Wyoming, to its north by Idaho, to its south by Arizona, and to it ...

, the season-opening Bowman Debates at

William Jewell College William Jewell College is a private liberal arts college in Liberty, Missouri. It was founded in 1849 by members of the Missouri Baptist Convention and endowed with $10,000 by William Jewell. It was associated with the Missouri Baptist Conventi ...

in September, the Steve Hunt Classic held at

Lewis & Clark College Lewis & Clark College is a private liberal arts college in Portland, Oregon. Originally chartered in 1867 as the Albany Collegiate Institute in Albany, Oregon, the college was relocated to Portland in 1938 and in 1942 adopted the name Lewis & C ...

in October and the Paul Winters Invitational at the University of the Pacific in November.

Communicating between tournaments

Almost from its inception, the NPDA community has taken advantage of the

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...

to continue debates (and to debate about debates) between tournaments and in the off-season. For years, this took place via the official electronic mailing list, much to the chagrin of those who saw that resource as best used for official communication such as posting tournament invitations and results. Today, much of the online debate (especially between competitors) in the NPDA community takes place via the online forum ''Net-Benefits.net'', founded by

University of Southern California , mottoeng = "Let whoever earns the palm bear it" , religious_affiliation = Nonsectarian—historically Methodist , established = , accreditation = WSCUC , type = Private research university , academic_affiliations = , endowment = $8.1 ...

then-undergraduate Jed Link. The name "Net-Benefits" is a

pun A pun, also known as paronomasia, is a form of word play that exploits multiple meanings of a term, or of similar-sounding words, for an intended humorous or rhetorical effect. These ambiguities can arise from the intentional use of homophoni ...

, referring to the debate paradigm by which the debate judge weighs the net benefits of two competing policies. The site is now an electronic hub for discourse and information on parliamentary debate.

NPDA National Champions

Every year since 1994, the organization has held a national championship tournament. Winning teams include:

Top speakers

Commonly used books

*''The Parli Prepbook'' compiled by Kyle Dennis and written by several coaches and renowned competitors, a community-driven guide to modern parliamentary debate. *''Strategic Argumentation in Parliamentary Debate'' by Eric Robertson, good for beginners and intermediate *''Art, Argument, and Advocacy: Mastering Parliamentary Debate'' by John Meany and Kate Shuster, bst for intermediate and advanced *''On that point: Introduction to Parliamentary Debate'' by John Meany, good for beginners *''Burden of Proof: An introductory guide to argumentation and guide to parliamentary debate'' by Mark Crossman, good for beginners *''Competitive Debate: The Official Guide'' by Richard E Edwards, good for high schools and not just parli

References

External links

National Parliamentary Debate Association
- homepage of the organization
National Parliamentary Tournament of Excellence
- view current and old NPTE rankings
Net-Benefits.net
- online community for college parliamentary debate
ForensicsTournament.net
- online registration site for NPDA Nationals. {{University debating Student debating societies