Preparation
The proposition should be decided on and the teams selected long enough in advance to allow for adequate preparation. Every means should be employed to secure sufficient material in effective arrangement.
Once constituted, the team should consider itself a unit. Work should be planned in conference and distributed among the speakers. At frequent meetings they should present to the side all they are able to find. They should lay out a comprehensive plan of support of their own side.
They should anticipate the arguments likely to be advanced by the other, and should provide for disposing of them if they are important enough to require refuting. It is a good rule for every member of a debating team to know all the material on his side, even though part of it is definitely assigned to another speaker.
This preliminary planning should be upon a definite method. A good outline to use, although some parts may be discarded in the debate itself, is the following simple one.
I. State the proposition clearly.
1. Define the terms.
2. Explain it as a whole.
II. Give a history of the case.
1. Show its present bearing or aspect.
III. State the issues.
IV. Prove.
V. Refute.
VI. Conclude.