Resources for Student Debaters

You can find our podcast episodes on all of the League Phase motions on our website: Debates podcasts and worksheets | Concern Worldwide. You can also check out our Trello board where we post useful research links for all our motions: Concern Debates | Trello. But there are lots of types of research you can use. You can find some examples below:

• Surveys within your school, community, family or friends (useful for motions that address our responsibilities and attitudes)
• Books, encyclopedias, newspapers, journals, periodicals and magazines can be a great source of statistics and quotations
• Carrying out interviews with politicians, ambassadors, councillors, local businesspeople or teachers
• Documentaries, current affairs and news programmes can contain some strong information and statistics
• Contacting NGOs or government departments
• Podcasts, informative videos and other multimedia can all be found in abundance online!

You can also find useful background information on the following websites:

•  THE 17 GOALS | Sustainable Development
• Social Justice Ireland
• Global Issues : social, political, economic and environmental issues that affect us all — Global Issues
• World Bank Open Data | Data
• UN World Food Programme (WFP)
• Figures at a glance | UNHCR Ireland
• Human Development Index | Human Development Reports
• Welcome | UN Women – Headquarters
• Concern Worldwide | International humanitarian & development organisation

Debate results are usually given around 1 week after the debate. Occasionally, there will be delays in results during busy periods. 

You can ask your teacher to email debates@concern.net and our team can provide you with additional feedback.

No, using these devices is prohibited during the debate.

Students should look at the Marking Sheet.pdf and ensure that they are meeting all of the marking criteria. The most common areas that students lose marks are for refutation/rebuttal, sources and timekeeping!

Here are our top tips for improving for your next debate:

• Always quote the sources for all your facts and figures. Try to use sources that are up to date so that you’re not quoting facts from 10 years ago!
• Be sure to have additional, relevant information and statistics that might be used for rebuttal on the day. Try to predict what the other team will say and keep some statistics that could be used to counter their arguments.
• Check out our Refutation and Rebuttal Guide.pdf to help you structure your rebuttals!
• Aim to speak for no less than 4 minutes and no more than 4 minutes and 30 seconds. Marks are deducted for going over time.
• Don’t make your speech too short. There are no marks docked for speaking under time; however, it can make adjudicators think that you are not well prepared or have rushed through it which will cost you marks in other areas of the marking sheet.
• Practise reading your speech out loud, either at home or in school with your team, and be sure to time it. People generally take longer to read something out loud than in their heads. You will also need to build in extra time for refutation and rebuttal.
• Don’t read your speech directly off the page. Look up at the camera/audience as much as possible to keep your speech engaging.
• Remember to speak slowly, adjudicators can’t mark the content if they can’t hear it properly.
• Captains should ensure they define all key words of the motion in their opening speech and should briefly mention what each member of their team will be speaking about. In their closing speech, they need to summarise their team's arguments again and have at least 3 pieces of rebuttal.