How to construct a first speaker argument

The opening speech sets the frame for the entire debate. Get it right and every later speaker on your bench is building on solid ground; get it wrong and your partner spends seven minutes digging you out. Here's what our most experienced first speakers do differently.

Define like you mean it

Your first job is to tell the room what the debate is actually about. That means definitions that are fair, debatable and concrete. If the motion is This House would ban private schools, say what counts as a private school, in which country-context you're setting the debate, and what "ban" looks like in practice. A first speaker who fudges the definition invites a definitional challenge — and definitional debates are miserable for everyone, including the judges.

Two arguments, fully built — not four, half-built

The most common novice mistake is argument-hoarding. In seven minutes you have time to build two arguments properly: claim, mechanism, evidence or example, and impact. The mechanism is the part beginners skip — why does the policy produce the outcome you say it does? Walk the judge through every causal step. An argument without a mechanism is just an assertion with confidence.

Do the weighing early

Tell the judge why your arguments matter more than whatever the other side is about to say. If you're proposing and you know Opposition will run an economic harm, pre-empt it: "Even if there are transition costs, we say the rights-based argument comes first, because…" Weighing in the first speech makes the whole bench's case feel inevitable rather than reactive.

Set up your partner

You are half of a team. Signpost what your second speaker will cover — "My colleague will deal with implementation" — and then actually leave them the material. Nothing reads worse to a judge than a second speaker re-explaining the first speech because there was nothing left to add.

Take one POI, on your terms

Take exactly one point of information, in the middle of your strongest argument, and use it to restate that argument. Taking it during your weakest material is volunteering for a mugging.

Come to a Thursday session and try it. The first one is rough for everyone — that's rather the point.