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As March starts up, many students will be transitioning to a new debate topic. Having grown familiar with the previous topic area, it can seem daunting to try and tackle a new topic. However, with a good strategy, research and comprehension can be quick and simple.

1. Examine the topic wording.

Let’s use the potential March debate topic that wasn’t chosen as an example. That resolution reads, “Resolved: The United States should substantially increase its investment in carbon capture technology.” What are the important words in this resolution? ‘Carbon capture technology’ is the focus of this topic, and probably the thing that a reader notices first. But pay attention to the rest of the wording. The resolution specifies the United States– so, relying on research from other countries could be discredited by an opponent. The words ‘substantially’, ‘increase’, and ‘investment’ are also important. Most fundamentally, increasing an investment means that such an investment already exists. Additionally, the resolution only mentions investments, not infrastructure, which leaves room for debate over efficient funding.

This leaves us with a few points to research. What is carbon capture technology? Where does it already exist, in the world and in the US? What investments does the US already make in carbon capture technology? How expensive is it to develop, and how effective is it?

2. Research general background.

The first important step in researching this resolution is to understand the technology at its center: carbon capture and storage. Simply Googling this phrase leads us to an immediate issue, as the top results are all sponsored pages, mainly from big oil and gas companies. These may not necessarily be impartial, so let’s keep looking.

Past the ads, we see links to several scholarly articles; let’s flag those and keep them in mind. At the very bottom of the page we’ll find the Wikipedia entry for carbon capture technology. Though Wikipedia is usually not appropriate to use as evidence in a round, reading the article can be a good way to gain an understanding of a certain topic. From the first paragraph, we get an idea of what this technology is– a way of recapturing carbon emissions before they enter the atmosphere– and why it may be a subject of debate– there are many notable failures. Now that we know a bit about carbon capture, let’s start looking at potential arguments and sources.

(Psst! A Note About Debate Resources…)

Many debate organizations, including the National Speech and Debate Association, Champion Briefs, and DebateUS will provide videos and posts dissecting topics, and even providing evidence that you can cite. However, many of these resources are not free, or may require you to register an account. Additionally, you never want to rely on information that someone else has found and cut before you, as it may be misleading, misrepresentative, or wholly out of context. These websites can be helpful to point you in the right direction, and may help you understand what arguments will come up in a round, but never use them as your main resource.

3. Specific Research

Let’s go back to those scholarly articles that we put aside while researching carbon capture. The Google Scholar page is full of entries, so how do we find the right ones? On the first page of results are a few articles about efficacy, but all of them are behind a paywall. The only article not behind a paywall is an article on ‘recent’ developments… from 2015. So let’s change our strategy.

Going back to the Google results page, there are 3 articles that are immediately linked– and all of them are publicly available PDFs. If we move over to the News tab, we see even more sources. Let’s read a few! From the Verge, we have “Carbon capture tech is advancing in the wrong direction”; from New Scientist, we have “Most schemes to capture and reuse carbon actually increase emissions”; and finally we’ve got a press release from Chevron, an oil and gas company, announcing its recent investment in carbon capture.

Not only do we now have a good idea of what the controversy in this subject is, but we’re starting to see where it might be organized into contentions. We can imagine a con case that argues carbon capture technology actually increases emissions, negating any environmental impacts that the pro may put forward, and that also argues that substantially increasing this investment would not have any impact at all, as significant investments already exist, namely by oil and gas companies.

As we start to envision these arguments as contentions, places where we can do even more specific research begin to appear. What oil and gas companies already use this technology? How much are they spending on it? And is it working?

As March wraps up and debaters enter April, the topic which public forum debaters will be discussing will change. The upcoming topic is on politics in East Asia, specifically Japan and its Constitution. The resolution reads as follows: “Resolved: Japan should revise Article 9 of its Constitution to develop offensive military capabilities.”

It is immediately helpful to examine what Japan’s Article 9 contains, which can be neatly summarized by the following quote: “Aspiring sincerely to an international peace based on justice and order, the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes. In order to accomplish the aim of the preceding paragraph, land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained. The right of belligerency of the state will not be recognized.”

Therefore, debaters can understand that Article 9 of Japan’s Constitution restricts Japan’s ability to develop offensive military capabilities, and specifically forbids “belligerency of the state”. While the debate resolution does not say exactly which revisions ought to be done to Article 9, one can imagine that, in order to develop offensive capabilities, these revisions might target the language which denies Japan’s sovereign “right” to wage war or use force.

In many ways, this is a resolution rooted in historical context. After Japan’s surrender in World War 2, several changes to the Constitution were made by the Allied forces, including the aforementioned Article 9. Since Japan had, at this time, been an enemy to the US, it was in the interest of the United States to restrict their offensive military capabilities. The question now is whether or not, in the context of current geopolitics, this provision is still necessary, or even helpful.

Recent prime minister Shinzo Abe was quite vocal in his desire to revise Article 9, while the current Prime Minister, Fumio Kishida, has been less outspoken on the issue. Due to Abe’s influence, however, Article 9 has entered public discourse, landing itself on the public forum debate stage.

Those on the side of revision would argue that it is necessary for Japan to be able to wage war. Due to building threats by China and Russia, Japan’s military needs to be as strong as possible. Yukari Easton writes in the Diplomat that, “in the face of [the Russian invasion of Ukraine], Japan needs to reconsider the nature of its contribution to peace.” Others argue that this is a matter of undue Western influence on the nation of Japan. Shinichi Kitaoka writes in the Council on Foreign Relations that, “the process by which it was enacted was inappropriate… General Douglas MacArthur, supreme commander for the allied powers (SCAP), order[ed] that a new Japanese constitution be drafted in February 1946 by a small group of his American staff in secret. Apparently, this took nine days.”

Those opposing revision would note that Japan’s military is by no means weak, with extensive land, sea, and air forces, developed and used for self-defense. In the case of attack by foreign powers, Japan would be within their Constitutional rights to retaliate. Additionally, Japan’s strong allyship with NATO, and the United States, including the presence of a US military base on the island of Okinawa, provides Japan with additional avenues of defense. Criticizing Abe’s stance on revision, Keigo Komamura writes in the Council on Foreign Relations that, “by breaking with our American made constitution… he is discarding the legitimate foundations of our shared [values] in the U.S.-Japan alliance.” Constitutional revision, therefore, could weaken an alliance between Japan and the US, and potentially betray what many view as a core value of Japanese politics– non aggression. The Council on Foreign Affairs also reports that Constitutional revision is not overwhelmingly popular in Japan, with even the best polling data barely breaching over 50% in favor.

As debaters discuss the pros and cons of issues facing both the US and the world as a whole, they may find themselves wondering how exactly these topics have been chosen. While the process of choosing a debate topic was once rather obscure, recently the National Speech and Debate Association (NSDA) has opened up the selection process, allowing debaters insight into how the resolutions they debate are decided on.

All members of the NSDA may submit their ideas for topics on the NSDA website. Topics must be submitted before the summer in order to be considered for the following school year. Not only does the submission form as for a resolution, but submissions are also asked to include a “brief description of the balanced debate envisioned.” Essentially, the submitter is asked to show that this topic is not overly weighted to one side or the other, and can be debated fairly, and in-depth.

These submitted topics will eventually be discussed when the “Public Forum Wording Committee” convenes during the summer. Not every topic that has been submitted will be discussed; and indeed, not every topic discussed will necessarily be one that has been submitted by the community. The Public Forum Wording Committee will discuss these topic areas and craft the final language for resolutions.

At this point, two potential topics will be assigned to each topic cycle. These topic sets will be released the Monday following the end of the National Speech and Debate Tournament, ensuring that coaches and members know by June what topics will be voted on and when. As the year progresses, voting for each topic will open in the week leading up to topic release, and students and coaches will be able to vote on their preferred topic.

What is worth noting is that although topics are voted on in the month leading up to the next topic cycle, every potential topic is chosen at the same time in the summer before. Not every topic will be a hot-button issue; and some topics may end up being more complicated as current events shift and evolve. For example, the current February PF topic is on whether Turkey ought to remain a part of NATO. Many key arguments in this topic area revolve around Russia, Ukraine, and other Middle Eastern countries– and as it happens, the geopolitical situation between Russia and Ukraine is rapidly changing as of February of 2022, something which couldn’t have been predicted at the time of topic selection.

The topics chosen by the NSDA only apply to our middle and high school students who compete within NSDA-recognized tournaments. At Potomac Debate Academy, we do offer debate courses for students in 4th and 5th grade. For these elementary students, we typically do not debate the current NSDA topic due to the depth and scope of research often required. Instead, our coaches typically go through past topics, and adjust the wording to make them more appropriate and approachable for a younger audience. These topics are then compiled, sent out to our coaching staff, and voted on.