What makes a good debate motion?

Some motions give you a close round every time. Others are over by the third minute, or so abstract that nobody has anything concrete to say. If you pick motions for your club or you're about to set your first tournament, it helps to know which is which before the round starts.

There are four tests worth running on any motion.

Balance

A good motion can be won from both sides. That means a smart Opposition team can win the round, which is a higher bar than being able to think of something for Opposition to say. A balanced motion can still lean one way. What matters is that each side has a real path to winning which doesn't need an absurd stretch.

The obvious failures are easy to spot. "THW ban all cars" is a stomp. "THBT parents should love their children" isn't a debate. The harder ones look balanced until you prep them. "THW abolish all prisons" sounds arguable until Government realizes it has to defend a world with no answer to violent crime, and every Opposition team in the room runs that same argument.

Better still, each side has ground of its own, so Government's case is more than Opposition's turned upside down.

Depth

A good motion rewards prep. You find the obvious arguments first. Then you notice a group of people who complicate things, or a principle which changes how you'd weigh the whole round.

A shallow motion gives you everything in two minutes. "THS daylight saving time" is debatable, but there isn't much there, and by minute five both sides are out of things to say.

"THW allow prisoners to choose the death penalty over a life sentence" is the opposite. It starts as an argument about autonomy and branches out: coercion, what choice means under duress, the state's responsibility for prison conditions, and whether the policy treats the symptom while leaving the disease alone. You can spend all 15 minutes of prep on it and still have more to find.

A quick check if you coach: if your whole team finishes prepping in three minutes, the motion was too thin.

Clash

A good motion makes the two sides collide. Government says X, Opposition says Y, and they can't both be true. That's where rounds get interesting.

Some motions produce two parallel debates instead. Government talks about the economy, Opposition talks about culture, and nobody touches the other side's material. When that happens, look at the motion before you blame the debaters.

Motions with a clear policy tend to clash better. "THW tax meat at 200%" gives both sides one concrete thing to fight about. "THBT society places too much emphasis on economic growth" is so open that teams end up arguing past each other.

The ideal motion has two or three clash points which teams can spot in prep and then fight over in the round.

Engagement

This one is harder to pin down. A good motion is one people want to debate. It connects to how people live and what they argue about over dinner.

A motion about an obscure institution can be balanced and deep and still produce a dry round, because nobody in the room has an instinct about it. "THW tell children they are adopted as early as possible" works the other way: everyone has a reaction to it, and half the room disagrees with the other half before prep even starts.

Economic, legal and IR motions can be engaging too, when they connect to something people recognize. "THW break up Amazon" works because everyone has ordered something from Amazon. "THW renegotiate the Antarctic Treaty" doesn't, because almost nobody has thought about the Antarctic Treaty.

Motions to avoid

Truisms, where one side is obviously right. "THBT education is important." Yes. Next.

Vague wording, where half the round goes to arguing about what the motion means. "THW change the system." Which system? Changed how?

Motions which need knowledge nobody in the room has. A motion about one clause of a trade agreement's investor dispute rules might work at a law school tournament. Anywhere else, nobody can engage with it.

Bans on things most people like. "THW ban social media for minors" works because people disagree about it. "THW ban music" leaves Government apologizing for its own case for seven minutes.

Picking motions for practice

If you coach, start with intermediate motions on a topic your team hasn't covered lately. THW motions are a good default because they hand both sides a policy to fight over. If you're practising alone, start at beginner and move up when the motions stop feeling hard.

The motions page sorts the practice motions by topic and level. If you'd rather not choose, the Draw on the same page gives you a motion, a position and a 15-minute clock.