Using the right language at the appropriate time is essential for any debate worth its salt. Use these phrases to help shore up your debating tone and style.
Download Worksheets- PDF formatted
Debate phrases and debating structure PDF
Informal-phrases-and-structure PDF
Formal phrases and structure PDF
Formal Section Phrases
Opening the debate:
- [some nice opening, e.g. quote]
- Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to this debate.
- Welcome from this side of the house…
- The motion for debate today is: …
Defining the motion:
- Now we as today’s proposition/opposition strongly believe that this is true/not true, but before we come to our actual argumentation, let us first define some important terms in this debate.
- We believe that what is meant by … is… / that … are …
- When we say … should … we mean that …
Presenting the teamline:
- We as today’s proposition/opposition have structured our case as follows:
- I, as the first speaker, will be talking about …
- Our second speaker, …, will elaborate on the fact that …
- And our third speaker, …, will do the rebuttal.
Rebutting arguments, rebuilding your case:
- But before I come to my own arguments, let us first have a look at what … has said.
- I will continue our case in a minute, but before that there are some things about the … speech that need to be addressed.
- The first prop/opposition speaker has told us …; on the contrary …
- He/She also said that …; but in fact..
- He/She was claiming that …; but as my first speaker already told you, …
Introducing arguments:
- Let me come to my first/second/…/next argument: [concise label of argument]
- My first/… argument is:
- The first/… reason why we’re prop/opposing this motion is:
explaining arguments: - [rather abstract explanation on how the argument should work]
Giving examples:
- There are many examples for this/for …, for instance.
- In fact, you can find many examples for this in real life. Just think of…
- And there are similar cases, such as …, …
- So in this simple example we can clearly see the effect of …
Summarizing & linking the argument:
- So as we have seen [argument label], and therefore [motion].
- Now because of this …, we have to support this motion.
Summarizing & ending your speech:
- So Ladies and Gentlemen, what have I told you today? Firstly …, Secondly..
- [some nice closing words]
- And for all of these reasons, the motion must stand/fall.
making/rejecting/accepting/answering points of information:
- Point of information, Sir/Madam.
- On that point.
- Wouldn’t you have to agree …? / Doesn’t what you’re saying contradict with …? / What about the …? / How would you explain, that … ?
- No, thank you, Sir/Madam.
- Declined.
- Yes, please. / Go ahead.
- Thank you very much, Sir/Madam, I’m going to come to this very point in my second argument in a minute.
Giving reply speeches:
- Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome for the last time from today’s prop/opposition. It is now my pleasure to summarize this debate, take a look at what both sides have said and see what the outcome of this debate actually is.
- A first/second/… major clash was: … Today’s prop/opposition told us …; we had to find …
- [some particularly nice closing words]
- And for all these reasons, I beg you to prop/oppose
Informal Debate Phrases
When you are listening to the other side.
- I see your point, but I think…
- Yes, I understand, but my opinion is that…
- That’s all very interesting, but the problem is that…
- I’m afraid I can’t quite agree with your point.-
- I think I’ve got your point, now let me respond to it.-
- We can see what you’re saying. Here’s my reply…
When you need to say something now.
- I’m sorry to interrupt, but you’ve misunderstood our point.-
- Excuse me, but that’s not quite correct.-
- Sorry, I just have to disagree with your point.-
- Let me just respond to that, please.-
- Forgive me for interrupting, but I must respond to that.-
- Hold on a moment, that’s not correct.-
- If you would allow me to add a comment here…-
- If you don’t mind, I’d like to take issue with what you just said.
When you haven’t replied yet.
- The other side will have to explain why…. otherwise we win that point.-
- We said that…but the other side has not replied to our point.-
- I’d like to focus on two points that the other side has failed to address.-
- There are two points that we have succeeded in establishing…
- I want to call your attention to an important point that our opponents have not addressed yet.-
- I’d like to point out that there are two issues our opponents have failed to dispute, namely…
- I must stress again that our point has not been refuted by the other side.
When you give your rebuttal.
- The first point I would like to raise is this…
- Our position is the following…
- Here’s the main point I want to raise…
- I’d like to deal with two points here. The first is…
- Our opponents have still not addressed the question we raised a moment ago…
- The other side has failed to answer our point about…
- Notice that the affirmative side has not addressed our main point.-
- Let me just restate my position.-
- Just to be clear, here is what I mean…
When you give concluding statements.
- To sum up, here are the main points our opponents have not addressed…
- We pointed out that…
- Our opponents have claimed that…
- To recap the main points…
- Let’s sum up where we stand in this debate.
- Let me summarize our position in this debate.
- In summary, we want to point out that…
- Let’s see which arguments are still standing.-
- Let’s take stock of where we are in this debate.
