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The first half of the debate ends with the speeches of the Deputy Prime Minister and the Deputy Leader of Opposition. The second half of the debate begins with Member Speeches—Member of Government and Member of Opposition. Those speakers have dual responsibilities: First, they need to exhibit loyalty to their colleagues in the Upper House (first half of the debate); and second, they need to move the debate forward. Each debater in the first half of the debate, Government and Opposition, has advanced a limited number of arguments. Now the Member of Government and the Member of Opposition have the opportunity to expand the number and kind of arguments in the debate. If the debate were to continue for eight speeches with only the arguments introduced by the Upper House, the debate might be stale or boring by the end. In moving the debate forward by introducing new arguments, the Member of Government and Member of Opposition have the opportunity to breath new life into the debate.
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The Member of Government and the Member of Opposition have responsibilities for refutation as well as for argument construction. The first responsibility of the Member of Government and Member of Opposition speakers is to engage in refutation of the case presented by the opening teams on the opposing side. The process of refutation will be discussed more fully in Chapter 10. Both member speakers also are responsible for argument construction in ways that differ from those of the speakers on the opening teams. The Member of Government and Member of Opposition speakers are responsible to construct arguments in a way that moves the debate forward by extending arguments. The next sections of this chapter will discuss the concepts of refuting and extending arguments.
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思辨精英：英语辩论-构筑全球视角 [:1705132387]
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8.1 Refuting Arguments in Member Speeches
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As stated earlier, both the Member of Government and Member of Opposition are obliged, at least in a general manner, to continue the refutation of the arguments introduced by the Government and Opposition teams in the first half of the debate. The amount of time devoted to this obligation is minimal because the primary difference in the second half of the debate is to move the debate forward into a new series of arguments. Thus, the Member speakers should focus only on the most important points of refutation with regard to the first half of the debate, and should focus their refutation on those arguments introduced by the Deputy Prime Minister and by the Deputy Leader of Opposition. Although those responsibilities are important, the time devoted to them should be limited. Because the responsibility to extend the debate will require quite a bit of time, the Member of Government and Member of Opposition should try to limit their refutation to two or, at the most, three minutes. One way to limit the amount of time spent on refutation is to provide general refutation to the arguments from the Prime Minister and from the Leader of Opposition, and only specifically refute the extension offered by the Deputy Prime Minister and Deputy Leader of Opposition.
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Because so many arguments will have been presented before their speeches, the Member of Government and Member of the Opposition may be tempted to spend too much of their time on refutation. Those speakers need to remember that their most important responsibilities involve extending and moving the debate forward, so they should not invest too much time on refutation. Still, refutation of the general position of the opposing team is important. With the time considerations in mind, the Member of Government should limit his or her refutation to two or three minutes, refuting the arguments of the two opposition speeches that preceded his or her speech. The Member of Opposition should do the same with regard to refutation of the arguments of the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister, while remembering that the most important responsibility with regard to refutation is to refute the extension offered by the Member of Government. Refuting the extension presented by the Member of Government is most important because the Member speech is the last opportunity for the Opposition Team to join the issue offered by the Member of Government.
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In summary, refutation is an important responsibility of the member speeches, but care must be taken not to spend too much time on refutation. The most important task of the member speakers is to move the debate forward by creating extension arguments. The creation of arguments will be considered in the next section.
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思辨精英：英语辩论-构筑全球视角 [:1705132388]
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8.2 Extending Arguments
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Every debater needs the opportunity to develop and demonstrate his or her skill at constructing arguments as well as refuting them. If the members of the Second Government and Second Opposition teams were simply to follow the same arguments presented by the First Government and First Opposition Teams, they would not be in a position to develop or to use their own argument construction skills. Therefore, members of the Second Government and Second Opposition Teams develop what is called an extension argument.
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In addition to giving the members of the closing teams the opportunity to construct new arguments, the process of creating extension arguments has an advantage for both of the closing teams: The extension serves to develop a unique identity for the closing teams. The members of the First Government and First Opposition Teams create an identity that is in large part tied to the arguments they presented. Thus, if the Second Government and Second Opposition Team fail to present new arguments, they are contributing more to the First Government and First Opposition Teams than to themselves.
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Of course, the extension argument made by the closing teams should be consistent with and supportive of the arguments made by each opening team. By creating an extension, Member of Government speakers, for example, need to show that they support the First Government Team and, at the same time, have unique ideas of their own. Thus, the extension presented by the Member of Government needs to be an argument that supports the First Government position and, at the same time, establishes an identity for the Second Government Team that is unique and separate from that of the First Government Team.
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Consider an analogy to a parliamentary form of government where the majority is composed of two or more coalition partners. Members from each coalition party should be loyal to one another so as not to risk dissolving their coalition. At the same time, each of the coalition parties, even though they may support the same policies, may do so for different reasons. So, while members of one party might focus their support for a health care policy on financial considerations, the other party might focus theirs on preventive care. Arguments about financial considerations and those about preventive care can be seen as supportive of one another because they can both be used as arguments to support a change in health policy. But those two arguments give members of each of the different parties the opportunity to show that they have ideas that are unique and distinctive from their colleagues in the coalition.
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In the next section, this text will discuss qualities of a good extension, types of extensions, and will then conclude with some important considerations about extensions.
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思辨精英：英语辩论-构筑全球视角 [:1705132389]
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8.2.1 Qualities of a Good Extension
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A good extension is ordinarily a new argument; one not discussed by the First Government or by the First Opposition Teams. A new argument allows the closing team to demonstrate their skills at constructing arguments. A new argument shows that the closing teams are moving the debate forward rather than just depending on the arguments introduced in the first half of the debate. A new argument also allows the closing debater to better demonstrate the distinctiveness of his or her team’s position. For instance, if the First Government Team focused on the social concerns of their model, the Second Proposition might discuss economic concerns. Thus, the second team can distinguish itself from the first by focusing on the economic rather than the social concerns. They should do so in a way that maintains the consistency of the social and economic concerns. If the Member speaker cannot present a totally new argument, it should at least be a new interpretation of an old argument. For instance, an extension might employ a more in-depth analysis of the old argument, or an extensive case study in support of the old argument.
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A good extension must be consistent with and supportive of the positions of the opening team on your side. Most importantly, the extension should in no way contradict anything said by the opening team. Furthermore, if the debater is able to integrate the extension into lines of argument made by the First Government Team, the entire approach becomes more convincing because it begins to look like the arguments of both teams constitute a coherent whole.
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A good extension distinguishes the Second Government and Second Opposition Teams while maintaining their loyalty to the First Government and First Opposition Teams, respectively. A goal of the Member of Government or Member of the Opposition should be to show their teams as different from the other Government and Opposition Teams. To the extent the member speakers do that in their arguments, they will be seen as more persuasive because the combination of the extension arguments with those of the First Government arguments will create a larger and more coherent whole than either set of arguments without the other.
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So, a good extension is consistent with but distinct from the arguments offered in the first half of the debate. Of course, many different types of extension arguments exist. The next section of this chapter will discuss three of the more common types.
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思辨精英：英语辩论-构筑全球视角 [:1705132390]
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8.2.2 Types of Extensions
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Three types of extension arguments to be discussed in this chapter include: 1) an additional line of argument, 2) an argument containing more in-depth evidence, examples, and reasoning, and 3) a focused case study. As stated earlier, those are not the only kinds of extension arguments that are possible, but are among the more commonly used ones.
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As stated earlier, the most common and perhaps best kind of extension is an additional line of argument not mentioned in the first half of the debate. This is the most straightforward method of extending the argument of the First Government or First Opposition Team. For instance, shifting from an examination of consequences to an examination of principles and philosophical considerations can create an extension that differs in both method and content. If the first half has focused on consequences or pragmatics, changing the focus to principles or philosophy can be a good extension strategy. On the other hand, if the First Government Team focused on principles or philosophical considerations, an appropriate type of extension might involve an examination of consequences or pragmatics. If the first half has focused on principles or philosophy, this extension can change the direction of the debate. In both of these cases, the extension succeeds in changing the focus of the debate from what was introduced by the First Government Team without indicting that approach. An example of extension arguments that might be used in a motion about smoking are presented in the diagram below:
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