Welcome to the LISW Debating web site!

First of all, welcome! We all hope you enjoy your time debating at LISW. This website contains (and has links to) some resources we have found useful, and think you will find useful as well.

-The Debating Club, LISW

Resource List

We maintain an archive of notes handed out during debating sessions. Click here to access an index of the archive.

We also maintain a calendar of all Debating and MUN events happening in the near future. Click here to access the calendar.

  1. Simon Quinn - Debating in the World Schools Style - This is the main book we use for school sessions, as well as all the major tournaments. This is divided into three sections: Beginner, Intermediate, and Advanced. We urge all members to at least read the Beginner sections of the book. Additional resources by the author can also be found here.

  2. Debating Handbook - This was a handout a coach gave some time ago. It contains basic information about the WSDC style, as well as principled arguments. Useful if you’re in a hurry, or need a quick briefing. Please go through this as well if you’re a more experienced debater.

  3. University of Vermont - Debate Central - This site has many useful resources for debating, including countless lectures and debates. If you’re lucky, you may find a recorded debate of your topic over here. The videos have also been (partially) archived at archive.org.

  4. Monash Association of Debaters - Training Handbooks - Once you have progressed past basic debating, you may find this collection of books to be useful, as they contain a lot of advanced debating techniques and theory that might give you a competitive edge.

  5. Michael J. Sandel - Justice: What’s the Right Thing to Do? - This book will help you gain some added knowledge in principled debating, while having an interesting narrative style to it. Also available in video form.

We may add more resources later on, so make sure to check back here.

Other Info

By the way, Sri Lanka is hosting the World School’s Debating Championship 2019. Be sure to check them out!

Also, in case you are into MUN as well, check out Royal College’s Model United Nations Conference (RCMUN) happening in September 2019 this year.

At the moment, this site is maintained by Sanuja Rajasinghe.