Introduction to Parliamentary Debate Introduction to Parliamentary Debate From a Japanese Perspective Parlamentary debate is the most popular style of debate in the world. It emphasizes the clear, natural, logical and expressive presentation of ideas. ESS's are student clubs that participate in a number of English-language actitivies, including parliamentary debate, academic debate, speech, discussion and drama.
Academic debate is the most popular style of debate in Japan and the United States.
In parliamentary, each debate round has a different topic, and debaters usually have little time to prepare. Debaters usually must argue from intuition and general knowledge, not from evidence. In academic debate, however, debaters have one topic for an entire year. Therefore, they research the topic extensively, and wheel around boxes of evidence for use in their rounds. Parliamentary debate has few rules and uses little jargon.