The team that won the final round will be the winner of this tournament. The one that lost will be 2nd
place. The two teams that lost in the semifinals will share the 3rd place prize. There will be no 3rd place play-off.

1.2.2 Prohibition of forfeiting the finals
Forfeiting the finals intentionally is prohibited. After the announcement of the eight qualified teams, if,
exceptionally for any reason, a team is unable to partake in its assigned round, that team will be considered forfeited and may not continue. In such case, the match assignment will not be changed, and no additional team will be qualified to take the absent team’s place. The assigned opposing team will just be declared the winner and the tournament procedure will proceed without any other change.
*To watch each round in the finals is a very beneficial chance to study debate. Thus, abandoning the finals is not allowed even if the same school teams are matched, unless something unexpected like sickness made it impossible for a team to participate in the debate.

1.3 Awards
In this tournament, the 1st prize, 2nd prize, and 3rd prizes (two teams) are awarded to the top teams
decided by the above tournament procedures. Beside team awards, Best Debater awards and others are given to excellent individuals.

1.3.1 Best Debaters
As for Individual awards, several ‘Best Debater award’ will be presented. In every preliminary and the final rounds, each judge must (independently, without discussing with other judges) vote for one debater as the candidate of the best debater award in that specific round. Judges may chose
from either the winning or losing team. Judges should pick a debater that has contributed most to her/his team, not the lone player type who just shows off without contributing to the team. The individual awards are awarded to the debaters which belong to the 8 finalist teams and with the
highest number of accumulated votes from the judges. All votes from the preliminaries to the Final round are counted.

1.3.2 Special prizes
Judging Committee and the Tournament Organizer may decide to offer special prizes to teams/individuals. Some special prizes may be awarded regardless of the results of the tournament. In such case, reasons for the special prize will be announced.

1.4 Team and its Members
The unit of competition of this tournament’s preliminary and the final rounds should be a team which
consists of the students who belong to the same high school or high technical college in Japan, ranging from 1st to 3rd graders. Only one team is allowed to participate from a school. Plural team entry from one school will be allowed only exceptionally (on conditions that the total team number may be odd), and will be decided by the HEnDA committee.

1.4.1 Team member lineup and restrictions
A team should consist of 4 or 5 enrolled members. A team with only 3 members is allowed exceptionally, only when a school has special reasons and reported to the tournament organizer before the tournament. Each team member should meet the condition below.
- English native speakers are not allowed to participate in this tournament.
- To whom one or more of the following conditions apply, only one member is allowed to participate in each team.
(1) A student with more than 12 months experience staying in a country where the first language is English. (If the stay is before entering primary school, the stay need not be counted)
(2) A student from countries where English is not the mother language, but is one of the official languages. (If the student left the country before entering primary school, the stay need not be counted)
(3) A student who mainly uses English at home.
*For example, exchange students would be allowed to participate in the debate if he/she doesn’t come from an English speaking country.

1.4.2 Team members of each round and restrictions
4 members out of the enrolled members should attend each round. Exceptionally, if you enrolled only 3
members, then the number of members in each round will be 3. The teams are allowed to change its members in each round. But members cannot switch to the substitute member after the round has started.

1.4.3 The prohibition of changing members or teams
Basically, each team is not allowed to change its members after the enrollment of the preliminary round have been closed. Even if a school has more than one team, there should be no change in the membership among the teams.
*After the tournament starts, even between the teams that are from the same school, teams cannot add the members of the already forfeited teams.

1.4.4 Penalty against forged enrollment
If any violation of the rules 1.4.1 ~ 1.4.3 were found during the tournament, and the violation was judged
as malignant, such as intentional forgery or so, all matches that the team partook will be considered as being defeated, and further participation to the rounds will not be permitted and lose the chance to be qualified to the finals. If violations were found after the tournament, any awards given will be cancelled, thus must be returned.

2. Procedure of the Rounds
In each round in the preliminaries and the finals, each team should debate on the tournament debate topic, using the following debate format.
*Each team must refer to the document that defines this year’s debate topic.

2.1 Speeches
Each round should have the following twelve speeches, using the following debate format. Each team
member must follow the speech role defined in the below guidance, and should try to clash her/his arguments with the opponent’s arguments, by making speeches that are easy to follow.

* The guidance below may not cover all aspects of debate. The debaters should try to make clear, convincing, and creative arguments that are adequate for a high school student.

2.1.1 Affirmative Constructive Speech (1)
In the Affirmative Constructive Speech, the Affirmative team should clearly state their basic standpoints
on why the debate topic should be affirmed; clearly defining the topic by showing a plan, and showing
evidence to prove the Advantages of the plan.

2.1.1.1 Affirmative Plan
A “Plan” is what the Affirmative side proposes as their definition of the topic and their concrete policy.
The Affirmative team must propose a Plan in the Affirmative Constructive speech. To add or change the plan after the Constructive speech is forbidden. If in any case, the Affirmative side did not propose any plans in the Affirmative Constructive speech, the judges will assume that the Affirmative side is supporting a vague standpoint with a minimum Plan action related to the tournament topic.
* By clearly explaining the Plan, it will help the judges and the Negative team clearly understand the standpoints of the Affirmative team. This will make the Affirmative side easier to prove why the Advantages will be gained. Moreover, this can be applied also to the refutations of Disadvantages presented by the opponents.

2.1.1.2 Prohibition of presenting Plans that are irrelevant to the topic
The Affirmative side is not allowed to propose Plans that are irrelevant to the tournament topic.
Apparently irrelevant plans will be ignored by the judges, and so will be the Advantages that stem from them. * Each team must refer to the document that defines this year’s debate topic.

2.1.1.3 Limits of the number of Advantages. Proving an Advantage
The number of the Advantages that can be presented is, at the most two. To prove that the Plan has a certain Advantage, the following three sub points should be provided with evidence.
A) “Present situation”:Why the present situation, without the plan, is undesirable.
B) “Effect”:Why the Advantage will be gained by the effect of the plan.
C) “Importance”: How much objective value this Advantage will bring.
If two independent issues are within the seemingly one Advantage, the issues should be divided and
treated individually as separate Advantages. Even if a team presents seemingly only two Advantages in their Constructive speech, but actually there are more than two implicit Advantages, the judges will ignore all except the two main Advantages mentioned in the Constructive speech.
* This limit aims to help debaters omit trivial issues, and focus their debate on the most probable issues. Alternative English expressions for the analysis of the A) “Present situation” are “inherency” or “necessity”. For B) “Effect”, expressions such as “solvency” or causal “process” are also used. For “Importance”, expressions such as “significance” or “impact” are also used. In any case, to prove all three sub points are strongly recommended.

2.1.2. Negative Constructive Speech (3)
In the Negative Constructive Speech, the Negative team’s main task is to clarify their basic standpoints
on why the debate topic should be negated; clearly proving the Disadvantages of the Affirmative plan.

2.1.2.1 Limits of the number of Disadvantages. Proving a Disadvantage
The number of the Disadvantages that can be presented is, at the most two.
To prove that the Affirmative Plan has a certain Disadvantage, the following three sub points should be
provided with evidence.
A) “Present situation”:Why the present situation, without the plan, is desirable.
B) “Effect”:Why the Disadvantage will be caused by the effect of the plan.
C) “Importance”: How much objective (negative) value this Disadvantage has.
If two independent issues are within the seemingly one Disadvantage, the issues should be divided and
treated individually as separate Disadvantages. Even if a team presents seemingly only two Disadvantages in their Constructive speech, but actually there are more than two implicit Disadvantages, the judges will ignore all except the two main Disadvantages mentioned in the Constructive speech.
* This limit aims to help debaters omit trivial issues, and focus their debate on the most probable issues. Alternative English expression for the analysis of the A) “Present situation” is “uniqueness”. For B) “Effect”, expressions such as “link” or causal “process” are also used. For “Importance”, expressions such as “significance” or “impact” are also used. In any case, to prove all three sub points are strongly recommended.

2.1.2.2 Division of labor between the Negative Constructive and the Negative Attack speeches.
In the Negative Constructive speech, the Negative side should spend their time proving the
Disadvantages which will come from the Affirmative plan. Only if the Negative side has so much extra time in their Constructive speech, they may attack the defects of the Affirmative proofs of Advantages.
*Arguments such as, ‘The Plan will not meet the Advantage” or “The Plan is not necessary,” are basically issues that the Negative Attack speaker should raise. The Constructive Speech is the only chance the team can add a Disadvantage. Strategically it is better to present the Disadvantages properly, and leave the attacks to the Attack speaker.

2.1.3 Negative Attack (5)
The role of the Negative Attack speech is to attack the fallacies in the Affirmative team’s proofs of the
Advantages. For example,
(1) Even without the plan, the claimed Advantage can be gained, so the Plan is not necessary. (Attack to the analysis of the present situation)
(2) The Advantage can not be expected to be caused by the Plan’s effect. The Plan will not solve the present problem. (“No effect”: attack to the effect of the plan)
(3) The Advantage doesn’t have any objective value. (“Not important”: Attack to the importance)
The Negative side is not allowed to introduce new Disadvantages in this speech. If a new Disadvantage
(or Disadvantage disguised as attacks) was introduced in the Attack speech, Judges should ignore the newly added Disadvantage.
*In some cases it is difficult to draw a clear line between “attacks” and “Disadvantages”. For example, arguments like “It costs a lot to carry out their plan” are in fact Disadvantages, so it shouldn’t be mentioned in the Attack speech. However, “The Plan cannot solve the problem effectively, because the Government is technically unable to spend the cost that much” may be a valid attack on the Advantage. Arguments to counter a specific Affirmative Advantage mentioning “Things mentioned will rather be worse” (Some time called “Case Flip” arguments, or just “Flip” arguments) should be presented in the Constructive Speech. However, to attack and turn only the “importance” of the Affirmative Advantage by arguments showing that “the value mentioned is not good, rather it is bad” is a valid attack (called “Value Turn”).

2.1.4 Affirmative Attack (7)
The role of the Affirmative Attack speech is to attack the fallacies in the Negative team’s proofs of the
Disadvantages. For example,
(1) Even without the plan, the situation similar to the Disadvantage will happen, so the Disadvantage is not unique to the plan. (Attack to the analysis of the present situation)
(2) The Disadvantage can not be expected to be caused by the Plan’s effect. (“No effect” or “No link”. Attack to the effect of the plan)
(3) The Disadvantage does not have any objective negative value. (“Not important”: Attack to the
importance)
The Affirmative Attack speaker is not allowed to refute the attacks of Negative Attack speech. Such
rebuttal should be done in the Defense speech. If such hasty rebuttals are apparently seen, Judges should ignore them. Only when the Negative Constructive speech contains attacks to the Affirmative Advantages, the Affirmative Attack speaker is allowed to refute to the attacks in the Constructive speech. The Affirmative side is not allowed to introduce new Advantages in this speech. If a new Advantage (or Advantage disguised as attacks) was introduced in the Attack speech, Judges should ignore the newly added Advantage.
*Arguments to counter a specific Negative Disadvantage mentioning “Things mentioned will rather be better” (Some time called “link turn” arguments) should have been presented in the Constructive Speech. However, to attack and turn only the “importance” of the Negative Disadvantage by arguments showing that “the value mentioned is not bad, rather it is good” is a valid attack (called “Value Turn”).

2.1.5 Affirmative Defense (9)
The role of the Affirmative Defense is to defend (counter-refute) against the Negative Attack’s refutations, and at the same time, re-prove (“reconstruct”) the Affirmative Advantages that they will surely be gained from the Plan proposed in the Constructive Speech. The Defense speech should concentrate on being defensive: Basically the Defense should only nullify the Negative Attacks provided against the Advantages in the Affirmative Constructive speech. However, needless to say, if the opponent did not attack the Advantages, the Affirmative side may explain and emphasize their issues again. In this speech, it is not allowed to add new Plans or arguments equivalent to new Advantages. Also, it is not allowed to add new attacks against the Negative Constructive speech. Such new Plans, Advantages, or attacks should be ignored by the judges as “New Arguments”. Unless it is a new direct attack, the Defense speech can add some points concerning the comparison of already presented arguments.
*For example, it is permitted to refute like “The importance of Advantages presented in the Constructive speech, outweighs that of the Disadvantages presented in the Negative Constructive speech”, because this is not itself an attack to the importance of Disadvantages. Moreover, such defense provides an effective comparison. This is, so to say, an indirect attack, and will contribute to the final Summary speech, hence rather recommended.

2.1.6 Negative Defense (10)
The role of the Negative Defense is to defend (counter-refute) against the Affirmative Attack’s refutations, and at the same time, re-prove (“reconstruct”) the Negative Disadvantages that were presented in the Constructive Speech, that they will surely be caused by the Affirmative Plan.
The Defense speech should concentrate on being defensive: Basically the Defense should only nullify the Affirmative Attacks provided against the Disadvantages in the Negative Constructive speech. However, needless to say, if the opponent did not attack the Disadvantages, the Negative side may explain and emphasize their issues again. In this speech, it is not allowed to add arguments equivalent to new Disadvantages. Also, it is not allowed to add new attacks against the Negative Constructive speech. Moreover, it is not allowed to re-counter-refute against the Affirmative Defense speech which comes directly before this speech. Such new Disadvantages, attacks, or re-counter-refutations should be ignored by the judges as “New Arguments”. Unless it is a new direct attack, the Defense speech can add some points concerning the comparison of already presented arguments.
* Re-counter-refutations against the Affirmative Defense speech should be done in the Negative Summary speech if necessary. It is permitted, for example, to refute like “The importance of Disadvantages presented in the Constructive speech, outweighs that of the Advantages presented in the Affirmative Constructive speech”, because this is not itself an attack to the importance of Advantages. Moreover, such defense provides an effective comparison. This is, so to say, an indirect attack, and will contribute to the final Summary speech, hence rather recommended.

2.1.7 Affirmative Summary (11)
The role of the Affirmative Summary is to show that the Affirmative issues outweigh those of the
Negative, by summarizing the issues, with the refutations and re-refutations on them, considering both the 1) Negative Disadvantages and 2) Affirmative Advantages, and then 3) finally to compare both arguments in sum. Here again, it is not allowed to add new Plans or equivalents of Advantages. Also, it is not allowed to add new attacks against the Negative Constructive speech. Such new Plans, Advantages, or attacks should be ignored by the judges as “New Arguments”. However, it is permitted to show microscopic comparison of conflicting evidence (for example, re-counter-refutations against the Negative Defense), or macroscopic comparison concerning the whole debate.
*For example, it is very crucial and strongly recommended to show some value criteria to resolve that the Advantages outweigh the Disadvantages. It is not permitted to attack the Disadvantages that were not attacked in the Affirmative Attack. But macroscopic comparison is still allowed, such as “Even if we grant on their Disadvantage argument, it still would never outweigh our Advantages.”

2.1.8 Negative Summary (12)
The role of the Negative Summary is to show that the Negative issues outweigh those of the Affirmative,
by summarizing the issues, with the refutations and re-refutations on them, considering both the 1) Affirmative Advantages and 2) Negative Disadvantages, and then 3) finally to compare both arguments in sum. Here again, it is not allowed to add new equivalents of Disadvantages. Also, it is not allowed to add new attacks against the Affirmative Constructive speech. Such new Disadvantages or attacks should be ignored by the judges as “New Arguments”. However, it is permitted to show microscopic comparison of conflicting evidence (for example, re-counter-refutations against the Affirmative Defense), or macroscopic comparison concerning the whole debate.
*For example, it is very crucial and strongly recommended to show some value criteria to resolve that the Disadvantages outweigh the Advantages. It is not permitted to attack the Advantages that were not attacked in the Negative Attack. But macroscopic comparison is still allowed, such as “Even if we grant on their Advantage argument, it still would never outweigh our Disadvantages.”

2.1.9 Questions and Answers (2) (4) (6) (8)
In the Questions and Answers section, the questioner team has the right to proceed. Which means, the questioner can move on to the next question if the answerer team is taking too much time to answer, or the answers is not corresponding to the question. In these speeches, both sides are mutually expected to be sincere and speedy when answering, enabling as many questions as possible. In the Q & A sessions (6) and (8) after the Attack speeches, basically the questions should be against the opponent’s Attack speech. However if, for example, some contradiction between the Attack and the Constructive speeches are found, questions regarding the Constructive speech are allowed.

*In case the questioner has to interrupt the opponent’s answer and move on to the next question, it is required for the questioner to be polite and making proper excuses to the answerer. For example, if the opponent is still answering, the questioner should say politely, “Thank you for your answer, but I must
ask another question now.” Also, in case the answerer remains silent, the questioner should ask politely, “Excuse me, but I must move on to the next question.”

2.2 Management of each Round
Each debater must follow the cues of the time keeper, and make their speech for certain duration
designated in the table below. Each speech must be done by one debater alone, who takes the speech role. (In the table, A1 to A4 represent each debater of the Affirmative side, and N1 to N4, the Negative side.) Speech roles are different if a team has only three members, and not four. If the wrong person starts speaking, questioning or answering, the main judge must ask the speaker to stop and the speech must start over with the correct speaker. If a mistake is found, for example, after the next speech, the mistake will be regarded a violation and the team will lose the round with no points gained.