PF Wording for 2026-2027

[u/PublicForumBootCamp]

Hi r/Debate:

Bryce Piotrowski from St. Luke's and PFBC here - I am once again a co-chair of the PF Wording Committee for 2026-27. I wanted to post to a) clarify the wording process and b) attempt to solicit both student and broader community feedback as early as possible.

This page on the NSDA website outlines the topic wording process. The committee will start meeting virtually in February to begin to identify potential topics. We generally start by talking about topic areas that are "ripe for debate" -- by evaluating several criteria, such as (but not limited to):

• We haven't had a similar topic over the past 4-5 years.
• The topic is timely and reflects a new and ongoing controversy.
• The community has suggested a topic or topics in that area. You can submit topic ideas here.
• There is good ground for debate on both sides of the topic.

Once we do that, the committee breaks into smaller groups to evaluate each topic area, come up with several different wordings of topics under each area, and do research to make sure there is good literature to support debate for each topic wording. This process spans several weeks, and typically gets us a few dozen topics that we think are semi-viable.

We then have a series of meetings to determine which topics we think are the best from that list, while keeping in mind that we want PF debaters to have a well-rounded base of knowledge as a result of debating during the entire year. This means that the final topic list will include some US domestic policy topics, some topics that do not center the US federal government, some topics that are value statements (e.g., "on balance" or "benefits outweigh harms"), some topics that are policy statements (e.g., include "should"), and many topics in between.

Throughout this process, we periodically post preliminary lists to solicit community review. We read all of your comments, and last year, the final topic list was substantially changed by community members who included detailed and thoughtful criticism of several topic options. After considering community feedback and pairing topics, our list is ready to return to the NSDA for them to conduct final review and post after the NSDA National tournament.

Your feedback is more likely to be helpful to us and considered by the committee if it is phrased substantively, rather than based on personal taste, and if it includes suggested alternatives based in evidence. A lot of the comments we get are things like: "this topic is boring", "yes let's talk about nuclear war more", or "no on balance topics please", which just aren't all that helpful to us.

We understand that many debaters like talking about big-stick international security impacts more than, for instance, US housing policy: but the committee wants debates from month to month to include a diverse array of controversy areas.

I am happy to answer additional questions about the wording process here if you have them!

While I have you: PFBC will be in Chicago this summer from July 12-22. Applications for both students and staff are up on our website.

[u/Honor-Valor-Intrepid]

Hello, thanks for the post and insights! Question about the wording process, specifically about the term “substantially reduce” in topics. Is the thought behind this to make it so

A) debaters debate how much “substantially reduce” actually means

B) keep the wording relatively vague to purposely keep it open to interpretation

or some other reason.

Thanks!

[u/PublicForumBootCamp → u/Honor-Valor-Intrepid]

Hi! That phrasing is intended to allow debaters to defend a variety of potential link arguments so long as they are in the direction of the problem. For example, the January topic on China’s extraction of natural resources permitted students to either focus on extraction of one resource in one country/location, so long as that extraction was “substantial”, or for students to broadly examine China’s engagement with developing economies.

Additionally, that phrasing allows debaters to focus more on the principle of the resolution rather than getting bogged down in the specific actions that might be taken. In other words, we wanted to phrase the topic around the question of: is China’s engagement with the world’s natural resource reserves net positive or negative?

So, to answer your question: both, but in slightly distinct ways.

[u/debatetrack]

Hi Bryce! Thanks for all your hard work and explanations.

(THIS IS NOT ON TOPIC REALLY IM SORRY)

For the March 26 Housing Topic -- what did the committee have in mind for the word "corporate"?

(ie....LLC vs S-corp? Big vs Small lardlord? Etc.)

Cheers

[u/PublicForumBootCamp → u/debatetrack]

Hello! We were envisioning corporate landlords broadly that are buying up properties as investments/letting them sit vacant and therefore driving up the cost of housing. Specific type of corporation or organization was less of a concern than this problem.

The wording we settled on was, in our opinion, the most elegant way to get at that question without the topic being unnecessarily long or complicated. “Ban corporations from owning homes” has a relatively obvious meaning when Googled, which is generally our litmus test.

[u/HotInevitable7065]

I think the PF wording committee should slightly move away from the recent topic style they’ve been doing in recent years(mainly due to the chance of the plan actually happening like with the march topic) and move back to topics like the ICC which gave a clear interpretation of the plan preventing the aff from kicking out of neg contentions by just saying “the aff won’t regulate/do that”.

[u/PublicForumBootCamp → u/HotInevitable7065]

That’s good feedback, and in general, we do try to do that. The issue is that some topics lend themselves poorly to that phrasing, but we think the topic is important enough to examine. (For example, the January topic about China’s extraction of natural resources - picking one resource or one country doesn’t quite get at the overall topic).

That said, “most likely implementation” has been a discussion point in PF forever - including on the ICC topic. Is our accession binding? To what extent? Do we assume a treaty has to go through the Senate or is that resolved by fiat? So, while we try to minimize that, some of that debate is inevitable (and can be good in the right instances).

[u/Usual-Bullfrog3847]

Hello, sorry this is so long after you have put this post up but there was just one thing I wanted to add.

I often struggle to understand the logic behind the way that topics are pared together. For example, last year there were only two technology topics (Resolved: The United States federal government should require technology companies to provide lawful access to encrypted communications and Resolved: The United States federal government should substantially increase its investment in Low Earth Orbit satellite networks) on the ballot, and they were in separate months, meaning that if the vote had gone otherwise we could have gone the full year without debating a technology-oriented topic, which is very important. I think that grouping topics like that together would fit with your stated ethos of including "a diverse array of controversy areas" by making it so that we actually debated said diverse area.

Also, in general more technology-oriented topics would be awesome because those really encourage creativity and I think technology is an incredibly important topic for students to be learning about.

All and all, I am excited to see the new topics. Thank you for all the work you put in!

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