Event Structure
The times and speech order are generally as follows:
| Speech | Time (high school) | Time (college) |
| First Affirmative Constructive (1AC) | 8 minutes | 9 minutes |
| Cross-examination of First Affirmative by Second Negative | 3 minutes | 3 minutes |
| First Negative Constructive (1NC) | 8 minutes | 9 minutes |
| Cross-examination of First Negative by First Affirmative | 3 minutes | 3 minutes |
| Second Affirmative Constructive (2AC) | 8 minutes | 9 minutes |
| Cross-examination of Second Affirmative by First Negative | 3 minutes | 3 minutes |
| Second Negative Constructive (2NC) | 8 minutes | 9 minutes |
| Cross-examination of Second Negative by Second Affirmative | 3 minutes | 3 minutes |
| First Negative Rebuttal (1NR) | 5 minutes | 6 minutes |
| First Affirmative Rebuttal (1AR) | 5 minutes | 6 minutes |
| Second Negative Rebuttal (2NR) | 5 minutes | 6 minutes |
| Second Affirmative Rebuttal (2AR) | 5 minutes | 6 minutes |
In addition to speeches, policy debates may allow for a certain amount of preparation time, or "prep time", during a debate round. NFL rules call for 5 minutes of total prep time that can be used, although in practice high school debate tournaments usually give 8 minutes of prep time. College debates typically have 10 minutes of preparation time. The preparation time is used at each team's preference; they can use different amounts of preparation time before any of their speeches, or even none at all. Prep time can be allocated strategically to intimidate or inconvenience the other team: for instance, normally a 1AR requires substantial prep time, so a well-executed "stand up 1AR", delivered after no prep time intimidates the negative team and takes away from time that the 2NR may have used to prepare the parts of his/her speech which do not rely on what the 1AR says.
Read more about this topic: Policy Debate
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