AUTHORSHIPS AND SPONSORSHIPS
Overview
Sponsorships should set up the round. Most judges have not researched the bill or even read it. So, a sponsorship speaker has two main duties:
explain the issue in the status quo, and WHY it is important
how this bill solves/changes the status quo, and WHY that works.
Check out this video by Breck DuPaul on Early Round Speeches.
Authorship v. Sponsorship
TLDR: An authorship is given by the person the wrote the bill and a sponsorship is given by anybody that goes first affirmative (but often times people from the same school get priority)
At the beginning of every round, one of two speeches is required. The first is an authorship. This is only if you are the person who wrote the legislation. Depending on the tournament, they may also allow students from the same school as the author to also give this speech if they want.
The second, far more common speech, is the sponsorship speech. Every bill will need either a sponsorship or an authorship speech, and since competitors don’t have the option to give an authorship speech after the legislation has been decided, sponsorships are the main speech type critical to the beginning of a debate.
It’s also important to note that sponsorships and authorships are fundamentally similar, and anything mentioned in this resource also applies to writing authorship speeches. The only key differences would be the additional restrictions on who can give an authorship, along with potential local-circuit rules and regulations. For example, the Illinois Congressional Debate Association (ICDA) allows for a four-minute authorship speech but only a three-minute sponsorship speech. Make sure to check the rules of your local circuit before giving an authorship speech to make sure you follow appropriate procedure.
If you want a shorter version of the Breck's first lecture, check out the video directly above this!
Finally, there are both benefits and drawbacks to giving an authorship speech instead of a sponsorship. On the bright side, you usually get extra time to prepare your speech. The Presiding Officer (PO) will always call for authorship speeches before allowing anyone else to speak, meaning that you know exactly when you are going to speak, allowing for more specificity in how you structure your speech. On the other hand, judges often hold these speeches to higher standards, since the extra time given to prepare should mean that you are able to deliver your speech better. Sponsorship speeches are not privy to these additionalities, meaning that you are at the luck of the PO.
Now, for the rest of this article will refer to both authorship and sponsorship speeches as just sponsorships. With all that being said, sponsorships are fundamentally different from any other speech in the round. Knowing these differences and the nuances of them can really set you apart from your competitors.
Structure
TLDR: Introduction → what is going on in the status quo → how this bill solves it (explain the sections of the bill) → conclusion
Sponsorships, just like any other speech, have a commonly agreed upon structure used in tournaments from national circuit to local circuit. SImply, that is an introduction, status quo, solvency (how the bill solves the status quo), and outro.
The goal of a sponsor is to introduce the legislation and set up context that the rest of the round can use to further debate, which lasts the entirety of the bill.
But beyond the simple intro-status quo-solvency-outro structure, there is also a structure to each point. Other articles on this platform have referenced the structure as CWI and CWDI. These are great structures, but they imply or leave out crucial information necessary for a sponsorship speech. For that reason, good sponsorships should use a more advanced and complex version of this structure to better elaborate on their points.
STRUCTURE #1
AGD and Intro
Problem in Status Quo
Warrant
Data
Impact
Rhetorical Transition
Solvency
Warrant
Data
Outro with Tieback
This is a long structure, and some of the terms may be relatively new, so we’ll break down each one of them in the upcoming sections.
PLEASE NOTE THIS IS A VERY STOCK STRUCTURE AND THE CWDI FRAMEWORK SHOULD BE USED AS A CHECKLIST, NOT A RIGID STRUCTURE.
ALSO, BRECK BREAKS THIS DOWN IN DETAIL IN HIS LECTURE AND MORE ADVANCED STRUCTURES, LINKED ABOVE, SO CHECK THAT OUT!
Authorships.pptxCheck out this slideshow on Authorships and Sponsorships by former USA Debate member, Sungjoo Yoon.
Introduction
The introduction is the beginning of your speech. It’s what gets the attention of your audience and judges (this is why many people refer to this as an attention-getting-device, or AGD). It’s what sets up your thesis or points. It’s what relates your peers to your legislation. In a sponsorship more than any other speech, it’s critical that you have a good introduction.
There are really three ways to go about this. The first is to give a brief history of what’s happened in the past in regards to the problem you seek to solve. Maybe mention a piece of legislation that worked at addressing this problem, and how your legislation will help further that goal. For bills on foreign affairs, mention the history of that nation and any troubles that they’ve had. Make sure to relate those events to current issues addressed in your bill. Below is an example of one of these historic introductions written for a bill regarding Taiwan.
In 1949, when Communist leader Mao Zedong founded the People’s Republic of China, a shadow fell on the world. As families starved and wars killed millions, a brutal, merciless authoritarian regime was born. Yet even today, as Uyghur Muslims are slaughtered, the people of Hong Kong are beaten in the street, and Taiwan is surrounded by the Chinese navy, the US has stayed silent.
The second way to write your attention-getter is to make the issue urgent and powerful, relating it to American values rather than the bill. The following attention getter is an adaptation of Jimmy Baek’s carbon tax sponsorship speech during the final round of Harvard’s annual tournament in 2022.
From the civic responsibility of our constituents to vote, to our responsibilities as Representatives on this floor, American democracy has always been about the responsibility we hold to each other. And yet, whenever our constituents home’s are swept away in a hurricane, that very pillar seems to crumble.
The last type of intro for sponsorship speeches is comedic. The point is to make a personal, often informal connection with the audience or judges. If done well, it will make you stand out well above the rest of the chamber in terms of uniqueness and interest. In certain cases, it may not be a wise choice to use these introductions. This is because many bills, such as many regarding North Korea, are heavily interconnected with lives at stake, and jokes can be seen as laughing at lives lost. With that caveat made, the following intro is adapted from Sasha DiMare’s carbon tax speech during the final round of Harvard 2022. Note that this was not a sponsorship speech, but it has many of the same ideas of it and would work very well in that situation.
In chemistry, I learned that carbon is the backbone of life. But even as someone who has failed a few tests, and still can’t seem to take notes on chemistry in my love life, I can still tell that the chemistry behind this bill is an equation for success.
Sometimes, these intros involve other speakers within the round, making fun of a part of them jokingly. For example, say that you took one speaker out to lunch so that he would pay for dinner, or something along those lines. It’s never a bad idea to include other speakers into your intro, but make sure you place them correctly and don’t say anything bad about them whenever possible.
There are also other types of introductions that are not mentioned above. AGDs like a crazy statistic or sentimental story are both great ways to introduce your speech, although they are not recommended for a sponsorship speech. Now, it’s important that your intro matches your speaking style, so don’t feel like you can’t go for some amazing intro you just thought of just because it doesn’t match one of the three categories listed above. The only thing really to avoid is “stock” intros, or intros that could be used on any bill. You want a sponsorship intro to be unique to the bill and something that will make people interested.
After the attention-getter there needs to be a quick connection to your contention. As quickly as possible, go from the general idea of the attention-getter (for the discussed attention-getters, these would be silence, responsibility, or chemistry) to the thesis or first contention of your speech. After this, get right into your claim.
Claim
This seems like an easy thing to do, but there’s one crucial difference between sponsorship claims and any other claim many people often forget about. This is your bill. You either wrote it or are introducing it, and thus you need to talk about it as if you are one of the main people who put it together.
For example, “First, pass my bill to pull low income americans out of poverty."
There’s also one other part of this claim that is important to know. It’s important for every speech, and sponsors are definitely not excluded. That is the emphasis of your claim, or more specifically, the first word of your claim. The goal is to make it so that judges know exactly where you are in your speech just by your tonal variation, not even listening to the words out of your mouth. If you had a very aggressive introduction, maybe calm down a little on the claim, aiming for more of an explanatory tone than a powerful one. On the other hand, if you went for a sentimental or comedic introduction, maybe be more powerful with your claim.
Status Quo
The status quo is the arguably the most important part of a sponsorship speech, and definitely the most unique compared to other speeches. As the sponsor, you need to set up the debate for everyone that comes after you. Show that there is a problem, and that it requires solving.
Even a basic-level understanding of a topic may be required to both be given and backed up with sources. For a carbon tax speech, don’t just say that carbon emissions are increasing, prove that they are causing climate change. Remember that most judges haven’t done research on the legislation themselves, so you are the first person to tell them about it.
The status quo should be one of, if not the longest part of a sponsorship speech. By fully contextualizing the current situation, you make it that much more difficult for negation speakers to refute your point.. The more everyone understands about the current situation and problem, the better.
Warrant & Data
The warrant and data for your sponsorship should be approximately the same as any other speech. They’re just as necessary and important to your speech as they would be otherwise. For warrants, make sure they are clear and understandable. For evidence or data, try and provide numbers wherever possible.
While effective warranting and data are extremely important to a speech, many other parts of a sponsorship are more important, and thus should be prioritized over these two areas. While you can definitely cut some time with the lack of refutations, the change to two points, along with extended status quo blocks and more in-depth effects means that these areas are some of the first to be shortened.
Although a more advanced tactic, it is also possible to skip the data entirely if your warrant is made inherently obvious through your status quo. For example, if you state that small businesses are experiencing a worker shortage, and that the bill gives money for small businesses to hire more employees, then your evidence was essentially in the status quo section. All you need to do is say that small businesses can hire employees and reduce their worker shortage.
Again, I mention this as an advanced tactic because it is often difficult to pull off. Congress is all about providing as much evidence as you can. If there’s an expert giving the same warrant as you, the expert is probably a better source than some high schooler. If you want to attempt this method, I’d recommend that you provide a more nuanced status quo with more than one source. For example, prove that there’s a worker shortage, and prove that it’s caused by a thing that the bill alleviates or gets rid of entirely.
Impact
Impacts are an important part of any sponsorship speech. Nobody knows why passing your bill matters, so you need to explain what it means for Americans. I like to think about these impacts split into two parts. One logical, and one emotional.
The logical part is the same as any other impact. If you prove that climate change will be mitigated, give a card about saving lives. The point is to bring every piece of evidence down to a level that affects an actual person, and should be used for every impact in a sponsorship speech. This logical part should be backed up by credible evidence, just like any other part of your speech.
The second part of a sponsor's impact is to humanize it emotionally. If your impact is that people die, explain what that means for the families of those Americans who no longer have a father or mother in their life, who have to live through the death of a close relative.
If your impact is instead about economic consequences, talk about what that means for low-income families who might go to bed hungry because there's not enough money to go around.
This humanization of your impacts doesn’t need, and probably shouldn’t have evidence. You don’t need a study by Harvard to prove that the death of a loved one is difficult.
Solvency
Solvency is about how the bill solves the status quo’s problem. In the structure outlined above, we address the problem in the status quo, and elaborate on how it’s really bad for our constituents. However, now, you have to explain what this bill does to resolve that issue and how it makes our citizen’s lives better.
There are two main parts when creating an effective solvency section. The first is mentioning the exact section of the bill, and the second is elaborating as to how this bill betters the SQUO. Here’s more in-depth information regarding these processes.
First, the part mentioning the section of the bill. This is straightforward, but extremely important in a sponsorship. While you can usually get away saying that the bill does something, remember that the sponsor is introducing the bill, so they need to explain the specifics of it. Most times, you may even need to explain multiple different things about the bill if it’s more nuanced. For example, say that the bill levies a tax and that it puts revenue towards a program. Oftentimes, these may fall into the same section of the bill (usually Section 1), so it’s important to be as specific as possible. Instead of saying, “the bill does this,” or even “Section one does this,” say “Section 1A does this.” Being more specific allows for judges to more easily follow your speech and best introduce legislation that hasn’t yet been talked about.
The second part is what that section actually does. For sponsorships, try and say exactly what it does. Word for word what’s in that section. If it levies a tax, say the exact percentage or dollar amount for the tax. While there are some exceptions in cases where the wording is excessively long and unnecessary (for example, resolutions), you should always try and say exactly what the bill does in the section you are talking about.
After you connect both pieces you’re left with one more task. Why does “Section 1A which levies a higher corporate tax of up to 30 percent” solve the issue in the status quo, and what does it do for our constituents. To answer these questions efficiently and in the most optimal format possible, use WDI(Warrant, Data, Impact). You already know WDI (if you read the information above :\), but to reiterate: W - you first warrant the bill’s section by creating a claim for it, D - then use evidence to support it, I - use logic to interpret the data and then tell the listeners how this section will impact our constituents for the better.
Rhetorical Devices
Rhetoric is something that can really help your speech stand out. If possible, tie it back to your introduction. For example, if your intro mentioned a book or author, talk about turning the page to a new chapter. If you can’t make any reasonable connections to your intro, repeating the same word in different ways is a popular congress trick that works relatively well.
These hasty decisions turn our judiciary into the Joker: dealing out wildcard decisions.
When rioters were 6 feet from our doors, their trust in us was 6 feet under.
The goal with any rhetoric line is to come off as powerful and in control. Like there is something that needs to be done. Every speech should have rhetoric lines, but they’re often associated as an ending to refutations, meaning that they can be difficult to place in a sponsorship speech.
Probably the best place would be in-between your two contentions. This can be a little tricky because an emotional impact doesn’t make for an easy transition to powerful rhetoric. Another good place is between the status quo block and effect. This is great because it means you can contextualize a bad situation without using evidence, yet still coming off with just as much power.
For example, if you want to talk about a lack of regulation, mention the regulatory measures in place around the world, and then call the place without such measures “the wild west.” Sure, you could have said that the US (or whatever other country you’re talking about in regards to foreign policy) doesn’t have any regulations in that industry. But for whatever reason, calling it “the wild west” makes people understand you that much better, especially after giving the regulatory context in other countries that allow competitors and judges to understand the exact area you’re referring to.
Also note that rhetoric is used to elevate your speech to become even better. If you can’t think of anything that works well or can’t find a good place, it’s not a requirement that is necessary in any speech. They’re helpful and recommended, but you don’t need to have them in every sponsorship.
Check out this slideshow on rhetoric by Equality in Forensics Executive Director Nicholas Ostheimer.
Read more about rhetoric on our full resource page.
We also have an intermediate page on rhetorical narrative.