Different Debating Formats

I'm familiar with Speech debate, British/American Parliamentary, Policy debate, the WODC etc etc. Essentially all kinds of debate is well, argumentation. With Speech debate at school we were made to write speeches down for which whichever side we would represent, weeks before the actual debate. It was not extempoire, it was prepared. Allotted speaking times may differ, Certain debate forums are more casual than others. Americans call the prop/Proposition the affirmative. All I can say from my limited yet long-lived love affair with debate is that, if you can debate in one stlye/formast and read the rules of any other debate style/format it not difficult to adapt.

The "challenge the definition" rule in BP for example is something that proves to be, a little annoying if you bumble up and say change instead of challenge, um basically debate is debate while there are and may be minor technical differences not just in format/style but in how that style is played out in the forum that you choose to debate in, debate is simply remembering related facts/experiences to cite, speaking in a limited time, working with other team members and being convincing. Rebuttal, conclusions/closing, defining the debate motion and being civil yet coercive is all important for all kinds of debate. You can wiki different debate styles and then familiarize yourself with strict and loose rules. For example here's a wiki result for policy/Cross-X debate:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Policy_debate

Debatewise sends out debating rules for the WODC to all participants via email. I don't what the WODC-style would be called, close to BP but nothing like it? So, for the WODC each phase lasts 24 hours, there are five phases Prop writes then Opp rebutts, Prop writes again, opp rebutts and then there's the summary phase for both teams. And a day may seem like a lot of time to write one side of an argument but there are issues with internet connections, the website might be down, one team member maybe coordinating with another at the other end of the world, and the uality of arguments tends to be pretty high because of all the work that goes into it.  Close to BP, because all the judges have previously adjudicated BP matches, the onus of defining the debate motions falls onto the Prop's shoulders and there's a prop and opp team. It's different because the time slots are bigger, it's on the internet, so it's more about how you type than how you speak and you have to cite your sources, so it's harder to bluff with a convincing speaking/writing style because if you do bluff a POI(point of information) is not about who sounds more convincing but about who is actually telling the truth or rather the truth of their/our/your cited sources.