School Topics

• When handled within the same school system, persuasive speech and debate topics can often be localized to the policies of the school itself. Topics can include such things as punishment of pupils caught using drugs near or on campus, reducing the school's carbon footprint, whether sex education should be included in required curriculum, the right to search student lockers, the importance or unimportance of school art programs, nutritional balance of food sold on campus, the types of offenses that may lead to expulsion from the school and whether intelligent design or creationism should be included in science classes.
  
  

Local Topics

• Speeches and debates that take place outside of the same school but are still localized to a single city, county or state can expand to topics that affect a greater amount of people but remain locally relevant. These local topics can include decriminalization of marijuana for medical purposes, extending marriage rights to include same-sex couples, right of labor unions to collectively bargain with private and public employers, whether permits should be given to carry concealed firearms and what can be done to improve public transportation.
  
  

National Topics

• Persuasive speech and debate topics can often reflect what is happening in national politics. These often requires a great deal of research and consideration as they are larger and tend to inflame passions. Some of these can include whether citizens should have a right to health care, if burning a flag should be illegal, if public money should be spent to send students to private schools, governmental oversight of large corporations, technologies that should be used to curb global climate change, the role of private money in public elections and whether media outlets should be required to offer equal time to both sides of any given issue.
  
  

International Topics

• International speech and debate topics can be among the most difficult to effectively argue as they are often far reaching in scope yet largely unknown and very specific in effect. Other topics can also have such long and laborious histories that they can be difficult to capture in a limited format. Some of these topics can include the establishment of a Palestinian state in Israel, conditions under which torture could be acceptable under international law, adjustment of copyright law in regard to Internet distribution, if terrorism could ever be justified and whether international companies should be held responsible for goods manufactured using slave or exploited labor.
  
  

Entertaining Topics

• Not every debate or persuasive speech topic has to be serious or particularly heated; more humorous topics can also be discussed in ways that are both articulate and entertaining. Some of these can include which professional sport is best, the most effective way to train a cat, whether MTV should be required to change its name, should casual Friday be a nationally recognized policy and whether clowns are scary or funny.