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Points
Points deal with aspects of the bill or debate. They have an order of precedence (priority) and are listed here from highest to lowest precedence.
Personal privilege--Pertains to personal issue--raise one if a speaker has said something offensive, you need to leave the room, or there is a serious emergency. Can be raised while someone has the floor, but try to wait until points are called for.
Order--If there has been a procedural mistake you wish to correct. Can be raised when someone has the floor.
Parliamentary inquiry--You have a question about parliamentary procedure such as, "How long is a speech?" Can only be raised in between speeches.
Information--You have a factual question relating to the bill. For example, if the bill is about income taxes, you might ask, "How much does the government make from income taxes annually?" If the chair doesn't know s/he will refer the question to the sponsor. This is not the time to make a speech, only to ask a question.
Motions
Motions do things to the bill or debate. Listed from highest to lowest precedence. To be implemented, the motion must be voted upon. On procedural votes like the following, you cannot abstain.
Move to previous question/Close debate--Ends debate on bill to vote. Before consideration, must be seconded (someone says "second"), then passed by a two-thirds majority. Will not be recognized before 3:00 and/or if several others wish to speak.
Suspend the rules--Can do any number of things, such as move prematurely out of structured debate or extend a speaker's questioning time. Must be implemented by a second and then a two-thirds majority vote.
Amend--Amendments fix problems in a bill by deleting, substituting, or inserting. Here are some examples:
--"Delete 'as well as the State Department' from section 4."
--"Substitute $100,000 fine for $10,000 fine in section 2."
--"Insert a new section 6 to read..."
Amendments must follow one of those three methods. They can affect whole sections or only parts of them, but should only do one thing per amendment. They can't do anything the title of the bill expressly forbids. They must be relevant to what the bill is about; if not, they won't be considered.
Amendments must be written and passed up to the chair before the motion is raised. The chair will then read the amendment out loud and ask the sponsor if it is friendly or unfriendly. If friendly, it is automatically placed in the bill; if unfriendly, it must be debated. A second and one-third majority vote is necessary to debate an amendment. Then the writer will deliver a three minute sponsorship on the amendment, followed by a three minute con speech by the sponsor of the bill. Afterward, we enter general debate on the amendment and each speech is a minute and a half. You can't end debate on the bill without ending debate on the amendment first. Debate on an amendment will not exceed 15 minutes.