The expression "direct the debate" is correct and usable in written English.
You can use it to refer to the activity of leading or managing a group discussion or argument. For example: "The teacher was appointed to direct the debate among the students regarding the proposed policy changes."
Last week a member of the U.S. Congress introduced a bill directed at the debate over whether electronic scientific journals should be freely accessible.
What this document reveals, more than anything else, is the direct connection between the debate over secession's legitimacy and the course of reconstruction.
"This crisis threatens our communities, our economy, and the future for our children – we saw that threat with Hurricane Matthew just this week – yet climate change doesn't get a single direct question in the debate".
After years of speaking mainly through Mr. Tung, a former shipping tycoon selected by China and its allies in Hong Kong, Beijing has begun issuing direct warnings that the debate over Hong Kong's political future will ultimately be decided by Beijing.
While these findings put a number of claims into their empirical context, they can provide no direct resolution of the debate.
But we understand that without the pressure of more radical direct-action tactics, the debate in this country won't change substantially".
In the debate, direct arguments have played a prominent role since these fit the idea, implicit in Kripke, that the claim that meaning is normative provides a pre-theoretical constraint on any acceptable theory of meaning; one that has to be accepted independently of one's specific semantic theory.
Shorten's launch speech was the plea of a leader that knows he has to do something big to change the tempo of this election campaign, to force the direct policy debate that might cut through Turnbull's soothing messages of economic reassurance and coax enough voters to look more closely at the detailed policies on offer.
