Additional
materials on Persuasion and Debate
Debate: topics,
issues, ongoing competitions, organizations, people in the field, government
resources, helpful Web links, and so on [Page contains auxiliary materials for book Persuasion:
Messages, Receivers, and Contexts, by William Rogers, Rowman & Littlefield, 2007]
Some basic forms of debate:
Parliamentary
debate (from
the rules used in the British parliament): where researched evidence is
discouraged in favor of style, even theatrical style.
World Schools
Style where
two three-member teams deliver eight speeches. Some of these speeches are
substantive, some are for rebuttal. The topics are sometimes announced way in
advance of the debate or may be announced with just 45 minutes to go.
Australia-Asia
debating
consists of two teams, an "affirmative" and a "negative"
each comprised of four members (three who speak and one who acts as a team
advisor). Each member speaks for 6-8 minutes, though this is reduced in younger
grades and increased in senior debates.
Policy debate (more often practiced in the
United States) is built around support or opposition for a plan (a change in
policy of the government). Here researched evidence and logic is important,
while rhetorical style is less important.
Extemporaneous
debate
involves no advance planning for the two teams, each with a first and second
speaker. These debates often center around three main contentions, although a team can
occasionally use two or four. In order for the affirmative to win, all of the
negative contentions must be defeated, and all of the affirmative contentions
must be left standing.
Lincoln-Douglas
styled debate
is often used in high school settings in the United States and requires two
participants who debate a topic built around some core value.
Simulated
legislature
involves debaters who act as representatives in a mock legislative body.
Moot court is debate that assumes the
form of a Mock trial that can simulate a criminal trial.
Online
debating
using forums or bulletin boards where ideas can be interesting because
partipants can take the time needed to come up with good arguments (e.g., up to
five days between posts).
Comedy debates are carried out for
entertainment.
Debate News:
2008-2009
National Debate Topic:
HEALTH CARE
Resolved: The
United States federal government should establish a universal health care
system in the United States.
ALTERNATIVE ENERGY Resolved:
The United States federal government should substantially increase alternative
energy incentives in the United States.
APDA
In their own words, Parliamentary debate is an off-topic, extemporaneous form
of competitive debate which stresses rigorous argumentation, logical analysis,
quick thinking, breadth of knowledge, and rhetorical ability over preparation
of evidence. It is patterned after the style of platform debate first made
famous at Oxford University. The format pits two two-person teams against each
other in a contest of argument, wit and rhetoric which roughly simulates debate
in a House of Parliament. The Government (proposing) team prepares and presents
a case for debate based on a topic or resolution announced only 15 minutes
before the beginning of the round. The Opposition attempts to rebut the
Government's proposal through counter-argument and refutation. The use of
recorded evidence during the debate round is prohibited. A different resolution
is debated in every parliamentary debate round. Resolutions are chosen from a
wide variety of political, philosophical, economic, cultural and humorous
topics, and debaters often have a broad scope in which to define the specific
case for debate which is drawn from the resolution. Hundreds of colleges and
universities in the United States, Canada, Great Britain, and over thirty other
nations participate in parliamentary debate. It is the fastest-growing form of
intercollegiate debate in the world.
Links:
Stanford
Debate Society
[Including links to more than 60 member schools]
The Stanford Debate Society is active on the intercolliegate circuits of APDA
(American Parliamentary Debate Association), NPDA (National Parliamentary
Debate Association), and NDT (National Debate Tournament).
International Debatabase
In their own words: Welcome to
Debatabase.
Debatabase is the world's most useful
resource for student debaters. Inside you will find arguments for and against
hundreds of debating Topics, written by expert debaters, judges and coaches.
Also included are background summaries, links to websites of interest and
recommended books, example motions and user comments. [Not all popular or
controversial topics can be found here]
The following is a sample entry in the
IDAD database for the question: Do
non-human animals have rights?
|
Thomas Dixon ( United
Kingdom ) Created: Friday, June 30, 2000 |
The claim that animals have
‘rights’ was first put forward by the Australian philosopher Peter Singer in
the 1970s and has been the subject of heated and emotional debates ever
since. There are many contexts in which the question of ‘animal rights’ comes
up. Should we farm animals? If so by what techniques? Should we eat animals?
Should we hunt and fish them? Is it morally acceptable to use animals as
sources of entertainment in the context of zoos, circuses, horse racing etc.?
Often the same organisations that campaign on environmental issues (e.g.
Greenpeace) are also concerned for the welfare of animals: both sets of
concerns derive from a commitment to the value of Nature and the Earth. The
question of animal rights might well come up in a debate on biodiversity, and
is one with so many political and social implications that it is also worth
having in its own right. This debate is about the ethical principles at
issue; the separate debates on biodiversity, vegetarianism, zoos, blood
sports, and animal experimentation deal with more of the concrete details. |
|
Pro Animal Rights
Arguments |
Anti Animal Rights
Arguments |
|
Human beings are complex
evolved creatures who are accorded rights on the basis that they are able to
think and to feel pain. Many other animals are also able to think (to some
extent) and are certainly able to feel pain. Therefore non-human animals
should also be accorded rights, e.g. to a free and healthy life. |
Human beings are infinitely
more complex than any other living creatures. Their abilities to think and
talk, to form social systems with rights and responsibilities, and to feel
emotions are uniquely developed well beyond any other animals. It is
reasonable to try to prevent the most obvious cases of gratuitous suffering
or torture of animals, but beyond that, non-human animals do not deserve to
be given ‘rights’. |
|
Ever since the publication
of Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species in 1859 we have known that human beings
are related by common descent to all other animals. We owe a duty of care to
our animal cousins. |
The fact that we are
(incredibly distantly) related to other animals does not mean that it makes
sense to talk about them having ‘rights’. This sort of thinking would have
absurd consequences: e.g. saying that we should respect the ‘right’ to life
of bacteria, or the ‘right’ of the AIDS virus to move freely and without
restriction, and to associate freely with other living organisms. We might
wish to reduce unnecessary animal suffering, but not because all creatures to
which we are distantly related have rights. |
|
We should err on the side of
caution in ascribing rights to human or non-human creatures. If we place high
standards (such as the ability to think, speak, or even to enter into a
social contract) on the ascription of rights there is a danger than not only
animals, but also human infants and mentally handicapped adults will be
excluded from basic rights. |
Only human beings who are
members of society have ‘rights’. Rights are privileges that come with
certain social duties and moral responsibilities. Animals are not capable of
entering into this sort of ‘social contract’ – they are neither moral nor
immoral creatures, they are amoral. They do not respect our ‘rights’, and
they are irrational and entirely instinctual. Amoral and irrational creatures
have neither rights nor duties – they are more like robots than people. All
human beings or potential human beings (e.g. unborn children) can potentially
be given rights, but o non-human animals fall into that category. |
|
Cruelty to animals (e.g.
bull fighting, fox hunting, battery hen farming) is the sign of an
uncivilised society – it encourages violence and barbarism in society more
generally. A society that respects animals and restrains base and violent
instincts is a more civilised one. |
It is perfectly natural to
use animals for our own nutrition and pleasure – in the wild there is much
suffering as animals struggle to survive, are hunted by predators, and
compete for food and resources. Human beings have been successful in this
struggle for existence and do not need to feel ashamed of exploiting their
position as a successful species in the evolutionary process. |
|
The basic cause of
preventing exploitation of animals is not undermined by the fact that a small
number of extremists and criminals attach themselves to it. And it is not
reasonable to expect AR campaigners not to take medicine – they must look
after their own health whatever way they can until a more humane sort of
medicine is developed. |
Animal Rights activists are
hypocrites, extremists, and terrorists who don’t even care about human life.
Organisations such as the Animal Liberation Front (ALF) use terrorist tactics
and death-threats; PETA are also an extremist organisation. These AR
extremists still avail themselves of modern medicine, however, which could
not have been developed without experiments and tests on animals. Animal
welfare is a reasonable concern, but talking of animal ‘rights’ is a sign of
extremism and irrationali |
According to W
policy-debate competitions involve such thinngs as:
Theory
Burdens of the affirmative
Stock issues
One traditional policy debate theory
states that the affirmative team must win certain issues, called the stock
issues. The first four issues must be presented in the affirmative case. The
last issue, topicality, need not be included in the affirmative case, but must
be defended if the negative team raises arguments. They are:
* Solvency: The plan
should succeed in solving for a harm in the status quo or creating an advantage
over the status quo.
* Harms: The
affirmative should demonstrate a harm in the status quo. This stock issue is
often labelled as an advantage instead. An advantage may either be an actual
harm or merely an opportunity cost harm.
* Inherency: The
status quo must not solve the case absent the plan. There are three types of
inherency:
* Structural inherency: Laws or other barriers to the implementation of the
plan.
* Attitudinal inherency: Beliefs or attitudes which prevent the implementation
of the plan.
* Existential inherency: The plan hasn't happened yet.
The affirmative team has the power of
Fiat (Latin for "let it be so") to overcome such inherent barriers.
Thus, the debate centers on whether the plan should happen rather than whether
it will happen. The negative team is not allowed to argue that existing
political elements will block the plan or not fund it, they must instead prove
why the plan is a bad idea that should not pass. Inherency is sometimes not
labelled in the 1AC but rather incorporated into advantages such that it
becomes clear why the plan is an advantage over the status quo. However, this
practice is generally frowned upon. The popularization of offense/defense in
policy debate effectively squelched debate over inherency because the
affirmative will usually win Inherency as a stock issue as long as there is a
chance, however small, that the status quo will not solve the case.
* Topicality: The affirmative
case must affirm the resolution, as opposed to a subject outside the topic
area.
* Significance: The
affirmative must be significant. This stock issue has also fallen out of use in
part because of the difficulty of defining what is and what is not significant.
Generally, any advantage over the status quo makes the plan significant.
Advantages
Other external benefits that are created
in addition to solving the harms addressed by the affirmative are called
advantages. While an affirmative team isn't required to present any advantages
in their case in order to fulfill the affirmative burdens, they are often
included for strategic reasons to prove the affirmative case is preferable over
the status quo. It is difficult to win on the affirmative side without
advantages. The negative team will often present disadvantages which contend
that the affirmative plan causes undesirable consequences, so the affirmative
team often needs countervailing advantage to generate a net positive outcome.
It is helpful to mitigate the disadvantages run by the neg. Like disadvantages,
advantages often have exaggerated or unrealistic impacts, such as causing world
peace and ending racism forever.
The teams may also present a decision
calculus for the judge to decide the case: for instance, they may insist that
the judge examine the case in a deontological rather than consequentialist
framework. A deontological framework implies that the judge should examine
individual rights and the intent of the case. Consequentialism is a framework
in which the "ends justify the means". In other words, as long as
something good comes of an action, anything bad done on the way doesn't matter.
Negation theory
Negation Theory is a theory of how a
debate round should be decided which dictates that the negative need only
negate the affirmative instead of having to negate the resolution. The
acceptance of negation theory allows negative teams to run arguments such as
Topical Counterplans, that may affirm the resolution, but they still negate the
affirmative plan.
Negative strategy
After the affirmative presents its case,
the negative can attack the case with many different arguments, which include:
* Stock Issues: The
negative can claim that the affirmative does not uphold any of the above
burdens. Certain judges believe that the affirmative must uphold each of the
issues, or they lose the round. Since the late 1980's, attacks on inherency and
significance have fallen out of favor. In some cases, such as when a negative
team wishes to win in a Disadvantages debate but has no good solvency turn
(i.e. nothing that proves that the Affirmative plan actually causes or
aggravates the harms the Affirmative team cites), the Negative will attack
Significance or Advantages, especially when the Affirmative team cites a
critical Advantage or colossally bad Harm. Most debates that are
"on-case" (that is, directly responsive to the Affirmative plan),
however, are Solvency debates.
* Topicality: In
particular, of the Stock Issues, Topicality arguably sees the most play in
technical high school debate. The Negative will attempt to argue that the
Affirmative team does not fall under the rubric of the resolution and should be
rejected immediately regardless of the merits or advantages of the plan. This
is a type of 'meta-debate' argument, as both sides then spend time defining
various words or phrases in the resolution, laying down standards for why their
definition(s) or interpretation(s) is superior (including arguments such as
referring to the amount of argumentative "ground" either team would
have under their or the opposing team's definition or interpretation of the
resolution), and even spend time discussing what Topicality is and whether or
not it is a relevant burden! Most yearly topics have at least one or two
commonly run Affirmative cases (such as landmines during a weapons of mass
destruction topic, holistic medicine during a mental health topic, racial
profiling and reversing the Supreme Court policies that led to internment
during a privacy topic, or similar) that are only arguably topical, so
Topicality is often justified as a check or deterrent on and against such
plans, which usually have quite strategic components (such as critical impacts
or advantages normally beyond the scope of the topic). Topicality is also often
considered a levelling factor in high school debate: A Negative team that is
less well-funded, prepared or skillful or facing a case that they are not
prepared for can use Topicality to win, or at least force the Affirmative to
spend substantial amounts of time rebutting (in this case, Topicality is known
as a "time-suck"). For this reason, many arguments have come into
vogue arguing that topicality is theoretically or critically repugnant: Perhaps
Topicality as a timesuck is unfair and should be punished, or perhaps language
is so vague that the Negative team is simply imperially attacking an
unconventional and creative Affirmative, or perhaps the Affirmative is
discussing something so important that Topicality should be ignored. Most
judges seem to reject these arguments, though they must still be rebutted.
* Disadvantages: The
negative can claim that there are disadvantages, or adverse effects of the
plan, which outweigh any advantages claimed. The basic structure of a
Disadvantage includes the Uniqueness, or the current situation which indicates
that the disadvantage will not occur in the status quo; the link, which states
that passing the affirmative's plan would reverse the uniqueness; and the
Impact, which is the final effect of the affirmative plan. In order to outweigh
any positive effects of the affirmative case, impacts are often unrealistic and
exaggerated, exceeding what would be expected as outcomes of a real world
policy action. Both sides are usually guilty of using exaggerated impacts, but
in general they are acceptable.
* Politics: This is a
subset of the Disadvantage, but worth noting independently, because of many
complex and controversial theory/critical arguments that reference Politics and
its admissibility. The general format has to do with other policies in the real
world that the plan would ostensibly effect. For example: An Affirmative plan
may be such a sharp change or shift from a generally conservative Senate that
the Senate feels that it must rally its hardline conservative base with a
policy that the Negative argues has titanically bad results (typically nuclear
war, ecocidal extinction or similar levels of disadvantage). Politics
Disadvantages are unique in a few ways: They typically require up-to-the-moment
Uniqueness (as political climates are constantly changing), which generally
favors larger or better funded squads as they are more likely to have the
resources and time to acquire the newest Uniqueness. Unlike many other
Disadvantages, they change substantially from year to year and even month to
month, as new bills are considered and others defeated. Further, while most
Disadvantages are accepted (at least theoretically if not critically), Politics
face common theoretical and critical objections. Many argue that Politics
Disadvantages are fiat confusions: They deal with HOW the plan passes, not
whether it SHOULD pass. Other arguments allege that the focus or style of
Politics Disadvantages lull debaters into an elitist mindset, or distort
reality beyond recognition, and should be rejected on those debits.
* Kritiks (i.e.,
Critique): The negative can claim that the affirmative is guilty of a certain
mindset or assumption that should be grounds for rejection. Kritiks are
sometimes a reason to reject the entire affirmative advocacy without evaluating
its policy; other times, kritiks can be evaluated within the same framework for
evaluation as the affirmative case. Examples of some kritiks include ones
against biopower, racism, centralized government or anthropocentric viewpoints.
Critiques arose in the early 1990's, with the first critiques based in
deconstructionist philosophy about the intrinsic ambiguity of language. The
affirmative team was forced to prove that language had meaning before their
case could be considered.
* Counterplans: The
negative can reject the status quo in favor of a different policy action, which
provides better advantages, or fewer disadvantages than the plan, also known as
net benefits. The affirmative team may argue against the competition of the
counterplan by permuting the CP, that is adopting some portion of the plan in
addition to their plan. A successful permutation may be grounds to remove the
CP from consideration, or grounds to narrow the scope of the debate to only the
mutually exclusive part of the CP.
* Theory: Sometimes
the subject matter of the affirmative's case will create an uneven playing
field from the beginning. In these cases, the negative can resort to making
objections as to the procedure or content of the affirmative case. These
objections often are "theoretical" in that they try to make
objections based upon what bad can/has come to debate from the infraction, or
what would make debate better if it were true. The Affirmative team may also
make theoretical objections to negative arguments: For example, some
Counterplans or ways of arguing Counterplans face common theoretical
objections.
* Narrative:
Narratives are emotionally delivered speeches generally given at the opening of
a speech. They are usually personal in nature, and call for the judge to
approve of a specific policy option based on a situation. A case that would
solve for world hunger might include a narrative about a starving African
child.
* Performance: A song,
dance, poem, or other method of expression other than rhetoric that is used in
the round. For example, a dance about freedom may better represent freedom than
actual discourse. This technique was introduced subsequent to 1998. However, in
recent times performance arguments have been criticized for being abusive,
irrelevant, or bigoted in some way or form.
Evidence
Evidence in debates is organized into
units called cards (because such evidence was originally printed on note cards,
though the practice has long been out of favor). Cards are designed to condense
an author's argument so that debaters have an easy way to access the
information. A card is composed of three parts: the tag, the cite, and the
body. The tag is the debater's summary of the argument presented in the body. A
tag is usually only one or two sentences. The cite contains all relevant
citation information (that is, the author, date of publication, journal, title,
etc.). Although every card should contain a complete citation, only the author's
name and date of publication are typically spoken aloud in a speech. Some teams
will also read the author's qualifications if they wish to emphasize this
information. The body is a fragment of the author's original text. The length
of a body can vary greatly—cards can be as short as a few sentences and as long
as two or more pages. Most cards are between one and five paragraphs in length.
The body of a card is often underlined or highlighted in order to eliminate
unnecessary or redundant sentences when the card is read in a round. In a
round, the tag is read first, followed by the cite and the body.
As pieces of evidence accumulate use,
multiple colors of highlighting and different thicknesses of underlining often
acure, sometimes making it difficult to determine which portion of the evidence
was read. If debaters stop before finishing the underlined or highlighted
portion of a card, it is considered good form to "mark" the card to
show where one stopped reading. To otherwise misrepresent how much of a card
was read—either by stopping early or by skipping underlined or highlighted
sections—is known as "cross-reading" or "clipping cards"
which is generally considered cheating. Although many judges overtly condemn
the practice on their paradigms, it is hard to enforce, especially if judges
permit debaters to be excessively unclear. Opponents will generally stand
behind a debater whom they believe to be "cross-reading" or
"clipping", as if waiting to take a card (see below), and silently
read along with them in an attempt to get their opponent to stop or the judge
to notice.
As cards are read in round, it is common
for an opponent to collect and examine even while a speech is still going on.
This practice originated in part because cards are read at a rate faster than
conversational speed but also because the un-underlined portions of cards are
not read in round. Taking the cards during the speech allows the opponent to
question the author's qualifications, the original context of the evidence,
etc. in cross-examination. It is generally accepted whichever team is using
preparation time has priority to read evidence read previously during a round
by both teams. As a result, large amounts of evidence may change hands after
the use of preparation time but before a speech. Most judges will not deduct
from a team's preparation time for time spent finding evidence which the other
team has misplaced.
After a round, judges often "call
for cards" to examine evidence whose merit was contested during the round
or whose weight was emphasized during rebuttals so that they can read the
evidence for themselves. Although widespread, this practice is explicitly
banned at some tournaments, most notably National Catholic Forensic League
nationals, and some judges refuse to call for cards because they believe the
practice constitutes "doing work for debaters that should have been done
during round". Judges may also call for evidence for the purpose of
obtaining its citation information so that they can produce the evidence for their
own school. Opponents and spectators are also generally allowed to collect
citations in this manner, and some tournaments send scouts to rounds to
facilitate the collection of cites for every team at the tournament,
information which is sometimes published online.
Sample card
US hegemony is key to preventing
proliferation and global nuclear war.
Khalilzad, 1995 (Zalmay, Director of the
Strategy and Doctrine Program @ RAND and current US Ambassador to Iraq,
"Losing the Moment? The United States and the World After the Cold
War," The Washington Quarterly, Spring, p. Lexis)
Under the third option, the United States
would seek to retain global leadership and to preclude the rise of a global
rival or a return to multipolarity for the indefinite future. On balance, this
is the best long-term guiding principle and vision. Such a vision is desirable
not as an end in itself, but because a world in which the United States
exercises leadership would have tremendous advantages. First, the global
environment would be more open and more receptive to American values --
democracy, free markets, and the rule of law. Second, such a world would have a
better chance of dealing cooperatively with the world's major problems, such as
nuclear proliferation, threats of regional hegemony by renegade states, and
low-level conflicts. Finally, U.S. leadership would help preclude the rise of
another hostile global rival, enabling the United States and the world to avoid
another global cold or hot war and all the attendant dangers, including a
global nuclear exchange. U.S. leadership would therefore be more conducive to
global stability than a bipolar or a multipolar balance of power system.
Judging Policy Debates
Judging policy debate can be challenging.
The total time available is short, the issues are complex and the judge may
have personal beliefs that cloud impartiality.
Speaker points
The judge is charged not only with
selecting a victor, but also must allot points to each competitior. Known as
"speaker points," their goal is to provide a numerical evaluation of
the debaters' speaking skills. Speaker point schemes vary throughout local
state and regional organizations particularly at the high school level.
However, the method accepted by most national organizations such as the
National Forensic League, Tournament of Champions, National Catholic Forensic
League, Cross-Examination Debate Association, and National Debate Tournament,
use values ranging from 1–30. In practice, within these organizations the
standard variation is 26–29, where 26s are given to extremely poor speakers,
where a perfect score is considered incredibly rare and warranted only by an
outstanding performance. Most tournaments accept halfpoint gradiations, for
example 28.5s. Generally, speaker points are seen as secondary in importance to
wins and losses, yet often correlate with a team's win/loss rate. In other
words, the judge usually awards the winning team cumulatively higher speaker
points than the losing team. If the judge does not, the decision is considered
a "Low-Point Win". Low-point wins usually indicate that the debate
was poor, as neither team spoke well; or that the team which lost was ahead
overall, but lost on a technicality or minor issue, or by a very slim margin.
In some smaller jurisdictions, the judge
ranks the speakers 1-4 instead of awarding them speaker points. Either
speaker-point calculation may be used to break ties among teams with like
records. Some areas also use speaker rankings in addition to speaker points in
order to differentiate between speakers awarded the same number of points.
At a majority of tournaments, debaters
also receive "speaker awards," which are awarded to the debaters who
received the greatest number of speaker points. Many tournaments also drop the
highest and lowest score received by each debater, in order to ensure that the
speaker award calculations are fair and consistent, despite the preferences of
different judges. The amount of speaker awards given out varies based on the
number of debaters competing at any given tournament. For instance, a small
local tournament might only award trophies or plaques to the top three
debaters, whereas a widely attended "national circuit" tournament
might give out awards to the top ten or fifteen speakers.
Judge qualifications
The use of community judges, also known
as "lay" judges, is a source of great controversy in policy debate.
Some people see judges recruited from the
community as an important part of the debate educational experience. They
believe that debaters will benefit more from the type of debating they need to
do in order to convince an individual with no debate experience to vote for
them. Lay judges often value speaking skills, presentation, and logic, whereas
more experienced judges might get caught up in the technical aspects of a
debate round, such as speed and the ability to refute each and every point made
by the opposing team.
Others see lay judges as an important
part of the "game" aspect of debate. They argue that the ability to
adapt to different audiences is an important skill for debaters to have. They
may see a team that is unable to change the way they argue in order to account
for judges' biases and limitations as a less competent team than another that
is able to do such things.
Other circuits see lay judges as
hampering the debaters' ability to tackle complex ideas that the general public
isn't familiar with. For instance, because lay judges are not trained to deal
with speed, debaters are unable to make as many arugments with a lay judge as
they would be able to make in a round where their judge was able to follow
speed. Judges who have been involved in debate for several years are also more
likely to be knowledgeable about obscure theories and philosophical authors,
which allows debaters to reference scholarly material that wouldn't make sense
to someone who wasn't familiar with popular debate authors.
It is occasionally argued that community
judges are more likely to have biases than judges who have experience in
debate. For instance, a community judge might think that capitalism is the best
economic system available, and they might automatically dismiss a Marxist
criticism. In this view, an experienced judge is thought to have had more
practice looking at both sides of an issue, and they are more likely to have
been exposed to similar arguments in the past.
Paradigms
Experienced debate judges (who were
generally debaters in High School and/or College) generally carry a mindset
that favors certain arguments and styles over others. Depending on what
mindset, or paradigm, the judge uses, the debate can be drastically different.
Because there is no one view of debate agreed upon by everyone, many debaters
question a judge about their paradigm and/or their feelings on specific
arguments before the round.
Not every judge fits perfectly into one
paradigm or another. A judge may say that they are "Tabula Rasa," or
willing to listen to anything, but draw the line at arguments they consider to
be offensive (such as arguments in favor of racism). Or, a judge might be a
"policy maker," but still look at the debate in an offense/defence
framework like a games playing judge.
Examples of paradigms include:
* Stock Issues: In
order for the affirmative team to win, their plan must retain all of the stock
issues, which are Harms, Inherency, Solvency, Topicality, and Significance. For
the negative to win, they only need to prove that the affirmative fails to meet
one of the stock issues. These judges are more likely to dislike newer
arguments such as kritiks and some theoretical points.
* Policymaker: At the
end of the round, the judge compares the affirmative plan with either the
negative counterplan or the status quo. Whichever one is a better policy option
is the winner.
* Tabula Rasa: From
the Latin for "blank slate", the judge attempts to come into the
round with no predispositions. These judges typically expect debaters to
"debate it out", which includes telling the judge what paradigm they
should view the round in.
* Games Player: Views
debate as a game. Judges who use this paradigm tend to be concerned with
whether or not each team has a fair chance at winning the debate. They usually
view the debate flow as a gameboard, and look at arguments according to an
offence/defense structure.
* Speaking
Skills/Communications: This type of judge is concerned with good presentation
and persuasion skills. They tend to vote for teams that are more articulate,
and present arguments in the most appealing way. These judges usually
disapprove of speed.
Competition and debate life
Tournaments
Most high school debaters debate in local
tournaments in their city, state or nearby states. Thousands of tournaments are
held each year at high schools throughout the US.
A small subset of high school debaters,
mostly from elite public and private schools, travel around the country to
tournaments in what is called the 'national circuit.' The championship of the
national circuit is usually considered to be the Tournament of Champions at the
University of Kentucky, which requires formal qualification in the form of two
or more bids to the tournament.
Championships
High school
There is some dispute over what
constitutes the "national championship" in the United States per se, but
two tournaments generally compete for the title: The Tournament of Champions
held at the University of Kentucky, and the National Speech and Debate
tournament sponsored by the National Forensics League.
* Other national
championships include:
-The Grand National Tournament of the
National Catholic Forensic League.
-The National Championship of the
National Christian Forensics and Communication Association (NCFCA).
* There are many other
national tournaments which do not title themselves national championships, but
nonetheless attract teams from across the nation.
College
There is no single unified national
championship in college debate; the National Debate Tournament (NDT), the Cross
Examination Debate Association (CEDA) and the American Debate Association (ADA)
all host national tournaments.
Institutes/Camps
While once attended by only highly
competitive policy debaters, many high school students now attend debate
institutes, which are typically held at colleges in the summer. Most institutes
range from about two to seven weeks.
Some of the more popular summer
institutes include:
Northwestern High School Institute
(NHSI), Concordia Debate Institute (CDI), Dartmouth Debate Institute (DDI),
Dartmouth Debate Workshop (DDW), Michigan 7 Week, Michigan Classic, Michigan
National Debate Institute (MNDI), Stanford National Forensic Institute (SNFI),
Kentucky National Debate Institute (KNDI), Spartan Debate Institute (SDI),
University of Texas National Institute of Forensics (UTNIF), University of
North Texas (UNT), Wake Forest Institute (WFI), Whitman National Debate
Institute (WNDI), and Gonzaga Debate Institute (GDI).
Many institutes divide students into work
groups based on skill level and experience. Many even offer specialized
"advanced" or "scholars" workshops, to which acceptance is
highly limited.
Resolutions
A resolution or topic is a statement
which the affirmative team affirms and the negative team negates. Resolutions
are selected annually by affiliated schools.
Most resolutions from the 1920s to 2005
have begun "Resolved: that The United States federal government
should" although some variations from this structure have been apparent
both before the NDT-CEDA merger and with the recent college policy debate
topic, which limits the affirmative agent to the United States Supreme Court.
For example, the resolution for the
2005-2006 high school policy debate season was "Resolved: The United
States federal government should substantially decrease its authority either to
detain without charge or to search without probable cause."
At the college level, a number of topics
are proposed and interested parties write 'topic papers' discussing the pros
and cons of that individual topic. Each school then gets one vote on the topic.
The single topic area voted on then has a number of proposed topic wordings,
one is chosen, and it is debated by affiliated students nationally for the
entire season (standard academic school year).
At the high school level, 'topic papers'
are also prepared but the voting procedure is different. These papers are then
presented to a topic selection committee which rewords each topic and
eventually narrows down the number of topics to five topics. Then the five
resolutions are put to a two-tiered voting system. State forensic associations,
the National Forensic League, and the National Catholic Forensic League all
vote on the five topics, narrowing it down to two. Then the two topics are
again put to a vote, and one topic is selected.
The 2006-2007 High School Resolution is:
Resolved: The United
States federal government should establish a policy substantially increasing
the number of persons serving in one or more of the following national service
programs: AmeriCorps, Citizen Corps, Senior Corps, Peace Corps, Learn and Serve
America, Armed Forces.
Event structure (parts of a debate)
The times and speech order are generally as follows:
|
Speech |
Time (high school) |
Time (college) |
|
First Affirmative Constructive |
8 minutes |
9 minutes |
|
Cross-examination of First Affirmative by Second
Negative |
3 minutes |
3 minutes |
|
First Negative Constructive |
8 minutes |
9 minutes |
|
Cross-examination of First Negative by First
Affirmative |
3 minutes |
3 minutes |
|
Second Affirmative Constructive |
8 minutes |
9 minutes |
|
Cross-examination of Second Affirmative by First
Negative |
3 minutes |
3 minutes |
|
Second Negative Constructive |
8 minutes |
9 minutes |
|
Cross-examination of Second Negative by Second
Affirmative |
3 minutes |
3 minutes |
|
First Negative Rebuttal |
5 minutes |
6 minutes |
|
First Affirmative Rebuttal |
5 minutes |
6 minutes |
|
Second Negative Rebuttal |
5 minutes |
6 minutes |
|
Second Affirmative Rebuttal |
5 minutes |
6 minutes |
<>
In addition to speeches, policy debates may allow for a certain amount of
preparation time, or "prep time," during a debate round. NFL rules
call for 5 minutes of total prep time that can be used, although in practice
high school debate tournaments usually give 8 minutes of prep time. College
debates typically have 10 minutes of preparation time. The preparation time is
used at each team's preference; they can use different amounts of preparation
time before any of their speeches, or even none at all. Prep time can be
allocated strategically to intimidate or inconvenience the other team: for
instance, normally a 1AR requires substantial prep time, so a well-executed
"stand up 1AR", delivered after no prep time intimidates the negative
team and takes away from time that the 2NR may have used to prepare the parts
of her speech which do not rely on what the 1AR says.
References
* Cheshier, David.
(2002). Drills to Improve your Debate Speaking. Rostrum. Retrieved December 30,
2005.
* Gary Alan Fine (2001).
Gifted Tongues: High School Debate and Adolescent Culture. Princeton University
Press. ISBN 0-691-07450-X.
* Dana Hensley and
Diana Carlin (2005). Mastering Competitive Debate 7th Ed.. Perfection Learning.
ISBN 0-931054-70-2.
* Leslie Phillips,
William S. Hicks, Douglas R. Springer, and Maridell Fryar (2001). Basic Debate
4th Ed.. Glenco/McGraw-Hill. ISBN 0-8442-5981-0.
* Glass, David. Former
President of NDCA. "The Policy Debate Topic Selection Meeting."
National Forensic League. 22 June 2006 [6]
* Glass, David. Former
President of NDCA. "Post-Modern Critiques as Strategems in the Policy
Debate Discourse." National Forensic League. 2005 [
Research on Use of
Evidence for Speeches (for what its worth regarding debates)
Evidence it general
*The use of evidence produces more attitude change than the use of no evidence.
*The use of evidence produces more attitude change than simple source
assertions.
Relevance
*The failure to include evidence citations in a message following an evidenced
message expressing opposing views will result in lowered credibility ratings
for advocate.
Citations
*The use of evidence citations produces more attitude change when the evidence
source and the evidence source’s qualifications are provided.
*The use of evidence from highly credible sources will, oven time,
increase an advocate’s credibility
*Placing citations of less credible evidence after the evidence improves the
acceptance of a message over presenting the less credible source citation
before evidence.
Delivery
*The persuasive effects from the use of evidence citations by a
low-to-moderately credible advocate is reduced by very poor delivery.
Prior Knowledge and Attitudes of Receivers
*The use of evidence results in attitude change when receivers have no prior
knowledge of the evidence.
*The use of evidence increases attitude change over time, regardless of the
credibility of the advocate. [sleeper effect]
Evaluation of Evidence and Messages
*The credibility of an advocate is positively related to evaluation of message
attributes.
*The clarity of evidence citations is positively related to evaluations of the
evidence and the advocate.
Selection of Evidence
*Highly dogmatic people select persuasive messages containing documented
evidence rather than undocumented evidence.
*People tend to evaluate evidence consistent with their own attitudes,
regardless of the quality of the evidence.
*Evidence that is inconsistent with the major propositions being advanced is
more difficult to detect than is irrelevant evidence or evidence from
unqualified sources
Additional materials on Persuasion
and Debate