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Debate
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Debate

Debate is a formalized system of logical argumentation. A debate is a rule-governed contest presided by an official, consisting of two or more sides where each side is attempting to win the approval of a designated audience, such as a judge or jury. Debate has become a highly organized activity with National and International organizations.

Table of contents
1 Debate in Education
2 See also
3 External links

Debate in Education

Many North American colleges and high schools field teams that participate in competitive debate.

Parliamentary Debate

"Parli" is conducted under rules derived from British parlimentary procedure. It features the competition of individuals in a multi-person setting. It borrows terms such as "government" and "opposition" from the British parliament. It is commonly used in Canada.

Parliamentary Debating in Canada uses the following positions:

Some tournaments allow Points of Information, where an opposing team member may stand up and ask a question to the member who is debating.

On the East Coast of the U.S., the standards body is the American Parliamentary Debating Organization. Nationally, the National Parliamentary Debate Association (NPDA) is the largest collegate sponsor. In Canada, the Canadian Universities Society for Intercollegiate Debating (CUSID) [1] is the main umbrella organization for the university-level debating. Parliamentary debate is very popular in collegate competition, and has begun expanding on high school circuits. There is currently no national sponsor for High School Parli debate in the US.

Parliamentary Debating is also popular in other parts of the world, including Asia, Australia, and New Zealand. There are often variations in speaking time, speaking order, and the number of speakers. For example, in New Zealand, both the leader of the Opposition and the Prime Minister offer a short summary as the last two speakers.

Simulated Legislature

Other high school debate events such as Student Congress, Model UN, and the American Legion's Boys State and Girls State events are activities which are based on the premis of the contestants acting as representatives in a mock legislative body.

Mock Court

Mock Court or Moot court is expanding across the US as a high school activity.

Lincoln-Douglas Debate

Lincoln-Douglas Debate (named after the famous series of Senate debates between the two candidates) has two participants who compete against each other. The arguments center around philosophy or abstract values, and thus it is also called Value Debate. Lincoln-Douglas debate tends to require less evidence than policy debate, and thus emphasizes logic and reasoning. High school LD competition is typically conducted under the rules of the National Forensic League or the National Catholic Forensic League.

Policy Debate

In Policy Debate two teams of two students advocate or oppose a resolution calling for a change in policy by the government. The style of argumentation features extensive use of citations and quotations from news sources and technical material. In the US, high school policy debate is overseen by the NFL and the CFL. Collegate policy debate is overseen by the National Debate Tournament or the Cross Examination Debate Association.

The expansion of Mock Court and Parli have come at the cost of the shrinking of participation in LD and Policy Debate in US High School competition since 1995.

Balloon Debate

A Balloon debate is one in which members argue the merits of their chosen subject (normally a person or profession) so as not to get voted out of the balloon.

Debate Tournaments

High school speech tournaments are held every week during the season. Regional tournamnents, often held in high schools, attract other local teams. Major tournaments (such as Harvard's) attract students from the national circuit. The various national championships attract debaters from all over the country as well as from overseas. Many organizations hold national championship tournaments inclduing the NFL national championships, CFL, CDA and NDT. The US national championships include teams from former US territories and protectorates including the Panama Canal Zone, American Samoa and Guam.

Collegiate parlimentary debate tournaments are held weekly during the season (which typically runs from the fall until the early spring). Some leagues (APDA and NEDA for instance) host championship tournaments at the end of the season.

Outside the US and Canada

Policy Debate-style competitions are highly popular outside the North American continent, with Australia frequently winning the World Debating Championship.

See also

External links