Debate judge philosophy statements have been part of the Cross Examination Debate Association (CEDA) National Debate Tournament since the tournament's inception. Judges are asked to identify their preferred debate paradigm in the statement. The practice has raised the question of whether debate critics understand the debate paradigms as they are…

A study was conducted to develop a taxonomy of decision criteria employed by Cross Examination Debate Association (CEDA) debate critics. Four hypothesis characteristics were tested: (1) audience-centered critics would have a higher proportion of presentational remarks than analytic-centered critics; (2) audience-centered critics would devote a…

A study reported on two experiments which addressed the question of whether debate judges do as they say they will with regard to the advent of judge philosophy statements. The larger goal of the combined experiments was to discover whether: (1) judging paradigms operate meaningfully in Cross Examination Debate Association (CEDA) debate and (2)…

In debate, it has been argued that a judge's decision is between two competing policy systems. This paradigm does not admit of direct refutation by the negative team considering the predicate facts and value assumptions of the affirmative policy. A second position is that straight refutation is an appropriate means of analysis in resolving…

A study assessed the predictive validity of two substantially different instruments (a questionnaire or a philosophy statement) which may be used to predict critics' ballot behavior in Cross Examination Debate Association (CEDA) debate. Questionnaires were distributed to 29 debate tournaments across the United States for completion by critics…

Defining "information overload" as the condition that occurs when the amount of available information exceeds the ability of the user to process it, this paper contends that this condition has now affected the arena of academic debate. The first section of the paper examines the nature of overload and discusses its consequences on the…

To develop a taxonomy of Cross Examination Debate Association (CEDA) critics, a study associated professed judging philosophy and responses to survey questions with ballot behavior and elaborated judging profiles. Subjects were debate critics who judged rounds at CEDA tournaments in the Northeast during the Spring 1989 season. In all, 13 critics…

The development of a sound theory of the arguing of policy questions in debate requires that the Affirmative be obligated to demonstrate the solvency of its plan, regardless of the paradigmatic origins of the case theory. While the specific degree of demonstration which is necessary to establish solvency remains a substantive issue within the…

A study assessed the selection techniques used to secure focus group respondents at one site as part of a larger study to determine what viewers learned from the 1992 Presidential Debates. A two-stage random sampling technique was developed to select focus group respondents from the 224,041 registered voters in Syracuse, New York. The random…

When the amount of available information exceeds the ability of the user to process it, "information overload" is created. In an attempt to maintain some control over the quantity of arguments they may face, debaters have developed adaptive behavior, primarily through the generic argument--any argument within a "deliverative"…

Since South Africa declared the first "State of Emergency" in July 1985, the issue of South African apartheid has sparked direct and sustained debates between Jerry Falwell and Jesse Jackson at Lynchburg, Virginia, as well as on ABC's "Nightline." On "Nightline," while Falwell's position on disinvestment (after a…

Directors of forensics at research universities are subject to a conflict between attaining pedagogically justified goals for forensic activities and the realities incumbent upon the mission of a research university. The ideal, pedagogical view of forensics maintains that a forensics program should offer a broad range of activities, should be…

Evaluators of argument are frequently confronted by conflicting claims. While these claims are usually based on probabilities, they are often resolved with the accepted claim treated as though it were "true," while the rejected claim is treated as though it were "false." Scenario testing is the label applied to a set of…