Suggests that formal classroom debate presents an opportunity for dental students to develop important learning/thinking skills and can be incorporated into coursework along with other active learning strategies. Discusses debate organization, presents rules of debate used in second-year dental school classes at the State University of New York,…

This brief is a summary of "Increasing the Application of Developmental Sciences Knowledge in Educator Preparation: Policy Issues and Recommendations" by Robert C. Pianta, Randy Hitz and Blake West. It includes highlights and policy recommendations contained in that paper. This brief argues that teachers and education administrators need…

This is a polemic on the need to rehumanize collegiate debate. Viewed as a reform movement insofar as its primary concern is to revitalize public debate, the National Education Debate Association (NEDA) ought to be mindful of the ethical implications of its aims in the same way that a repairman fixes what is broken: by concentrating, not on the…

Intrinsic justification in academic debate focuses on the essential characteristics of the terms in a topic. The technique, advocated by Ken Bahm, works with very few Cross Examination Debate Association (CEDA) topics. It gives rise to counterwarrants, which create more confusion than clarity, while its counterplans destroy affirmative grounds. In…

Noting the enormous potential of political debates to serve both the candidates and the public, this paper argues that debate procedure and format should be improved so as to achieve a more harmonious relationship between debate and politics. The first section of the paper examines the role and impact of debates in contemporary political…

Advocates return of collegiate debating to public forum format. (CH)

A discussion of the problems inherent in academic debate cases based upon attitudinal rather than structural flaws. (CH)

The existence of the American Forensic Association's National Individual Events Tournament (NIET) and the National Forensic Association (NFA), two strong and well-established national tournaments with essentially similar events descriptions, has certainly contributed to a very substantial amount of uniformity of events descriptions and conflict…

The term "turnaround" has taken a permanent place among the intercollegiate debate jargon. All too often, the first affirmative rebuttalists charge "turnaround" for every plan or response they do not know how to label properly. After so many "false alarms," judges are too weary or aggravated to notice the real thing,…

To identify and interpret some of the attitudes toward and levels of support for competitive forensic activities on college campuses, a study surveyed the chief administrative officer at every institution identified in the Speech Communication Association's 1988 Directory (339 of the 1,100 surveys mailed were completed). Questions concerned past…

Noting that a series of mechanical rules created for pairing and placement of judges at the National Debate Tournament (NDT) may be useful in developing a computer program to pair tournaments, this paper focuses on the methods used to pair rounds at the NDT and also looks at some pairing options frequently employed by other debate tournaments. The…

An exploration of systems concepts applied to argumentation and causal theory. (CH)

The survey and suggestions for improvements are presented. (CH)

The purpose of this booklet is to disseminate limited-circulation papers relating to value proposition debating (nonpolicy argument). The six papers provide information on the following topics: the theoretical implications of debating nonpolicy propositions, criteria for evaluating nonpolicy argument, situationally guided standards for evaluating…