The following was posted on csun.edu on Glen Whitman’s debate website.
There are several different formats for debate practiced in high school and college debate leagues. Most of these formats share some general features. Specifically, any debate will have two sides: a proposition side, and an opposition side. The job of the proposition side is to advocate the adoption of the resolution, while the job of the opposition side is to refute the resolution.
The following was posted on csun.edu on Glen Whitman’s debate website.
Think of the process of casing as a funnel. The top of the funnel is wide, because you want to be considering as many cases as possible. But the bottom of the funnel is narrow, because the set of cases that actually make good debates is much smaller.
So the first step in casing is to think of as many cases as you can.
The following was posted on csun.edu on Glen Whitman’s debate website.
This page contains a detailed description of my method for hand-tabulating a debate tournament, as a guide for tab directors. I have developed this method over several years of doing tab, so it includes numerous innovations that I’ve adopted over that time. My method is certainly not the only way of doing tab, nor do I claim it’s the best.
The following was posted on csun.edu on Glen Whitman’s debate website.
This is a guide for debate teams trying to run a parliamentary debate tournament for the first time, as well as for more experienced teams that need a refresher.
In writing this, I’m assuming a number of things. First, I assume you want to run a standard, five-round tournament in the usual American Parliamentary Debate Association (APDA) format. Second, I assume my reader is the Tournament Director.
The following was posted on csun.edu on Glen Whitman’s debate website.
Introduction This is a guide to using logical fallacies in debate. And when I say “using,” I don’t mean just pointing them out when opposing debaters commit them – I mean deliberately committing them oneself, or finding ways to transform fallacious arguments into perfectly good ones.
Debate is, fortunately or not, an exercise in persuasion, wit, and rhetoric, not just logic.