English Curry

Parliamentary Debate Critique Sheet – March 2012
Debate Preparation
Judging IASAS Debate<
Rules for IASAS Debate 2012 and beyond

PSDC invitation
Print out the tournament waiver form and the Participants form. Complete and hand in. 2800 pesos is the extortionate amount of money required to enter.

We will train every Wednesday afternoon – 3pm in my room 2052. It normally runs for up to two hours. Yes, it’s long and demanding.
There are two elements that we will focus on: argument and speaking.
This form of debate relies heavily on developing a coherent argument. Evidence is less important than backing up your claim with reasonable points. The trick with this form of debate is to be able to flesh out your points so that you can reach a strong conclusion.
The judges in this competition are excellent. They will focus intently on every aspect of your argument and analyze its effectiveness.

Firstly, the format and rules.
http://flynn.debating.net/Sydrules.htm See this.

More detail here: http://flynn.debating.net/colmmain_tut.htm

Good Introduction to rules and strategies:British Parliamentary Debate rules and roles
A good template to follow:basic structure per speaker – BP
Here are plenty of videos about this format. The more you watch the more you learn.

http://debate.uvm.edu/wudcvideo.html

Please watch this video in its entirety. It’s over an hour long.

http://debatevideoblog.blogspot.com/2010/01/debate-wudc-finals-from-koc-worlds-2010.html

Note the structure of the speeches. Note how they number their points and make it easy for the audience to follow their argument. Note how they flesh out their points with examples – but do not use the examples as their argument, just to support it. Note how they only take points of information from their opponents when they are ready, when they have finished a point and are ready to start a new one. Note how they use their phones as timers for themselves. Note everything.

This site has plenty of video material to learn from. See what you can find.

http://debate.uvm.edu/wudcvideo.html

Even more videos and material. The following website is from Monash university in Melbourne, Australia. Monash have won several world titles in debate and have an extremely well set up program. The link is to some of their training videos. Select the intro to BP debate and listen carefully. The last one on the page – First Principles – is very good.

http://www.monashdebaters.com/past-sessions.php

And a whole book about debating. See bottom of this linked page.

http://www.monashdebaters.com/links.php

The file below is the application form for officer positions for the Forensics & Debate Club for school year 2011-12. Please complete and return to me – via email or in person – by Friday May 6.
Application for Forensics Officer Positions 2011

See attached file for notes from Wednesday’s practice. AB may have said there was no clear winner, but because the opposition spoke more directly about the rights of a nation having nuclear energy rather than just the possibilities of using it, then they have to be judged the winners.
For next week, focus on the philosophical aspect behind the practicalities. For example, in the nuclear energy debate, it’s not about alternatives or weapons, it’s about whether a nation has sovereignty over its own people and actions, whether it has the right to do what it thinks best for its own people – the rights of nations, and the responsibility of nations.
nuclear energy practice

Well done to those who braved the withering stares of a trio of brutal judges to complete their first debate. Everyone showed some promise. Remember, no one, not even Abraham Lincoln himself, was a good debater to begin with. Practice, thinking and preparation will help you improve at anything. Keep at it.
There’s an IDEA tournament coming up next weekend if anyone’s interested – it’s a good chance to test your skills, and find out where you need to improve. See me for details.
Also below is a type of flow sheet that we can trial in future training debates.
GENERAL COMMENTS 22sept by AB
BP Flow Sheet – PC design
There are plenty of good websites that will help you learn about BP debate.

parliamentary debate rules IASAS (draft)

Speaker roles – BP
Debate drills – practice
example of argument and evidence in an LD debate
British Parliamentary Debate for Dummies 101 Written by Akshar and Anthony

Debate is good. So much for the preamble.
This is the last year that IASAS will use the Lincoln-Douglas format. From 2011/12 IASAS will use something similar to the British Parliamentary format. Our preparation, therefore, will be divided in two. The students selected for the 2011 IASAS competition will focus on LD and all other internal and external debates will use the BP format. The BP format is more accessible, entertaining and requires little preparation. Opposite to LD in all respects, then.
The grand plan for ISM and Forensics is to have as many students as possible participating in debate so that not only will our results hopefully improve, but they will realize that debating is fun, challenging and great preparation for school, university and life.

debate rules iasas – LD

Understanding the arcane world of LD debate is best done in several, or all, of the following ways:

Watch past events from IASAS.

Trawl through the many websites devoted to debate topics and analysis.

Examine the National Forensics League website. Beware that their version of LD is different from ours, but the topics and advice are the same.

For all debating:

Familiarize yourself with major philosophical ideas and thinkers such as JS Mill, Kant, Rousseau, Singer, Aristotle, Descartes, Adam Smith and many others.

Talk to debaters.

Debate.

Read books on debating.

Come to Forensics.

values debating

Flow sheet