To formulate, justify, and establish priorities for high school debate goals, one must consider only those things that debate can uniquely offer to participating students. The most important goal that debate offers is the development of critical thinking. Educators must continue to develop critical thinkers who can anticipate, discover, and…

Acceptance of a paradigm in the scientific community depends upon persuasion, upon the supplying of "good reasons" for supporting one paradigm over another. When one paradigm gains long-term acceptance and becomes the standard for scientific thought, scientists defer to such an authority in their thinking, and such established paradigms…

Controversy and debate can be effectively employed as the central pre-writing activity in the composition classroom. The current model of prewriting in the composition classroom is the reflective model, which involves relatively private exploration of issues and ideas leading to paper topics. Although in the short run it is easier for both student…

The growth in the popularity and importance of disadvantage arguments in debate has been, in some measure, due to the growing belief that debate should be viewed from a policy-making perspective. And, with the focus of contemporary debate shifting to the consequences of policy actions, there has been a concurrent increase in the sophistication of…

Intended to assist debaters and coaches who will be debating the 1983-84 national high school debate topic, this booklet combines discussion of general debate theory, and information specific to the topic: "What changes are most needed in the procedures used in the United States justice system?" The eight chapters of the booklet contain…

A study was conducted to describe male and female participation and success in both debate and individual events national competition and to identify areas of gender-based inequity. Data from three 1984 national tournaments (National Debate Tournament, American Forensic Association's National Individual Events Tournament, and the National Forensic…

An assessment of college forensics projects. (CH)

Intended for use by instructors of upper division speech courses, this paper describes a questioning and answering technique for teaching argumentation. The first section of the paper discusses the concept of argumentative exchange, which is defined as an episode between two or more individuals wherein one or more feel that differences of belief…

A survey was conducted of students participating in the 1982 Cross Examination Debate Association (CEDA) tournament to uncover the reasons why they were competing in CEDA, whether they had ever participated in the National Debate Tournament (NDT), and which style of debate they preferred. Of the 133 respondents, 83 males and 50 females, 42%…

Nonverbal displays of status are often employed in argumentative interactions for the purpose of securing an advantage over an opposing speaker. These displays can be conceptualized as "implicit ad hominem fallacies" because, like all ad hominem arguments, they shift the focus of attention away from the substantive issues in dispute to…

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…

Rules and regulations for debate and individual speech event activities are provided in this guide, which is designed for use by members of the Michigan Interscholastic Forensic Association (MIFA). The guide contains (1) a calendar of speech events, (2) regulations governing event participation and conduct, (3) school membership requirements, (4)…

A study was designed to examine debater characteristics in terms of perceived social style (assertiveness and responsiveness) and to explore the effects of debater social style in terms of perceived substantive and interpersonal conflict and debate success. Measures of perceived assertiveness, responsiveness, social style, and conflict were…

After 750 combined hours of analysis, the authors discovered major verbal and nonverbal communication differences between the candidates in the three Ford/Carter debates. The research was based on an analysis of 7,378 specific nonverbal behaviors and on 955 verbal references found in the 30,852 word transcripts. The researchers found differences…