Author: Steve

  • The Irish Times Debate in New York

    Irish Times clock on the new building at Townsend Street, Dublin. (Photo credit: Wikipedia) This is our second time hosting the Irish Times debate champions in New York. We were very pleased that the NPDA and the Times chose us as the anchor point for the start of this tour. The debate we had was…

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  • Worlds Debate, Instant Replay, Tech Fantasies

    It’s the middle of the government whip speech in a semifinal debate. A POI is raised about something that the Member conceded. The whip disagrees in his answer to this POI and the questioner turns and points to the back of the room – points at the video camera recording the debate. The whip says,…

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  • Teaching via Skype: WUDC Basics

    Here it is. I probably shouldn’t post it, because I make a lot of mistakes, but I was distracted pretty heavily by the technology I was using. Not the best idea to use some new tech when you are trying to teach, but I wanted to give it a try. Also, I had the audience…

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  • What’s Left Out?

    Giving a talk today via Skype to a policy debate team about Worlds style debating. The question that I am using to orient my comments is one that might be a bit Lacanian: What’s left out? Or, since it’s a format that was created in Britain perhaps the better lecture title might be “Mind the…

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  • On Visiting the Local High School League

    Image via Wikipedia Before the debate round starts, the student asks, “Are you going to judge on the flow, or are you more into persuasion?” What in the world could the difference be? What does it mean to be persuasive, and what does it mean to not be into it? What are we doing if…

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  • Championship Debates from the Northeastern US

    Here they are all together for your viewing pleasure, the elimination debates from the recent Northeastern Universities Debating Championships (NEUDC). Semifinals Finals There is a quarterfinal video, but for whatever reason, it always has an error or some problem when I upload it. It will eventually appear on this post, so keep an eye out…

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  • The NEUDC Break

    Here’s a video of the break. There was some controversy about one of the teams breaking, but it was settled by the adjudication core and the teams involved. It appears to have been about a mis-marked ballot.

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  • West Conn Video #1

    St. John’s Debate Society students talk about the upcoming break.

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  • The Lost Debate Pedagogy

    Image via Wikipedia From the 1906 version of An Introductory Course in Argumentation by Francis Perry. He’s why he arranged the textbook the way he did: In the first place, the student is practiced in the processes of argumentation without the added difficulty of research. No teacher of narration begins his work by demanding that…

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  • The Threat of Debating

    Image via Wikipedia This picture is a rare treat from Zemanta, the software I use that helps me make these posts look (supposedly) more professional. But in the end usually the images and links suggested are not appropriate, or I just don’t like them. But this one is quite good. Here we see the perfect…

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