WHAT YOU CAN EXPECT WHEN YOU JUDGE PUBLIC FORUM

 

FIRST, TOURNAMENT PARTICIPANTS ARE EXPECTED TO BE COURTEOUS TO EACH OTHER[1]

This tournament affirms the importance of all tournament participants’ cooperation in creating an educational and competitive environment that is fair, humane and responsible while, at the same time, encouraging speeches and debates that are devoted to full and robust argument about a diverse range of ideas.  Specifically, this tournament affirms that:

1.          Judges and students are encouraged to talk about the expectations that they have for creating a debate that focuses on ideas instead of personal attacks.

2.          Debaters are encouraged to communicate with respect, not attacking each other or the judge.

3.          Judges are encouraged to communicate with respect, not attacking or devaluing students.

4.          Debaters and judges are encouraged to reject discourse which devalues other members of our community based on their race, age, gender, class, sexual or religious orientation, or any reason that is not directly related to the arguments that they present.

5.          Students and judges are encouraged to communicate with each other when they observe instances of verbally aggressive attacks rather than silently watching something happen before them to which they object.

6.          Judges are encouraged to reward courteous and respectful behavior toward the judge and other competitors in awarding speaker points.

7.          If serious and/or repeated demeaning speech materially or substantially disrupts the opportunity for debaters to compete fairly or the judge to evaluate fairly, judges are encouraged to dock speaker points or give a team a loss. Please report this to the ballot table.

 

SECOND, THE RESOLUTION FOR THE WHITMAN TOURNAMENT

Resolved: That the United States government should implement universal health care modeled after the French system.

Announced in early October. Click here to see the November Public Forum Topic

 

THIRD, NOTICE—THERE IS NO COIN FLIP AT THE WHITMAN TOURNAMENT.

 

FOURTH, TIMES FOR PUBLIC FORUM DEBATE

NOTE: NO COIN FLIP. THE PRO-AFF AND THE CON-NEG TEAM WILL BE LISTED ON THE POSTING.

First Speaker - Team A = 4 Minutes

First Speaker - Team B = 4 Minutes

Crossfire = 3 Minutes

Second Speaker - Team A = 4 Minutes

Second Speaker - Team B = 4 Minutes

Crossfire = 3 Minutes

Summary - First Speaker - Team A = 2 Minutes

Summary - First Speaker - Team B = 2 Minutes

Grand Crossfire = 3 Minutes

Final Focus - Second Speaker - Team A = 1 Minute

Final Focus - Second Speaker - Team B = 1 Minute

Prep Time (per team) = 2 Minutes.

·        YOU CAN ASK THE TEAMS TO KEEP TRACK OF THEIR TIME OR YOU CAN TIME.

·        You can use hand signals to indicate how much time is left or you can say OUT LOUD how much time they have left (that is fairly common in policy debates).

 

Click here to go to Tips for Public Forum Ballots (Step 3)

 



[1] Taken from Kristine Bartanen and Jim Hanson, “Advocating Humane Discourse,” The Forensic of Pi Kappa Delta 80 (Fall 1994): 20-21.