College of Business Administration- Dr. Kim's Homepage

Dr. Kim

		Debate Overview
		Introduction
		Resource Page
		Affirmative
		Negative
		General Guidelines
		Writing Terms
		Debate Terms
		Sample Resolutions
		Participants
		Cyberspace Handshake
		Wording a Solution
		Persuasive Arguments
		Chai Kim Home
		CBA Home

Debate Overview

Academic debate is a valuable teaching technique that has been part of education for more than 2,000 years. The format of debate in this course, however, is unique. Traditionally debate has been a face-to-face process. In this course, "debate" means a formal clash of ideas exchanged via electronic mail on a topic between individuals or groups of individuals: one affirming the resolution and the other opposing the resolution.

Goal of the debate is to engage in a spirited exchange of ideas on an important topic. A secondary goal is to convince your judge (i.e., instructor) that our arguments are insightfully conceived, thoroughly researched, clearly organized and written. Different instructors will establish different grading and evaluation criteria. Remember, it is possible to do a fine job of debating and still not "win" the debate. On the other hand, winning a debate does not necessary result in a high evaluation.

We think it is important, however, not to view the other team as "opponents to be defeated", but as colleagues engaged in a mutual testing of ideas. We've discovered that the anonymity of e-mail debate seems to encourage comments that are easily perceived as rude, sarcastic, or even culturally insensitive. Such comments have no place in e-mail debate. Establishing a social and working relationship with other students from distant locations far outweighs the need to "win". While there is no doubt that debate is an exercise in advocacy, the best debaters are less concerned with scoring points and more concerned with the development and testing of issues.

Your specific tasks will revolve around whether your team is to defend the resolution (i.e., the affirmative) or reject the resolution (i.e., the negative). What follows is a short but intensive examination of the concepts and tools inherent to the affirmative or negative teams. Extensive discussions can easily be found in virtually any library -- just look-up "debate" in the subject catalog. However, close attention to the concepts that follow will normally be sufficient.