At their last tournament, our very own debate team at Campbell did exceptionally well. The topic of debate for the year is, “Should the United States government increase intellectual property protections on copyrights, patents, or trademarks, mainly for artificial intelligence (AI), with an emphasis on the protection of journalism and restricting AI from stealing materials?” Debate tournaments begin in the early morning and have four rounds. Each team will compete on the affirmative side for two rounds and on the negative side for the other two rounds, and end with awards with a pizza lunch break in between. When it comes to the actual debate, the argument starts with constructives, which is when a teammate presents evidence for their argument. Then, their partner presents another constructive in order to elaborate on the argument made. Next is CrossEx, this is the time for the opposing team to ask questions such as, “is this/that true”, and is usually specific to the evidence presented. Lastly, the rebuttal, this is when the negative goes first and is a time to wrap up speeches and evidence on the argument, and then the debate is evaluated by a judge who determines who scored better based on which team had the better argument, confidence, and structure neatness. But how do these tournaments take place?
The Atlanta Urban Debate League (AUDL), runs the tournaments for metro Atlanta and allows free participation! AUDL also holds summer camps for those who may be interested in
debate, or are simply looking to improve their skills. Though it may seem easy, debate does take skill.
According to debate team members, Jojo Winter and Mary Frances Headrick, some of the skills required for debate include being quick on your feet, confidence in public speaking, good listening skills, and the want to learn more. Some of the advice they offer is to know that it isn’t always easy starting out and you can’t win every argument. To get through this, it is important to have perseverance, resilience, and humility. If this sounds like something you would be interested in, be sure to join the debate team next year!