Resolved: Cyberbullying should be a criminal offense.
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2010 November Topic
Resolved: Allowing deep water offshore oil drilling is in the best interest of the United States.
2010 October Topic
Resolved: NATO presence improves the lives of Afghan citizens.
- Public Forum Debate is audience friendly debate. You and a partner will debate controversial issues that are "stripped" from the newspaper headlines. A Public Forum Debate round begins with a flip of a coin between the competing teams to determine your side and speaker position. Public Forum will test your skills in argumentation, cross-examination, and refutation.
- You will generally have four prelim rounds- two affirmative and two negative.
- Public Forum Debate Time Format
- First Speaker Team A-4 Minutes
- First Speaker Team B-4 Minutes
- Cross-fire (A1&B1)-3 Minutes
- Second Speaker Team A-4 Minutes
- Second Speaker Team B-4 Minutes
- Cross-fire (A2&B2)-3 Minutes
- First Speaker Summary Team A-2 Minutes
- First Speaker Summary Team B-2 Minutes
- Grand Cross-fire (All)-3 Minutes
- Second Speaker Last Shot Team A-2 Minute
- Second Speaker Last Shot Team B-2 Minute
- PREPARATION TIME FOR EACH TEAM-2 Minutes
- Public Forum Debate is usually FLIGHTED. This means there will be two debates in each room (not at the same time!) Be sure to find out what time your flight is.
- Most of the time you will have one judge in the elimination-rounds. Usually you won't get a panel(three judges) until semi-finals. Many times varsity students are used to judge novice rounds.
- In Public Forum Debate win/loss records are the first determinant for breaking to quarterfinals. If there are ties, the following are used to break the ties: opposition records, speaker points and opposition speaker points. Check the tournament rules to see in what order those are used.
Debate is usually the last event. Semis and finals are held AFTER the awards.