This activity aims to assist students with persuasive tactics for argumentative speeches. The activity involves students creating an argumentative speech to defend a hot-take assertion chosen from a list provided by the instructor. In small groups, students will craft an argument supporting their hot-take assertion and present it to the class.…

Debate paradigms, which at one time established standards to help judges evaluate arguments and rules to guide debaters' argument choice and strategy selection, no longer offer consistent guidance for either judges or debaters. An increased emphasis on creativity and flexibility has led to a general unwillingness to use a rigid debate format. The…

College debaters who go to law school are often surprised by the differences between the processes that take place in the court of reason and the process that takes place in the court of law. The court of reason relies mainly on authoritative testimony, while the court of law relies on direct evidence. Evidence in the court of reason is either…