NEWS FROM THE WORLD OF DEBATE AT http://debate.uvm.edu/debateblog/

GLOBAL DEBATE BLOG CLOSES OUT 2006 YEAR OF ACTIVITY

Sat, 30 Dec 2006 09:47:42 -0500

PHOTO: Delivering the keynote address for the Pedagogy section at the 2006 THINKING AND SPEAKING A BETTER WORLD conference in Koper, Slovenia.

As the curtain comes down on the year 2006, it seems appropriate to summarize the first year in the blogosphere for the GLOBAL DEBATE BLOG. It has been an adventure and I have found it enjoyable. Here are some thoughts and comments about year one.

This project started on March 24 2006. Since then there have been 271 blog posts to this site. There have been 126 debate related videos posted to the VideoBlog section. I have also posted 158 radio programs from WRUV-FM radio to the site. To me, this all represents a substantial commitment to the project and an indication that it needs to continue. If I can keep this up for five years or more I can really begin to generate some content that others can use, especially the videos.

<== With Loke Wing Fatt in Korea

I have been pleased by the number of people visiting this site. When a principal in a school I visit for the first time mentions it, when a member of the World Schools council suggests that others read it, when high school students in Asia have the podcast videos on their iPods, when I upload it overnight and there are emails waiting for me when I wake up about the new content, when Asian students write a story and submit it for publication, when people tell me they check it to keep track of my adventures and in many other circumstances people mention it or it seems to have an impact (including the number of people complaining about this or that), I know that it is getting noticed. That is what I want.

<== With Will Baker at CEDA Nationals in Dallas, Texas

Some people have asked me, “Why are you doing this?” Well, I will be quite honest. I am doing it to document a new global debating community that has come into being in the last few years. Debating is experiencing explosive growth in all parts of the world, and I want to document that. People don’t know there is a global debating community until they can see it. My goal is to make the existence of global debate a reality that everyone can see.

<== With Korean debaters in Seoul

I have been grateful to the increasing number of people who send me news and reports of events. I can only be in one place at a time and I can only gather so much information on my own. I need your first-hand accounts of tournaments, workshops, trainings, media events, organizational changes and various news from around the world. I want to specifically thank two great debate evangelists for their help, Loke Wing Fatt of Singapore and Jason Jarvis of Korea. You two are really making a difference, not just to me because of the news that you send, but because of the way you are taking debate to new places and in new ways. I also want to thank debate webmasters around the world for doing their jobs so well that I can alert people to your good work and the way you are publicizing debating. I always credit your work and your photos and hope that many of my visitors go to your websites to learn more.

<== With Martin Glendinning and Sarah Snider at NFL Nationals in Texas

There have been some problems. I often feel like I am preaching in the wilderness, but that is the nature of the web. I don’t know who is reading and why. I just need to have faith. This site has meant that wherever I go the first question I ask about is about wireless web access. I need that because it takes about 4-5 hours to upload the entire website. I am using iWeb (their themes look cool, I have little to do with it ... being aesthetically crippled AND color blind) and I love it, but every time I update I need to upload the entire website over again. That is quite a hassle but it is something I am going to have to live with. The answer for 2007 seems to be to break the 2006 portion away so that I will never have to upload it again and I can just upload the 2007 portion. That will become increasingly difficult as the site grows during 2007 but I am stuck with it until I change my blog software, but for now I love iWeb and plan to continue using it. I am reminded of my struggles in this regard, from choosing hotels in Croatia based on internet access, to waking up early in a hostel in Korea to go downstairs and get hooked up for upload, to my nightly procedure here in Slovenia of making sure it is uploading before I go to sleep. I wish I could just push a button as you can with some blog software, but the striking look of iWeb seems to be well worth it. I hope you agree. Other software would not be able to integrate the video and the music so easily. This has all been a little more difficult because of my being on sabbatical in Europe since early September, but I want to thank Bojana Skrt, my Slovenian host, for putting up with me through all of this (and for having a strong wireless connection). It may be a little easier as I go back to Vermont and true broadband.

<== On my porch in Baja California

Look for some new features in 2007. These should include:
-An updated search page to help you search everything on the site to find what you want.
-New correspondents and new information from new places.
-New videos from the 300+ I have that are not yet available on this site. I will start on that when I get home to Vermont.
-I have deliberated about a new design for the 2007 Blog and I have decided to keep this one. The others either look too plain or are a little too freaky for the debate community. I think this one is just about right, not so boring as most debate blogs but not too distracting either.
-Closer integration with DEBATE CENTRAL (http://debate.uvm.edu ) and DEBATEONEWORLD.ORG (http://debateoneworld.org ) my other two debate websites.
-Closer integration with the WORLD DEBATE INSTITUTE, the training programs I have hosted in Vermont (July-August), Slovenia (November) and Korea (August). I also will continue to do the WDI blog site at http://debate.uvm.edu/wdiblog/wdiblog/Blog/Blog.html .
-Adding new web resources to the site, such as the plans to host David Seikel’s debate history website.
-The chance to host some debates using the videoblog technology I have been advocating. Now I need to find some people who will actually do it. Volunteers are welcome. If you want to be in a debate against someone in another part of the world but don’t want to spend money, please contact me.
-New ideas and new developments I cannot even imagine now.

<== With Misha, Vesna and Bojana in Serbia

Please feel free to join me. I am just interested in promoting debate. If you have news, or ideas or want to be in a videoblog debate, please email me at alfred.snider@uvm.edu . I think I have a good record of working together productively with many different kinds of people over the last 35 years I have been in debate, and I would like you to be one of them.

Please experience a happy and safe new year, at least if you use the particular calendar in question. Otherwise, have a great day!

BLOGGING HELPS THOSE AT HOME KEEP IN TOUCH WITH WUDC IN VANCOUVER

Sat, 30 Dec 2006 09:30:23 -0500

PHOTO: Colm Flynn, from his website

I know of two blogs for WUDC 2007 in Vancouver. They are keeping us in touch about motions, results and (of course) complaints.

Colm Flynn’s blog can be found at:
http://www.debating.net/index.php?option=com_wrapper&Itemid=46

Ciarán Lawlor’s blog can be found at http://1stpropinthefinal.blogspot.com/

WORLD MASTERS ROUNDS AT UBC NOW DOWN TO THE TOP FOUR

Fri, 29 Dec 2006 13:11:26 -0500

Colm Flynn reports at http://www.debating.net/index.php?option=com_wrapper&Itemid=46 the results of the Masters competition so far.

The Masters rounds were held on Thursday. They are now down from 24 teams to the final 4.  The finalists will be: 1 England A (Jessica Harvey Smith & Neil Harvey Smith) 2 Australia A (Nicole Lynch & Victor Finkel)  3 Quebec A (Matt Sinclair & Ali Dewji)  4 England D (Jessica Van Der Meer & Andrew Marshall)  The final will be held on Tuesday 2nd January  The motions were: This house would designate one city to permanently host the Olympics  This house believes that governments should provide heroin addicts with safe injection facilities.

SEIKEL DEBATE HISTORY WEBSITE IS OVERWHELMED BY TRAFFIC

Wed, 27 Dec 2006 14:04:37 -0500

David Seikel’s debate history website was so frequently visited that it was overwhelmed even on Christmas weekend. Here is his forward about what happened. I plan to work with him to create a site suitable for his massive content and all the traffic. Stay tuned for news!

Debatosaur fossil find foments ferocious frenzy of fantastic frequent file forwarding . . .

**********

Wow!!!

I had no idea so many people would be interested in my project or that it would be so exuberantly received.

Numerous old friends and new acquaintances have graciously sent me back-channel thank-yous.

Since I posted "Debatosaur Fossils Found" on 23 December 2006, I received over 500 hits on my website and used over 4.5 G of my 5 G data transfer limit.

And all this happened on Christmas weekend!

Unfortunately, as a consequence of this wholly unexpected level of enthusiasm, I had to remove all of the content and delete all of the website segments except for NDTAudio. I put a message on that page stating that the 1957, 1961, and 1969 recordings are now at the NDT website.

It appears that I will not have the luxury of "crawling" up the website creation and management learning curve. The herd of cloned Verbal Velociraptors that I mentioned at the end of "Debatosaur Fossils Found" is after me! LOL

I'm going to scramble, learn to use a website creation package (probably either RapidWeaver or SandVox), and locate a reliable webhosting company for a reasonably priced plan with a high transfer limit.

Even with a high limit, I will probably need to impose a data transfer "throttle" to keep my out-of-pocket costs under control. If so, when I activate my new website, I will explain the details in an update here on eDebate.

My goal is to have my new website on-line in early January 2007.

**********

Thanks for your support and patience.

"I'll be back"!!!

Debatosaurus Tex
(a/k/a David Seikel)

DSR-TKA OFFERS A TRULY COMPREHENSIVE FORENSIC EXPERIENCE

Wed, 27 Dec 2006 13:45:20 -0500

PHOTO: DSR-TKA banquet at Wayne State University

Many people around the world have asked me how there can be a tournament that involves debate and other individual events. For a sample of such an event I offer the current invitation to the national tournament held by the forensic honorary society, Delta Sigma Rho-Tau Kappa Alpha, a result of the merger in 1963 of two different forensic honorary societies. You can see that it is a busy weekend with a lot of things scheduled. It is a sample of how you can have many different events at one tournament.

For information about the tournament contact Joann Edwards at jedwards@olemiss.edu .

Here is the tournament invitation.

December 27, 2006

Dear Colleague:

You are invited to attend the 2006-2007 National Delta Sigma Rho-Tau Kappa Alpha National Forensic Conference to be held at The University of Mississippi, March 15-17, 2007. This year’s conference will offer competition in NPDA Debate, L-D Debate, Student Congress, and all 11 AFA Individual events.

Please notice, the schedule accommodates a dedicated Student Congress Competition hosted by the Trent Lott Leadership Institute at the University of Mississippi. We are encouraging you to contact your Student Government Associations, Political Science, Public Policy, Model United Nations and Pre-law students and encourage them to participate. The Congress has an Early Registration on Wednesday evening, March 14 and the first General Session opens the competition at 8:00 a.m. on Thursday, March 15. Each University or College can enter up to two teams of four. Each University or College can accrue DSR-TKA Overall Sweepstakes points by designating the team chosen to accrue the points for your institution. Regular tournament activities begin Thursday afternoon.

Dr. Charles Delancey, DSR-TKA Vice President and Student Congress Director has chosen “Immigration Reform” as the topic area. Please read the invitation carefully to note changes made in this year’s conference entry deadlines, entry allowances, etc. Please find enclosed explanations of all events offered during the conference, hotel information, awards information, and conference schedule.

We are looking forward to an exciting and competitive conference at the University of Mississippi, and we hope that you will plan to attend. Please feel free to contact us should you have any questions.

DSR-TKA National Conference and Tournament
Tournament Hotel
Downtown Oxford
Inn and Suites
400 North Lamar Boulevard
Oxford, MS 38655
Reservations: 800-606-1497 (please
Hotel: 662-234-3031
Rate: $79 for King and Doubles
Deadline for making reservations – February 14 – be sure to identify yourselves with DSR-TKA Speech and Debate

Hampton Inn
110 Heritage Drive
Oxford, MS 38655
662-232-2442
Rate $99 for Standard Double & $104 for King
Deadline for making reservations – March 1 – be sure to identify yourselves with DSR-TKA Speech and Debate

Alternate Hotels
Holiday Inn Express Hotel and Suites -236-2500
Comfort Inn – 234-6000
Days Inn – 234-9500

Events:
NPDA Parliamentary Debate, Team Debate, and NFA Lincoln Douglas Debate, will be offered as well as three conflict patterns of AFA Individuals Events: After Dinner Speaking, Communication Analysis, Dramatic Duo, Dramatic Interpretation, Extemporaneous Speaking, Impromptu Speaking, Informative Speaking, Persuasive Speaking, Poetry Interpretation, Program Oral Interpretation, and Prose Interpretation. Student Congress will also be offered.

Parliamentary Debate (NPDA):
Six preliminary rounds of NPDA will be followed by an appropriate number of elimination rounds as indicated by the NPDA by-laws. Unlimited entry in NPDA debate will be allowed, but only the top four teams will count for sweepstakes points. NPDA rules will be used in governing the parliamentary debate competition. TIME LIMITS ARE: PM – 7 min, all other constructive speeches – 8 min, Opposition Rebuttal – 4 min, and Government rebuttal – 5 min.
Tabulation and Elimination Rounds
All debate will be paired randomly for rounds 1&2, High/High for rounds 3 &5, and High/Low for rounds 4 & 6. At the end of the preliminary rounds, the top teams in each division of NPDA. Teams advance first on their win loss record, next on adjusted speaker points, and finally on the basis of their opposition record. Pairings in the elimination rounds will be on the basis of strength versus weakness. BRACKETS WILL NOT BE BROKEN in elimination rounds, and two teams from the same school will be scheduled to meet if the bracket dictates.
Lincoln Douglas Debate:
The topic to be used at the tournament is the current year’s NFA Lincoln Douglas Debate topic. Four preliminary rounds will be followed by an appropriate number of elimination rounds. Advancement will be first on a win/loss record, then by adjusted speaker points, and finally by quality of competition. Entry in L-D is unlimited, however only the top three competitors will count towards the sweepstakes awards. Tabulation will proceed as with the other types of debate. Time Limits are 1AC – 6 minutes, CX – 3min, 1NC – 7 min., CX – 3 min, 1AR – 6 min, NR – 6 min, 2AR – 3 min. Each Speaker has 4 minutes preparation time.
Individual Events – General:
The individual events offered are subject to the rules of the AFA National Individual Events Tournament. Complete event descriptions are available on request. Semi-finals and finals will follow two preliminary rounds with the top twelve advancing to semifinals and the top six to finals. If more than 40 students enter an event, that event will go to semifinals, in no case shall 50% or more of contestants in an event advance to elimination rounds. BRACKETS WILL NOT BE BROKEN IN THE SEMI-FINAL ROUNDS.

CONFLICT PATTERN A: CA PER PRO ADS DI
CONFLICT PATTERN B: EXT INF POE
CONFLICT PATTERN C: IMP POI DUO

If a student is participating in individual events only, a maximum of two events per pattern will be allowed. Students are responsible for making it to their rounds on time. No student may enter an event twice, although a student may enter a second Duo with another partner. Students entered in five events will be eligible for the pentathlon award. Schools may enter as many students as they wish in an event, however, only the top three entries per event will count toward sweepstakes awards.
Student Congress
Entries in Student Congress are limited to two teams of four students. Only one team will count toward Sweepstakes points. The contributing team must be designated at Student Congress Registration. Observers and alternates are welcome.
Topic Area: Immigration Reform
Committees: Border Security
Health and Welfare
Employment
Immigration Law and Enforcement
We will compile a Bill Book. To that end, all legislation is due with the entry. Entry deadline is Monday, March 12, 2007 by 5:00 p.m.

Entry Allowances
1. 6 Individual Events (2 each pattern)
2. NPDA and LD
3. NPDA and B events only
4. LD and 4 individual events

Judging Obligations
All judges are expected to be available for the first elimination round of debate and one round beyond that in which their team is eliminated. Judges in individual events should expect to judge in all conflict patterns even if they have students entered in only one conflict pattern. One Judge Covers: 2 NPDA teams, 8 individual events slots, or 2 LD debate slots. Judges can cover partial entries in more than one event. (For instance, one judge could cover one NPDA debate team and 4 IE slots.) No judges are required for student congress.

Entry Deadlines
ALL ENTRIES MUST BE RECEIVED BY 5:00 P.M. Central Time
Monday March 12, 2007
Please e-mail your entry to all three below:
Frank Thompson at fthompso@ua.edu
Mike Edmonds at medmonds@ColoradoCollege.edu
JoAnn Edwards at jedwards@olemiss.edu

Direct any questions concerning the tournament to JoAnn Edwards 662-915-3799
National Awards
• Student Speaker of the Year Award - Please consider nominating an outstanding student from your chapter for this award. The student nominated must be a senior. Nominations will be judged on the student’s academic accomplishments, forensic achievement, and community service. Nominations must include a vitae of activities and accomplishments, a letter or letters of recommendation, a brief statement from the student nominated, and a transcript of academic record. For additional information please refer to the DSR-TKA Constitution and bylaws. All nominations must be turned in no later than Noon on Friday, March 16, 2007. You can also mail your nominations and supporting material to
JoAnn Edwards
Lott Leadership Institute
P.O. Box 175, University, MS 38677
For more information, call JoAnn Edwards @ 662-915-3799.

Chapter Community Service/Outreach Award
In 1998, the DSR-TKA student officers felt it important to recognize the many contributions our chapter schools make in their local communities. Therefore, an award is now presented each year to a chapter(s) that has made unique and outstanding efforts in the area of community service. Chapter will be judged on assessment of community need, uniqueness, and overall effectiveness of their program. If your chapter would like to be considered for this recognition, please submit an essay explaining those accomplishments in this area of service. The essay, not to exceed 350 words, and any additional materials you feel would he helpful to the selection committee should be submitted at the Tournament Registration desk no later than Noon Friday, March 16, 2007.
Distinguished Alumni and Distinguished Service Awards
We encourage you to nominate individuals for separate distinguished alumni and distinguished service awards. For the service award, you may nominate any individual who you feel has served the forensic community with merit. The alumni award nomination is limited to a former DSR-TKA member who has earned a career of distinction during their life. Nominations should be in writing and should contain a summary of why the individual is worthy of consideration of this award. Nominations are due by Noon March 14, 2007. Please submit your nominations to the chair of the distinguished alumni and service awards committee, Frank Thompson at fthompson@ua.edu.
Conference Awards for Competition
Appropriate awards will be presented in all conference events: all elimination rounds in debate, debate speaker awards, semi and finalists in individual events, and student congress. To be eligible for pentathlon awards in individual events students must be entered in five individual events. A sweepstakes award will be presented to the school with the best overall record; to be eligible for this award a school must be entered in at least two of the three areas of conference participation (Debate, Congress, Individual Events.) In debate, schools receive three points per preliminary win (counting only the top four teams in NPDA and the top three L-Ders). In congress a superior rating earns 18 points, while an excellent rating earns 12 points. In individual events only the top three students in an event may earn points. Points awarded will be 18 points for 1st place, 15 points for 2nd , 12 points for 3rd , 9 points for 4th , 6 points for 5th, and 3 points for 6th.
New Member Initiation
We will hold the model initiation prior to the banquet Saturday evening. Please see the enclosed Initiation Form. Initiation forms and initiation fees are due during the tournament registration.
Fees
• Fees for the conference are $70 per student and $50 per faculty member. These fees apply to Student Congress participants as well. One Student Congress Team of Four will have an entry fee of $240 associate with participation. These fees cover all of the costs of the tournament, including the Saturday night banquet and food for Student Congress, Thursday evening “working” dinner.
• An additional fee of $50 will be charged to non-member schools competing at the tournament.
• If a member school has not paid annual dues of $50 or has not initiated students in the last year, annual dues of $50 will be assessed on the entry. This will cover the cost of two initiates.
• Uncovered entries will be assessed the following fees: $10 per IE slot, $40 per L-D slot, and $50 per NPDA. Please try to cover as much of your entry as possible as there will be a great demand for judges. After the entry deadline, late entries may or may not be accepted, depending upon facility availability. Should your entry be accepted, there will be a nuisance fee of $60. Drops after the deadline of March 12, 2007 are: $20. for each IE dropped, $40 for each L-D dropped, $50 for each NPDA team dropped, $20 for each Congress drop and $60 for each judge dropped. Please remember that these nuisance fees are in addition to the original entry total.

ALL ENTRIES MUST BE RECEIVED BY 5:00 P.M. Central Time
Monday, March 12, 2007
Please e-mail your entry to all three below:
Frank Thompson at fthompso@ua.edu
Mike Edmonds at medmonds@ColoradoCollege.edu
JoAnn Edwards at jedwards@olemiss.edu
CONFLICT PATTERN A: CA PER PRO ADS DI
CONFLICT PATTERN B: EXT INF POE
CONFLICT PATTERN C: IMP POI DUO
Entry Allowances
• 6 Individual Events (2 each pattern)
• NPDA and B events only
• LD and 4 individual events

Fee Worksheet

_____ students @ $70. per student = _____

_____Faculty @ $50. per person= _____

_____Uncovered IE slots @ $10. each= _____

_____Uncovered L-D slots @ $40. each= _____

_____NPDA Debate teams @ $50. each= _____

$50 School fee for non members= _____
$50 Annual Membership Dues=

NUISANCE FEES : ALL DOUBLE AFTER MARCH 15
_____ Late registration @ $60. per school= _____

_____ Judges Dropped @ $60. each= _____

_____Debate teams dropped @ $50. each= _____

_____LD Slots dropped @ $40. each= _____

_____IE Slots dropped @ $20. each= _____

TOTAL FEES: __________

Tournament Schedule of Events
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
5:00 – 8:00
• National Student Congress Registration @ The Downtown Oxford Inn & Suites
• Meeting DSR-TKA National Committee
Thursday, March 15, 2007
Student Congress
7:00-8:00 Onsite Registration for Student Congress
8:00 Student Congress Opening Assembly
8:30 First Party Caucus
9:00 General Assembly
9:30-11:30 Second Party Caucus
11:30 Caucus Final Balloting and Committee Assignments
12:00-1:00 Lunch (Committee Leadership setting agendas for meetings)
1:00-3:00 Committee Meetings & Debate
3:00-3:30 Preparation of Majority and Minority Reports
3:30 – 5:00 Introduction of Bills, Majority/Minority Reports, Committee Balloting
5:00-6:00 Dinner Break – (Speaker of the Assembly sets time limits)
6:30-9:30 Full Session and Final Balloting
Friday March 16, 2007
8:00-9:00 Debate/IE Conference Registration
8:00-10:00 Student Congress Distinguished Session
11:00 DSR-TKA Student Membership Meeting/Election of Officers
11:00 DSR-TKA Sponsor Meeting
11:30 Student Congress Awards/Opening Assembly for Debate/IE
12:30 Extemp Draw
1:00 Round #1 Pattern B, LD Round #1
2:30 Round #1 Pattern A, NPDA Round #1
4:00 Round #1 Pattern C, NPDA Round # 2
5:30 Extemp Draw
6:00 Round #2 Pattern B, LD Round #2
7:30 Round #2 Pattern A, NPDA Round # 3
9:00 LD Round #3
Saturday March 17, 2007
8:00 Round #2 Pattern C, NPDA Round # 4
9:30 Extemp Draw
10:00 Semis as needed Pattern A & B, LD Round #4
11:30-12:30 Lunch
12:30 NPDA Round #5
1:30 LD Elims Start
2:00 Finals of Remaining IE Events
3:30 NPDA Round #6
5:00 NPDA Elims Start
6:30 New Student Initiation
7:00 Awards
7:30 Banquet

UNIVERSITY WORLDS BEGINS IN VANCOUVER

Tue, 26 Dec 2006 13:49:51 -0500

PHOTO: Aerial viw of UBC campus

December 27 is arrival day in Vancouver for the largest university debating tournament in the world -- Worlds 2007 at the University of British Columbia. Check their now-operating blog at http://www.debating.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=24&Itemid=35

We hope to have some reports from our correspondents there in the days to come.

Miranda Wegler mweigler@mac.com has published a list of attendees, and at 339 teams it is the largest ever.

Listed with team/ judge/ observer numbers.

Aberdeen University
1 team

Amherst University
2 teams, 1 judge

Assumption University
3 teams, 12 judges and 2 observers

Ateneo de Manila University
3 teams, 2 judges

Australian National University
3 teams, 2 judges

Bates College
4 teams, 4 judges

Berlin debating union
1 team

Bonaparte
1 team

Bond University
1 team

Boston University
2 teams, 2 judges

Brandeis University
1 team, 1 judge

Bristol
1 team

Cabrillo College
1 judge

California State University, San Bernardino
3 teams, 2 judges

Cambridge Union Society
5 teams, 3 judges

Carleton University
3 teams, 2 judges

Chinese University of Hong Kong
5 teams, 4 judges

Chung-Ang University
3 teams, 2 judges

Claremont Colleges
3 teams, 2 judges

Colgate University
4 teams, 4 judges

Columbia Basin College
3 teams, 2 judges

Duke University
2 teams, 1 judge

Durham University
3 teams, 2 judges

East West University
1 team, 4 judges

Ewha Women's University
1 team

Fordham University
3 teams, 2 judges

Foreign Affairs
1 team

Foreign Languages Teaching and Research Press
1 judge, 1 observer

George Washington University
1 team

Glasgow University Union
2 teams, 1 judge

Griffith University
2 teams, 3 judges

Han Yang University
1 observer

Hart House
5 teams, 4 judges

Harvard University
5 teams, 3 judges

Hebrew university
2 teams, 1 judge

Hobart and William Smith Colleges
1 team, 1 judge

Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
3 teams, 2 judges

Honourable Society of Lincoln's Inn
1 team

InCheon
1 team, 1 judge

Inner Temple
1 team

Institute of Business Administration (IBA), University of Dhaka
3 teams, 1 judge

International Christian University
3 teams, 3 judges

International University Bremen
2 teams, 1 judge

Islamic University of Technology
1 team, 2 judges

Johns Hopkins University
3 judges

Kansai Foreign Study University
1 team, 1 judge

Kansai Gaidai University
3 teams, 2 judges

Keio University
4 teams, 3 judges

KDI
1 judge

KUITTHO
1 team, 2 judges

Kyiv National Taras Shevchenko University
1 team, 1 judge

Kyung Hee University
2 teams, 1 judge, 1 observer

Kyoto University
1 team

La Verne
4 teams, 4 judges

Leiden University
1 team, 2 judges

Lewis & Clark College
1 team, 1 judge

Literary & Historical Society
3 teams, 4 judges

London School of Economics Students' Union
3 teams, 2 judges

Louisiana College
2 teams, 2 judges

Loyola Marymount University
3 teams, 2 judges

LUMS
2 judges

Macquarie University
3 teams, 2 judges

Mahidol University International College
2 teams, 1 judge

Manchester Debating Union (MDU)
1 team

Massachusetts Institute of Technology
2 teams, 1 judge

McGill University
3 teams, 2 judges

McMaster University
1 team, 1 judge

METU
2 teams, 2 judges

Middle Temple
2 teams

Monash University
4 teams, 4 judges

National Law School of India University (NLSIU), Bangalore, India
1 team

National University of Ireland
5 judges

National University of Lesotho
3 teams, 2 judges

National University of Singapore
3 teams, 4 judges

New York University
1 team, 1 judge

NIDA
1 team

North South University
3 judges

Northwest University
3 teams, 2 judges

NTU Singapore
2 teams, 1 judge

Ocean University of China
1 team

Occidental College
1 team

Osaka University
2 teams, 1 judge

Oxford Union Society
6 teams, 5 judges

Portland State University
6 teams, 5 judges

Princeton University
3 teams, 2 judges

Queen Mary, University of London
1 team

Queen's University
3 teams, 2 judges

Royal Holloway, University of London
3 teams, 2 judges

Seattle University
3 teams, 2 judges

Seikei University
3 teams, 2 judges, 1 observer

Shanghai Jiaotong University
2 judges

Simon fraser University
1 judge

Singapore Management University
2 teams, 1 judge

Society for Associated Inter-Tertiary Debaters (SAID), Singapore
1 team, 1 judge

Sophia University
1 team

south-central University of Nationalities
1 team, 1 judge

Southern Illinois University
1 team, 3 judges

St Andrews University
3 teams, 2 judges

Stanford
3 teams, 2 judges

Stockholm School of Economics in Riga
1 team

Swarthmore College
3 teams, 2 judges

TCD Hist
2 teams, 1 judge

TCD PHIL
2 teams, 1 judge

Tilburg University
1 team

Tokai University
2 teams, 3 judges

Tokyo University
1 team

Tokyo University of Foreign Studies
2 teams, 1 judge

Tokyo Women's University /International Christian University
2 teams, 1 judge

Tsinghua University
1 team, 1 judge

Tsuda College
3 teams, 2 judges

Universiti Sains Malaysia
1 team, 1 judge, 1 observer

Univ. of Alaska
3 teams, 3 judges

University of Alberta
4 teams, 12 judges

UBB Law
1 team

Univeristy of Birmingham, UK
1 team

University of Bonn
1 team, 2 judges

University of Botswana
2 teams

University College Lahore
2 teams, 3 judges

The UCC Law Society
2 teams, 1 judge

University College Cork Philosoph
2 teams, 1 judge

UCD Law Society
3 teams, 3 judges

University of Calgary
3 teams, 2 judges

University of Chicago
2 teams, 2 judges

University of Colombo
1 team
University Of Dhaka
1 team

University of Dundee
1 judge

University of Haifa
1 team, 2 judges, 1 observer

University of Helsinki
1 team

University of Hong Kong (HKU)
6 teams, 4 judges

University of International Business and Economics
1 judge

University of Lethbridge
1 team

University of Manitoba
1 team

University of Melbourne
1 team, 1 judge

University of Minnesota
1 team, I judge, 1 observer

University of New South Wales (UNSW)
3 teams, 2 judges

University of Oporto
1 team

University of Otago
1 team

University of Ottawa
2 teams, 1 judge

University of the Pacific
3 teams, 1 judge, 1 observer

University of the Philippines Manila
1 judge

University of Saskatchewan
2 teams, 1 judge

University of Sydney Union
8 teams, 9 judges, 1 observer

University of Technology, Jamaica
3 teams, 2 judges

UT MARA
3 teams, 2 judges

University of Technology, Sydney
2 teams, 4 judges

University of Toronto
1 judge

University of Queensland
6 teams, 6 judges

University of Vermont
1 team

University of Waterloo
2 judges

University of the West Indies, Cave Hill
2 teams, 2 judges

University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Faculty of Law
1 team, 1 judge

University of the West Indies, Mona
3 teams, 2 judges, 2 observers

University of Western Ontario
2 teams, 1 judge

University of Winnipeg
1 team, 1 judge

University of Zagreb
1 team

Vassar College
1 team

Voices MMU Cyber
2 teams, 1 judge

Western Washington University
2 teams, 1 judge

Wilfrid Laurier University
2 teams 1 judge?

Willamette University
2 teams?

Wuhan University
1 team, 1 judge

Xiamen University
1 judge

Yale University
6 teams, 7 judges

Yokohama City University
5 teams, 12 judges?

York University
1 team

Zagreb Law
3 teams and 1 judges

INDEPENDENT:

Kirsty Russell
Andrew Marshall
Hannah Bush
Neill Harvey Smith
Jess Harvey Smith

DAVID SEIKEL CREATES INTERNET DEBATE HISTORY ARCHIVE

Tue, 26 Dec 2006 12:27:43 -0500

PHOTO: David Seikel sent me this recent mugshot.

David Seikel, former top USA debater and moot court champion, has been living in Prague, Czech Republic after a very active career as a lawyer. But, he has found a new pursuit, creating an archive of older debate material that he is now beginning to put on the Internet. He recently posted the URL of his site and some descriptions to the eDebate listserv in the USA.

Check out a Prague Post article about some of his work at http://www.praguepost.com/P03/2004/spsect/0401/sp1.php

Paleontologists recently shocked the scientific community by
unearthing the "missing links" in the evolution of policy debate . . .

Conclusive proof of the extinct species, "debatosaur," is now
available on the internet for scholarly assessment . . .

*********

1. Background

During the last seven years, I accumulated a vast archive of debate
recordings, transcripts, tournament information, and other
memorabilia. (Later, I may write a detailed account of how I got all
this stuff.)

Although I do not purport to be a scholar, I have long adhered to to
the Prime Directive of Academia: "Never Throw Anything Away!"

Before I retired and moved to Europe three years ago, I did, however,
amend the Prime Directive with the Seikel Corollary: "Never Throw
Anything Away, Until You Have Digitized It!"

I now have digitized tens of thousands of pages of debate material
and dozens of audio recordings of "ancient" debates.

2. Website

Recently, I created a website on which I will post portions of my
debate archive. Here is the URL:

http://homepage.mac.com/dseikel/FileSharing1.html

Note: I am a complete "newbie" at website creation and maintenance.
Please bear with me while I "crawl" up the learning curve. My plan
(hope?) is to establish a website with a more sophisticated structure
and format, but, for now, I will use my "quick and dirty" first effort.

Further Note: I have been a Kool-Aid drinking member of the
Macintosh Cult since I bought two of the first 50,000 off the
assembly line in 1984. Although I will attempt to accommodate the
technical needs of those of you on the Dark Side, I may not always
succeed.

3. NDT Audio

To complement the personal accounts of final rounds on the NDT
website, I have posted recordings of the final rounds at West Point
in 1957 and 1969.

Also, I posted the 1961 West Point final starring Larry Tribe, Gene
Clements, Frank Harrison, and Peter Smith.

Much more to come over the next few months!

The audio recordings are in M4A format. Dark Side Devotees may need
to download the free QuickTime Player software from the Apple website
at this URL:

http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/win.html

Note: Although the recordings can be played through iTunes, I
generally prefer to use the non-iTunes Quicktime Player for debates,
moots, lectures, and similar content.

Currently, I am working with Allan Louden to transfer copies of my
NDT recordings, transcripts, and tournament info to the official NDT
website.

4. NDT1969

Located here are various items, including the tournament book,
prelims pairings (missing round 8), prelim results, photos, final
round ballots, and other material, from the 1969 NDT.

5. ISTR

Until the year 2000, I did not know that reports titled
"Intercollegiate Speech Tournament Results" were published each year
from 1962 through 1992 (excluding 1982-1984). Although my college
coach, Bill English, had some of them in his files, he probably
didn't show them to the squad members out of concern that we would
waste valuable research time perusing and discussing those reports.

I have scanned all of the ISTRs that were published and am doing some
clean-up on the images. My goal is to post one every week or so
until I have all of them up.

ISTR 1962 is up; later reports are far more comprehensive, and most
include an index by school.

6. OklaHS (Oklahoma High School Debate)

Before emigrating to Texas to attend the University of Houston
(1966-1969), I debated at St. Gregory's High School in Shawnee,
Oklahoma (1963-1965) and Harrah Junior High School, Harrah, Oklahoma (1962).

The initial post on the OklaHS segment is a report by Frank G.
Mitchell, son of legendary Seminole High School coach H. B. Mitchell,
titled "A History of Oklahoma Debate Champions." He recounts the
staggering dominance of Oklahoma high schools in competitive
forensics during the period up to 1960. (Frank won second at NFL
Nationals in 1951; his brother, Robert, won first in 1956.)

I am preparing a series of charts to update and supplement Mitchell's
history. Drafts of the charts will be up shortly.

7. Other Segments

There are "place-holders" for other segments on my website; more
content is coming soon!

**********

Well, that's a preliminary overview . . . . many more fossils will
be available during 2007!

Happy Holidays!!!

Debatosaurus Tex (a/k/a David Seikel)

Warning: Lame attempts at humor by referring to debatosaur fossils
as coprolites will result in attacks on the perpetrators by a cloned
herd of Verbal Velociraptors!!!

UNIVERSITY DEBATE WORKSHOP IN BELGRADE, SERBIA 22-24 DECEMBER 2006

Mon, 25 Dec 2006 14:31:34 -0500

PHOTO: At the conclusion of the exhibition debate at the Faculty of Organization Sciences in Belgrade.

Several Serbian students attended the International Debate Academy in Slovenia this last November. This allowed me to rekindle my long-running relationship with the debate community in Serbia that began in 1996 when I first visited. I have been back again twice, once to visit the Faculty of Law and my friends Sima Avramovic and Obrad Stanojevic and also once again to attend the Belgrade Open with a University of Vermont team and stage a debate workshop with John Meany of the Claremont Colleges.

<== Misha, Mirjana and Vesna

I had met Vesna Ceranic and Misha Mitrovic when they came to Slovenia on a non-debate exchange, but they scheduled a friendly debate at the Faculty of Law in Ljubljana that I critiqued and also videotaped. You can see it at http://debate.uvm.edu/debateblog/doctortuna/VideoBlog/FFDC4AE7-B4BD-409A-AC8E-165F3CF1B26A.html . Vesna and Misha were not happy with this debate, but it got them fired up and they both came to the Academy. At the Academy we talked about arranging a debate workshop for university students in Belgrade and I indicated that I was very interested. We did some planning and they found a number of students from various faculties who were interested, and so it was arranged. Bojana Skrt and I took the train to Belgrade from Ljubljana (nine hours, but an interesting way to see the countryside) and arrived in Belgrade early in the evening. We were met by Vesna and a new debater named Mario (he had a car and turned out to be a very talented guy) and they drove us through Belgrade to a special university housing complex called Rifat where we were checked into very nice accommodations. We adjourned to a nearly restaurant for a light meal and talked about the schedule and made other plans for the three day event coming up. Everyone seemed very excited, and it looked like the planning had been excellently done. Bojana’s phone worked and she made some phone calls to begin planning to meet up with old friends from Serbia during the trip.

<== Mila with her promo pamphlet for her documentary Cinema Komunisto

The next morning we got a chance to visit with Mila Turajlic. She had visited Vermont. I had worked with her before, and she had been on Flashpoint television http://debate.uvm.edu/debateblog/doctortuna/VideoBlog/34E2E952-80D9-456A-8F8D-22ED5BBB5A8A.html . We had a lot of catching up to do and we did. She has been in Mexico working on Mel Gibson’s Apocalypto and also organizing plans to do a documentary about the Yugoslavian film industry under Tito. It sounds like a fantastic project and two television networks have already signed on for financing and hopefully more will commit funds out of the eleven who are interested. Because I think she is one of the smartest people I know I asked her about the current situation in Serbia and she was extremely informative, and it was a good way to start the visit. She dropped us off at the Faculty of Organizational Sciences that was hosting the event. We also heard from Tomislav Kargacin, one of my dearest friends, who has been a faculty member at the World Debate Institute, and he planned to come in from Novi Sad on Sunday to help out with the seminar.

<== Jovana debating

People began to gather and soon we had about 30 people, just about everyone who had signed up for the seminar. We didn’t have much of an opening ceremony but got right down to it. I gave my short talk on “debate as the success skill of the 21st Century,” I reviewed the schedule and Bojana did an assessment of the attendees so she could divide them up into separate groups based on experience. Then I did a lecture on public speaking and we took a coffee break. After the break we did about 90 minutes of public speaking small group practice sessions, evaluating everyone’s skills and needs for improvement and allowing them to speak several times each. Then we ended for the day and adjourned to Kovac, a restaurant nearby favored by the debaters, for a discussion of feedback from the students and possible adjustments for the rest of the schedule. After that one of the law students, Jovana, took us to the Faculty of Law to make a connection with Sima and Obrad to meet later. They were, as usual, working with their students on Friday evening, this time coaching them for performance at an upcoming rhetoric contest. We made a lunch date for Monday. I also saw Nikola, who had been a student at WDI, Voya (now a professor) and Mirodrag, now a vice dean. I don’t think he is in that punk band any more. We met up with Serbian debate organizer Zorica Pazic of the Association for Creative Communication and Debate in Serbia. We had a wonderful dinner at a traditional Serbian restaurant, and we were joined by Emil, who is now in the insurance business but had attended the World Debate Institute as a university student. We had a wonderful time and a fascinating conversation. We went back to Rifat and got some needed sleep because Saturday, we knew, would be difficult.

<== Faculty of Organizational Sciences

Saturday was, indeed, challenging. We continued our pattern of lectures followed by active workshops to turn the concepts into behavior. I lectured about argumentation and then we had an argument building workshop. We went to Kovac for lunch and then it was back to work. In the afternoon Bojana lectured about case building and then we broke up into case building drill sessions, with students being given a motion and then ten minutes to come up with a case outline and interpretation. They each got to do at least two motions. We had a brief coffee break and then I did a presentation on refutation techniques and we did some example refutation. We adjourned to Kovac (great apricot schnapps there) and had some great fellowship with the debaters. They were exhausted but they were very excited. We met up with Professor Mirjana Drakulic of the Faculty of Organizational Sciences who is the sponsor of the debate club there and who is adored by the students as an academic, mentor and supporter of debate. She and her husband Ratko took us down by the river for dinner. We went to a simply marvelous dinner boat called The Principle (there were others called Dialog and Buddha close by) and we had a fabulous meal overlooking the beautiful city across the water, with the Serbian Orthodox Church, the Faculty of Art on one side of us, and the Kalemargen (major park overlooking the conflunce of the Sava and Danube rivers and dominated by the towering statue dedicated to the struggle against the Turks, called the Victor). The food was simply spectacular. I am a real fan of using nuts in good cooking, so the two dishes I had with pine nuts in one and hazelnuts in the other were wonderful. The apricot schnapps was also the best I have ever had. The music was excellent, a trio from Belgium with an amazing range of music. I declined dessert because I was satiated and satisfied. The conversation during the meal was very stimulating, and reviewed many things, including the Milosevic era and the NATO bombing campaign. We also discussed the possibility of my teaching a summer class in persuasion at the faculty. We took a brief walk along the river taking in the sights. Then, it was back to Rifat, as we were both obviously tired.

<== Crew from English debate on Serbia not entering the EU

Sunday we started bright and early and it was to be a day of debates. We had scheduled one in the morning and one in the afternoon, both with long critiques. We had some debates in English and others in Serbian, as Bojana and Tomislav can handle that language quite well. The first motion was that Serbia should not join the European Union. Tomislav Kargacin arrived as expected and it was a wonderful reunion. He is now teaching in Novi Sad several subjects including philosophy, rhetoric and Latin. We went to lunch together at (you guessed it) Kovac and had a wonderful time remembering all of our past adventures and tribulations. We asked about people we both knew and traded information. It did my heart great good to be with Tomislav again. I miss him very much. We went back to the faculty for the next debate, this time on the motion that War Criminals should be tried in their home countries. This is the motion that we are going to use in the exhibition debate to finish up the workshop, and we thought it would not hurt to have some practice. We were right. Some legal specifics about crimes against humanity and the International Criminal Court needed to be worked out. After the critiques I met with Bojana and Tomislav to pick eight students for the exhibition debate, which would be in Serbian. It was a very difficult choice but it had to be made. We announced our choices, they formed teams, we assigned them positions and then they took some brief prep time before the debate.

<== Tomislav Kargacin

The debate was well attended. We did not get any media, as they were attending the celebrations of the tenth anniversary of the fall of Slobo Milosevic in the city center, but I can think of no better way to celebrate that than by having a debate about war crimes. The debate was very active and contained a lot of passion and some excellent arguments. The audience was very involved and seemed to love the debate. Mirjana was also there and seemed to enjoy it. It is amazing watching the students debate in their own language. They are faster, more improvisational, loaded wih more content in their arguments and so much more passionate than in English. The audience overwhelmingly voted for the second opposition team, Vesna and her partner Milan Krstanovic as the top team.

There was a closing assembly where certificates were given out and a CD full of debate resource material were handed to each student. A special thank you was given to Mirjana for her support. We all took some photos and congratulated each other. Everyone seemed very happy about our very intense debating weekend. We adjourned to Kovac for some refreshments and a light meal. We were joined by Philip of the NGO Open Communiction and Surgen, who has been an important debate organizer in Serbia for some time and now works on a project monitoring Serbia’s readiness for joining the EU. We had a wonderful time and I especially enjoyed being with Tomislav again. But it was getting late and Tomislav needed to catch his bus back to Novi Sad. Mario gave us a ride and we all said goodbye. I know I will see Tomislav again, and I hope it is soon.

<== With Sima and Jovana at the Law Faculty

The next morning it was snowing so plans for tourism were cancelled. It was December 25, but that is not Christmas in the Serbian Orthodox faith, so it was just another working Monday. We did go to the Law Faculty where Jovana showed us around and we saw all of the changes there and then we met Sima and Obrad for lunch. We went to a restaurant I had been to on my previous visit, called Madera, and we had another wonderful meal, capping off a wonderful dining experiences during the visit to Serbia. The creme caramel was delicious, but the conversation with old friends Obrad, now the president of the Serbian Council for Higher Education, and Sima was even more deeply appreciated. They are both very busy and had juggled their schedules and cancelled meetings in order to go to lunch, and I really appreciated that. We talked about a variety of subjects, including recruiting Fulbright Fellows to come to the Law Faculty. We said goodbye and snapped a few photos before Jovana took us to the train station for our afternoon all-night train that would arrive in Ljubljana at about 2:30 AM.

<== Students focus on the critique

The train ride back to Ljubljana was not as nice as the trip down due to some unheated rail cars and delays, but we survived and even made some new friends.

The program seemed to be a success. The strong organizational skills of Vesna and Misha, the enthusiasm of the students and the support of Mirjana made it all possible. It was great to visit Serbia, to see old friends and to meet new ones.

I will come back!

BOSTON DEBATE LEAGUE ADVANCES

Tue, 19 Dec 2006 15:12:20 -0500

PHOTO: Boston Mayor Menino poses with debates at BDL.

We have a report from the Boston Debate League udl@bostondebate.org . Check out their web page at http://www.bostondebate.org/

We want to thank you for the interest and support you've shown for the Boston Debate League this year. Building a program that can reach so many students in such a positive way is a truly monumental undertaking, and we owe so much of our success to the dozens and dozens of individuals who have volunteered their time as coaches or judges, served on our Advisory Board, donated money or materials, hosted a debate tournament, or offered words of advice or encouragement. We'd like to share with you some of the exciting news coming out of the BDL these days:

Mayor Menino Visits APS Debate

On October 26th, 2006, Mayor Menino visited the Academy of Public Service to congratulate their debate team on winning the JV division of the 2006 City Championships. The Mayor observed a demonstration debate and offered some off-the-cuff comments about the importance of debate and the obvious rigor of the activity these students had chosen to pursue. Click here or visit http://www.bostondebate.org/mayor.html to see some great photos of the Mayor with our debaters and coaches!

BCLA Kicks Off the 2006/07 Season

The Boston Debate League kicked off its third season with a tournament at Brighton's Boston Community Leadership Academy on October 28th, 2006. Forty students from six schools, many of them brand new debate, lit up the school with their energy and enthusiasm, helping us to put on one of our best competitions ever.

In the end, Josiah Quincy Upper School won the Varsity division, and top honors in the Junior Varsity division went to a hybrid team composed of one student from BCLA and one from Excel High School. The students had never met each other before, and only got paired together when their respective partners failed to show up on the morning of the tournament, but they made quite a team! Click here or visit http://www.bostondebate.org/BCLA06.html to see photos from the event.

Excel High School Hosts Tournament Two

Excel High School hosted the second tournament of the Boston Debate League's 2006/07 season on December 9th. After three rounds of intense competition, the Academy of Public Service emerged victorious in the Varsity division, with Excel High School coming out on top in the Junior Varsity. Click here or visit http://www.bostondebateorg/Excel06.html to see some pictures of the participants.

Upcoming Public Debate At Faneuil Hall

The Boston Debate League is partnering with Hostelling International and the Massachusetts Service Alliance to present a series of public debates at Faneuil Hall on January 20th, 2007. Along with a number of prominent guests, including AmeriCorps co-founder Alan Khazei, ten BDL debaters will share their talents with the city of Boston during the Find Your Voice 2007 event. We hope you'll consider joining us at 10AM at Faneuil Hall at 10AM for a celebration of debate and public service in the city of Boston.

Thanks again to everyone for all of your help and support. Enjoy the holidays and have a happy new year!

Sincerely,

Andrew Brokos and Dr. Laura Sjoberg
Coordinators, Boston Debate League

UNIVERSITY COLLEGE CORK BIDS FOR WUDC IN 2009

Sun, 17 Dec 2006 11:28:55 -0500

Photo: Student Centre at University College Cork

Derek Lande lists@lande.com has announced that two societies at University College Cork will unite to bid for the 2009 World Universities Debating Championship. Here is the generally circulated email on the subject.

I am pleased to announce that the University College Cork Law &
Philosophical Societies will be lodging a bid to host the World University Debating Championships in Cork, Ireland in 2008/2009.

We hosted the European Championships in 2005, and have hosted the largest Irish Intervarsity for the last four years. This combined with breaking two teams at last years World Championships leads us to believe we have a team with the experience to host one of the best worlds ever.

The proposed Convenor is Mr. Art Ward of the UCC Law Society. The proposed Chief Adjudicator is Mr. Derek Lande of the UCC Philosophical Society. We are also delighted to announce that Mr. Bob Nimmo has agreed to come on board as our tabs director.

We will be releasing more information to the debating community in due course, but we just wanted to let people know that there will in fact be somebody bidding for worlds this year. In the meantime if anybody has any queries please don’t hesitate to get in touch with me on derek@lande.com.

In the meantime we look forward to seeing many of you at UBC Worlds and will hopefully be welcoming you to Cork in two years time.

Derek Lande

Proposed Chief Adjudicator

Cork Worlds 2009
Hosted by the UCC Law & Philosophical Societies

KANSAS TOPS NDT VARSITY POLICY RANKINGS IN THE USA

Sat, 16 Dec 2006 15:49:02 -0500

The policy debte rankings in the USA are now complete with the NDT rankings being published by Jim Hanson hansonjb@whitman.edu of Whitman College. The NDT college policy rankings also differentiate between the overall rankings and the “varsity” debate rankings. JV and novice results are also figured in to the overall rankings.

The sweepstakes page can be accessed at http://www.whitman.edu/rhetoric/ndt/ .

The top 50 varsity programs in the USA include:

1. Kansas (Univ. of) 363
2. Georgia 357
3. Wayne State Univ. 354
4. Oklahoma 315
5. Emory 309
6. Missouri State 281
7. Vermont 269
8. U.S. Military Academy 255
9. Wake Forest 255
10. Southern California 254
11. CSU Fullerton 249
12. Northwestern 238
13. Texas-Dallas 238
14. Liberty University 235
15. Wyoming 235
16. Gonzaga 234
17. California 236
18. Miami 233
19. Whitman College 227
20. Michigan State Univ. 226
21. Dartmouth 224
22. Texas (Austin) 222
23. Rochester 220
24. New York Univ. 219
25. Mary Washington 206
26. Richmond 204
27. Binghamton 203
28. Wichita State 203
29. Harvard 202
30. Baylor 199
31. Cornell University 191
32. Idaho State 188
33. Pittsburgh 185
34. Samford 179
35. Louisville 170
36. Kansas State 155
37. Weber State Univ. 151
38. North Texas 148
39. West Georgia 147
40. Michigan University 140
41. Kentucky 138
42. Towson 134
43. Iowa 134
44. Missouri-Kansas City 133
45. Concordia 131
46. Vanderbilt 128
47. Central Oklahoma 127
48. West Virginia Univ. 127
49. Case Western 121
50. Marist College 114

The top 100 overall policy debate programs include:

1. Liberty University 467
2. Oklahoma 431
3. Wayne State Univ. 368
4. Kansas (Univ. of) 363
5. Georgia 357
6. Kansas State 338
7. Emory 329
8. Binghamton 323
9. U.S. Military Academy 323
10. Southern California 316
11. John Carroll Univ. 294
12. Rochester 293
13. U.S. Naval Academy 289
14. Cornell University 282
15. Missouri State 281
16. California 280
17. Wichita State 279
18. CSU Fullerton 276
19. Vermont 275
20. Wake Forest 267
21. James Madison 265
22. New York Univ. 257
23. Mary Washington 252
24. Boston College 244
25. West Virginia Univ. 240
26. Northwestern 238
27. Texas-Dallas 238
28. Wyoming 235
29. Gonzaga 234
30. Miami 233
31. George Mason Univ. 229
32. Whitman College 227
33. Michigan State Univ. 226
34. Richmond 226
35. Texas (Austin) 222
36. Dartmouth 224
37. Idaho State 216
38. Vanderbilt 215
39. Kansas City Kansas C 214
40. Samford 213
41. Pittsburgh 212
42. Baylor 209
43. Missouri-Kansas City 207
44. Harvard 202
45. Bard College 201
46. Weber State Univ. 199
47. Kentucky 188
48. Towson 178
49. Cal Poly 176
50. Louisville 176
51. North Texas 173
52. Central Oklahoma 170
53. Clarion University 164
54. Miami (Florida) 159
55. Case Western 155
56. CSU Sacramento 155
57. Emporia State U. 154
58. San Francisco State 154
59. West Georgia 147
60. Michigan University 140
61. Iowa 134
62. Northern Iowa 133
63. Concordia 131
64. Fresno City College 123
65. Appalachian State 120
66. Marist College 117
67. Western Connecticut 116
68. Texas San Antonio 113
69. Georgia State 112
70. Redlands 110
71. Johnson County 108
72. Kings College 108
73. Denver 106
74. Bakersfield College 105
75. Michigan-Dearborn 105
76. Georgetown 101
77. Stanford 100
78. George Washington 97
79. Florida State 92
80. Southwestern 89
81. City University NY 87
82. Cal. State Long Beach 82
83. Illinois State University 75
84. Augustana IL 74
85. Piedmont College 69
86. Pepperdine 69
87. Macalester 68
88. Fordham University 65
89. Diablo Valley College 63
90. Florida 63
91. Los Angeles City Col 56
92. Catholic University 55
93. Eastern New Mexico U 55
94. SUNY-Buffalo 54
95. Fort Hays 52
96. CSU Northridge 51
97. El Camino College 48
98. Mercer 47
99. Puget Sound 46
100. Loyola Marymount U. 46

LIBERTY, OKLAHOMA & BINGHAMTON LEAD IN USA POLICY DEBATE CEDA SWEEPSTAKES

Thu, 14 Dec 2006 05:51:27 -0500

All of the tournaments for the first semester seem to be tallied and there is plenty of room for fluctuation in the Cross Examination Debate Association’s http://cedadebate.org/ sweepstakes race. Results come from http://commweb.fullerton.edu/jbruschke/web/CEDAPoints.aspx

Here are the top 50 schools.

DATA DISPLAY:
School
Total Points
Tiebreaker Points

1. Liberty University
174
46
2. Oklahoma
131
29
3. Binghamton
124
27
4. U.S. Military Academy
114
17
5. Wayne State Universi
108
15
6. Kansas (Univ. of)
107
15
7. Kansas State
103
21
8. Emory
100
11
9. Cornell University
97
11
10. Georgia
95
13
11. Southern California
94
12
12. John Carroll Univers
90
15
13. California
90
10
14. Missouri State
87
7
15. U.S. Naval Academy
86
8
16. Wake Forest
83
12
17. Vermont
83
11
18. Rochester
82
9
19. Whitman College
82
8
20. Wichita State
82
3
21. CSU Fullerton
79
12
22. Boston College
79
12
23. Mary Washington
77
12
24. Gonzaga
76
12
25. Texas-Dallas
76
6
26. New York Univ.
75
8
27. Baylor
74
10
28. Kansas City Kansas C
72
14
29. CSU Sacramento
71
19
30. Harvard
71
3
31. Cal Poly
68
15
32. Bard College
65
8
33. Samford
64
2
34. Northwestern
62
5
35. Wyoming
62
4
36. Miami
61
4
37. Kentucky
60
14
38. George Mason Univers
60
9
39. Michigan State Univ.
59
4
40. Missouri-Kansas City
58
6
41. Idaho State
58
5
42. James Madison
58
0
43. San Francisco State
57
13
44. Dartmouth
56
3
45. Pittsburgh
56
0
46. Central Oklahoma (Un
55
8
47. Vanderbilt
55
4
48. Texas (Austin)
55
1
49. West Virginia Univer
53
1
50. Emporia State U.
50
6

USA PARLI SWEEPS SHOW ATTACK OF THE W’S

Wed, 13 Dec 2006 14:43:02 -0500

Three teams with an important W lead the NPDA NPTE rankings from the USA NPDA parliamentary debate tournament circuit..

The National Parliamentary Tournament of Excellence (http://npte.debateaddict.com/unleashed/rank.php?npteyear=2007 ) has published their list of the best teams competing in National Parliamentary Debate Association (http://cas.bethel.edu/dept/comm/npda/ ) tournaments in the fall of 2006. Here they are.

DATA DISPLAY - click on these categories to see listings in this order
Rank
Team Name
NPTE Points
Prelim Wins
Prelim Losses
Win Pct

Click on the team name to see their record.

1
Western Kentucky PS (Perry / Schally)
47.70
30
6
83.330%

2
William Jewell GT (Garner / Toson)
43.50
22
3
88.000%

3
Western Washington HP (Jason Heck / Matt Paxton)
42.70
29
4
87.880%

4
Rice CP (Robert Crider / Priscilla Parrett)
42.00
26
4
86.670%

5
Western Kentucky AM (Allen / Mosley)
40.90
33
7
82.500%

6
Western Kentucky GS (Gardner / Shokraie)
39.10
27
9
75.000%

7
Point Loma KV (Vertican / Kamermayer)
38.70
39
6
86.670%

8
Point Loma DK (Day / Kautzer)
37.70
25
8
75.760%

9
Willamette BW (Bost / Will)
37.50
23
8
74.190%

10
Northern Arizona LM (Rebekah Lauzon / Carrie Menapace)
37.50
25
10
71.430%

11
UC-Berkeley BL (Brugato / Lawrence)
37.20
21
6
77.780%

12
U Pacific BR (Kathleen Bruce / Branigan Robertson)
37.20
34
14
70.830%

13
U Washington BD (Chris Berk / Paul Drutman)
36.70
24
8
75.000%

14
Colorado College KW (Adam Kretz / Travis Whitsitt)
36.50
23
8
74.190%

15
Northern Arizona BD (Lindsay Baker / Antonio De La Garza)
36.10
35
8
81.400%

16
CSU Long Beach LP (Liebson / Paterno)
35.70
35
8
81.400%

17
Claremont WW (Westfahl / Wohlschlegel)
33.70
21
8
72.410%

18
Creighton KS (Kohlscheen / Storey)
33.20
18
6
75.000%

19
UC-Berkeley KS (Kimball / Smith)
33.20
22
10
68.750%

20
Western Washington KE (Krell / Elle)
32.70
22
11
66.670%

21
Drury CR (Kevin Calderwood / Scott Ross)
32.50
24
12
66.670%

22
Western Kentucky MN (Meadows / Nelson)
31.90
20
4
83.330%

23
Biola MV (Stephen Mar / Peter Van Elswyk)
31.50
22
10
68.750%

24
UNR PF (Pena / Fluke)
31.20
20
9
68.970%

25
Lewis & Clark LS (Lamb / Schifman)
30.70
22
9
70.970%

26
Willamette HL (Humphrey / Lawless)
30.00
22
9
70.970%

27
UC-San Diego CS (Cook / Schultz)
29.50
24
15
61.540%

28
Montana NR (Svein Newman / Jessica Reynolds)
28.90
18
7
72.000%

29
Washburn CS (Annaleigh Curtis / Marcus Schultz-Bergin)
28.80
18
7
72.000%

30
Wyoming JR (Jensen / Ryan)
28.50
22
12
64.710%

31
Drury HM (Spencer Harris / Brett Marler)
28.00
19
6
76.000%

32
McKendree JW (Jeff Jones / Mark Wonnacott)
27.90
19
8
70.370%

33
Wyoming DF (Lindsey DeVries / Jeffrey Fife)
27.90
23
15
60.530%

34
McKendree FL (Freivogel / Leonard)
27.80
18
9
66.670%

35
Northern Arizona DB (Chelsea Drucker / Kaitlin Bundock)
27.40
27
16
62.790%

36
Washburn HW (Heschmeyer / Wentz)
26.80
19
6
76.000%

37
Washburn DO (Tyler Dooley / Jessica Otto)
26.80
16
9
64.000%

38
Willamette AR (MaryAnn Almelda / Nick Robinson)
26.70
21
8
72.410%

39
Point Loma CC (Cherry / Compton)
26.70
24
14
63.160%

40
Air Force FS (Fleharty / Seefried)
26.50
19
12
61.290%

41
Lewis & Clark AT (Eric Atcheson / Hannah Tierney)
26.00
19
10
65.520%

42
Texas Tech PW (Jacob Parks / Tim West)
25.10
21
14
60.000%

43
Willamette CL (Pete Crisalli / Eric Lowe)
24.50
20
11
64.520%

44
Azusa Pacific HS (Hanson / Stoller)
24.10
24
15
61.540%

45
Rice TN (Torous / Naylor)
22.50
17
6
73.910%

46
Oregon DP (Dodds / Preson)
22.20
17
8
68.000%

47
Rice DH (Kirti Datla / Hrishi Hari)
22.00
18
7
72.000%

48
Western Kentucky MP (Mullins / Parke)
21.60
14
8
63.640%

49
Wheaton KS (Kubenic / Simon)
21.50
18
12
60.000%

50
Oregon MM (McBride / McLane)
21.00
15
12
55.560%

LA TIMES REPORTS ON THE PERFORMANCE TREND IN USA POLICY INTERCOLLEGIATE DEBATE

Tue, 12 Dec 2006 13:23:56 -0500

PHOTO: On Cal State Fullerton’s debate team, Louis Blackwell uses rap. (Mark Boster / LAT)

The Los Angeles Times has reported on the “performance” trend in USA collegiate policy debate. See what you think.
http://www.latimes.com/news/la-me-debate12dec12,1,4655174.story?page=1
Does this debase debate?
College forensics once stuck strictly to words. Now it can come off the page -- way off.
By Roy Rivenburg, Times Staff Writer
December 12, 2006

IMAGINE a presidential debate in which John McCain answers Hillary Clinton's arguments by stripping down to his underwear or breaking into a rap song.

Strange as it might sound, such tactics are gaining cachet — and victories — in a top breeding ground for future politicians: America's college debate circuit.

In recent years, renegade rhetoricians from Cal State Fullerton and other underdog schools have clobbered debate kingpins from Harvard and UC Berkeley with a hodgepodge of unorthodox methods known as "performance debating."

Instead of relying on scholarly research to foil opponents, the teams employ guerrilla tactics such as reading from Dr. Seuss, impersonating pirates or ballroom dancing with a chair.

"People call us the terrorists of debate," says Fullerton student Brenda Montes.

The goal of performance debate is threefold: Knock rivals off stride, impress judges with creative forms of argument and open the heavily white-male field to new voices.

The methods have sparked an uproar. Purists say the gimmicks are wrecking a noble tradition. But supporters insist the techniques are returning the art of persuasion to its roots.

"Debate is the greatest educational experience you've never heard about," said Jon Bruschke, who coaches Cal State Fullerton's team. "We're trying to make it available to everyone."

From Plato to Lincoln-Douglas to Reagan-Mondale, debaters have always searched for ways to outwit their adversaries.

In college tournaments, the longtime weapon of choice is speed-talking. The idea is to cram so many arguments into a speech that rival teams run out of time to rebut everything. To untrained ears, the rapid-fire verbiage sounds like an auctioneer on amphetamines.

But the research-saturated spiels stack the deck against small debate squads, said Bill Neesen, who coaches a performance team at Long Beach State.

Whereas a big-budget school like Northwestern or USC can steamroll into a tournament with a dozen people who do nothing but scout opponents and plot counterarguments, Long Beach has no backup.

"The big schools outstrip us on research," Neesen said.

So Long Beach borrows from a playbook devised by a former mortician, a Grateful Dead fanatic and a guy with a penchant for Hawaiian shirts and sandals with socks. The rebels' bag of tricks hinges on a simple rule: Everything in debate is debatable, including the rules of debate.

The pioneer in exploiting that loophole was Bill Shanahan, a Deadhead who ran the squad at the University of Texas at Austin in the early 1990s.

In a debate on foreign aid to underdeveloped nations, Shanahan's team turned the proceedings upside down, arguing that the concept of "helping" poor countries falsely implied that the Third World was inferior to the West. His students challenged the framework of the debate topic itself, saying it "imposed a racist, monetarist" view.

As Texas racked up victories, "smaller programs realized they could use this technique to compete against big-budget programs," Shanahan said.

A few years later, former funeral director Ede Warner and Bruschke, a shaggy-haired Hawaiian shirt aficionado, expanded the concept. The two men had first crossed paths in the shadow of a pork processing plant in Sioux Falls, S.D., where they were teammates on Augustana College's debate squad.

After graduation, Warner returned to the family funeral business in violence-prone Gary, Ind. Saddened by the number of young blacks he saw in caskets, the African American undertaker decided he was "on the wrong end of the equation."

Maybe debate could "empower black students," Warner figured. He landed a job coaching the University of Louisville debate squad but had trouble recruiting minority students to an activity dominated by Ivy Leaguers quoting obscure postmodernist philosophers.

PAGE TWO OF THIS STORY:
http://www.latimes.com/news/la-me-debate12dec12,1,4655174.story?page=2

PAGE THREE OF THE STORY
http://www.latimes.com/news/la-me-debate12dec12,1,4655174.story?page=3

SAID ATTENDS INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE IN EUROPE

Sun, 10 Dec 2006 05:26:47 -0500

PHOTO: SAID presentation at the conference.

Our correspondent Loke Wing Fatt (lokewf@singnet.com.sg) reports on this event. See the website on the Society for Associated Intertertiary Debaters at http://said.d2dsg.com/view.php?sub=main&page=index .

"THINKING AND SPEAKING A BETTER WORLD": International Conference on Argumentation, Rhetoric, Debate and the Pedagogy of Empowerment, Koper, Slovenia ( 24th to 26th Nov)

Jointly organised by Dr Igor Zagar, Educational Research Institute & University of Primorska, Slovenia, Ms Bojana Skrt, Za In Proti, Za Kulturo Dialoga, Slovenia, and Dr Alfred Charles "Tuna" Snider, World Debate Institute, USA, this academic Conference was held over 3 days at the picturesque coastal town of Koper in Slovenia. Over 120 professors, teachers, students and education officials from around the globe attended this event, which was packed solid with 80 papers presented on theme of "Thinking and Speaking a Better World".
<== Presenters with SAID - Alfred Snider USA, Primoz Karnar Slovenia, Sam Nelson USA and James Thomas USA

Two papers entitled, "The Asians Debate Format: An Introduction & Evaluation" and "The Role of SAID in Debate Education in Asia" were jointly presented by 3 SAID members, Cheong Eng Min, Hewlens Wong and Loke Wing Fatt on 24th and 26th Nov, respectively.

The Conference was an invaluable opportunity for us to learn and share in an environment of collegiality and camaraderie. For that, we wish to thank Dr Igor and our genial friends, Tuna and Bojana.

CAMBRIDGE HANGS ON AT THE TOP OF BRITISH DEBATE RANKINGS

Sun, 10 Dec 2006 05:07:49 -0500

Jonathan kcl_debating@yahoo.co.uk reports on the current standings.

Assuming that Lancaster broke straight to final, which I'm told it did, these are the rankings following Lancaster. If that's untrue, I'll revise them. UWE's win brings them into the rankings at 24th. St. Andrews are perhaps the first institution to now be making a sustained credible chase to Cambridge and Oxford's dominance at the top of the table, extending their lead over 4th place TCD to 50 points, but they are still 130 behind 2nd place Oxford. The top two remain within 10 points of each other, but after UCC and KCL, Oxford still haven't been able to break Cambridge's now 13 consecutive events at No.1. Manchester and KCL and Inner Temple and Glasgow each flip places, Warwick and Newcastle both make significant moves up, and Cardiff become the 49th institution to score points this season, ranking in at 36th.

Jonathan LM

University Debating Rankings 09/12/06 - After 13 Events

1 1 Cambridge 381.8
2 2 Oxford 372.8
3 3 St. Andrews 242.0
4 4 TCD 193.3
5 5 Yale 170.5
6 6 UCD 151.8
7 7 LSE 147.3
8 8 Middle Temple 135.3
9 9 Durham 133.5
10 10 UCC 126.0
11 12 Manchester 117.3
12 11 KCL 110.0
13 14 Glasgow 64.5
14 13 Inner Temple 61.0
15 15 Stanford 51.8
16 24 Warwick 49.0
17 16 UCL 48.8
18 17 King's Inn 48.5
19 18 Bristol 40.3
20 19 Leeds 36.5
21 30 Newcastle 36.0
22 20 Edinburgh 35.5
23 21 BPP 35.3
24 UWE 33.0
25 22 UBC 32.0
26 23 Harvard 30.5
27 29 Birmingham 28.5
28 25 Dundee 26.5
29 26 NUIG 26.0
30 27 Hart House 22.5
31 28 Queen Mary's 22.0
32 31 Berlin 18.5
33 32 McGill 17.5
34 33 Tilbury House 16.5
35 34 Imperial 13.5
36 Cardiff 13.5
37 35 Gray's Inn 13.0
38 36 Aberdeen 11.5
39 37 Chicago 11.0
40 38 Bates 9.5
41 39 Helsinki 9.0
42 40 Tilburg 6.0
43 41 Princeton 6.0
44 42 Portland 5.0
45 44 Strathclyde 5.0
46 43 Carleton 3.5
47 45 Nottingham 1.0
48 46 Hobart & William Smith 1.0
49 47 Lincoln's Inn 0.5

SAID ATTENDS INTERNATIONAL DEBATE ACADEMY

Sun, 10 Dec 2006 04:55:56 -0500

PHOTO: Said representatives En Minh Cheong, Hewlens Wong and Loke Wing Fatt pose with winners Elizabeth Berthold and Sean Luechtefeld of the USA.

Our correspondent Loke Wing Fatt (lokewf@singnet.com.sg) reports on this event. See the website on the Society for Associated Intertertiary Debaters at http://said.d2dsg.com/view.php?sub=main&page=index .

International Debate Academy, Slovenia, (IDAS) 2006 (17th to 23rd Nov)

In its 4th year, the International Debate Academy Slovenia (IDAS) 2006 was held in the Slovenian border town of Ormoz. Organised by the World Debate Institute, led by Dr Alfred Charles "Tuna" Snider of the University of Vermont, USA, and Ms Bojana Skrt, Director of Za In Proti, Za Kulturo Dialoga, Slovenia, it attracted 60 university debaters from Europe, Canada, America, Taiwan, Malaysia and Singapore.

Largely sponsored by the European Parliament, and the US Embassy, the event saw the pool of international debaters go through 5 days of arduous daily lectures, tutorials, drill sessions and 9 practise-debates, followed by a 2-day mini-BP tournament. Much socialising was facilitated by 3 social events, namely, Visit to the Ormoz Mayor at the the Ormoz Castle, Country Exhibition Night and Kitsch Night. A two-hour discussion with the US Embassy was also held for all participants at the Academy.

In the Grand Final held at the Ormoz Castle, Team Apathetic Hungarian, comprising Sean Luechtefeld and Elizabeth Berthold from America, won from the Opening Opposition position by opposing the motion "The European Parliament should act to condemn the expansion of nuclear power to generate electricity". Mr Filip Dobranic from Team What would Judas do? was the Best Speaker of the IDAS 2006. 2 SAID members, Cheong En Min and Hewlens Wong from Team SAIDists were ranked 9th and 10 top speakers of the mini tournament. Loke Wing Fatt taught at the event as a member fo the 9-strong international faculty from USA, Europe, Australia and Asia.

<== Trainers at wine tasting celebration dinner

SAID looks forward to next year's IDAS 2007, hoping for another great gathering of motivated debaters and debater educators in Europe. Additionally, we would like Tuna and Bojana to organise thick, fluffy and festive snowfall in Slovenia, which was missing this year, for our ultimate satisfaction!

THAILAND HAS FIRST BP DEBATING CHAMPIONSHIP TOURNAMENT

Sun, 10 Dec 2006 04:44:07 -0500

PHOTO: Group poses.

Our correspondent Loke Wing Fatt (lokewf@singnet.com.sg) reports on this event. See the website on the Society for Associated Intertertiary Debaters at http://said.d2dsg.com/view.php?sub=main&page=index .

1st Thailand National British Parliamentary (BP) Debating Championship 2006, Bangkok, Thailand (9th to 12th Nov)

Held at the beautiful Bang Na Campus of Assumption University, 28 teams from Mahidol University, Khon Kaen University, Thammasart University and Chulalongkorn University took part in this 4-day competition. Heeding the charity-drive theme of the event, "Not Just Talk!", participants at this debate competition collectively contributed Baht 10,900 to a local poverty-relief NGO, called Human Development Foundation, for the education and welfare support of a designated child-in-need at their Mercy Centre.

In the Grand Final, Mahidol University Team 8, comprising Mr Choorai Perumethi Dirin Dinesh and Mr Phra Chainarong Sangsranoi, won the debate from the Opening Government position, by proposing the motion that " HIV-positive prisoners should be housed separately". The Best Speaker of the event was Mr Nunu N. from Chulalongkorn University Team 1.
(Below) BP adjudication seminar
SAID's contributions were two-fold; A 5-Hour BP Adjudication Seminar & Test conducted by Loke Wing Fatt for the designated adjudicators on the afternoon of 9th Nov and the provision of 3 external SAID adjudicators, namely, Gloria Liang, Cheong En Min and Loke Wing Fatt, for the entirety of the tournament.

SAID would like to thank Sabiha, Dianna, TJ, Ravi and the rest of the crew at Assumption University for making us very envious for not being born such warm, friendly and caring Thai friends and hosts!

SOFTWARE TABS BRITISH PARLIAMENTARY TOURNAMENTS

Sat, 9 Dec 2006 10:42:42 -0500

PHOTO: Jens Fischer (left) of Germany worked on the software; also seen here Sam Nelson, Cornell and Sam Grenland, University of Sydney; photo from International Debate Academy Slovenia 2006.

There has been a crying need for a computer tabulation program that can handle British Parliamentary debating, with four two person teams and then the judge ranks them 1-4 and assigns points.

Jens Fischer jhbfischer@googlemail.com of Germany has been working with some of his colleagues and has produced just such a program, called Tournaman. We used it at the International Debate Academy Slovenia 2006 and it did a very nice job, allowing for tab room flexibility and providing tournament administrators with a lot of options for running the tournament. It did not crash, it accurately tabulated the results and it operated quickly and easily.

While it does not come with a lot of documentation and support, there is some, and experienced tab room types should be able to use it with a little practice.

One nice feature is that it will allow you to emphasize either the current standing of the team or the avoidance of a repeat of team position that can go back a set number of debates that you can choose.

I understand that out in California Danny Cantrell has been working on a program for BP, but until I get a chance to use it and try it (and I am anxious to) I will use this one when I need to. It is far better than the glorified Excel spreadsheets that many people have been using, or the infamous “Dublin Tab” that has crashed and malfunctioned at tournaments (or so I have been told by tab staff).

To download a copy of the zip file, go to
http://www.debating.de/tournaman/Tournaman.zip