ISOCREC DEBATE MECHANICS

Debate Mechanics
Designed by Dr. Raymund Sison


Selection of debaters

The professor shall randomly select 3 students to form the PRO team, and another 3 to form the CON team.

A student can be selected to be a debater twice in the course of the trimester, but not more. The student’s final grade for class participation will be the average of the points that he or she gets in the two debates.

Conduct of the debate

The debaters will take their places on each side of the platform, with the PRO debaters sitting on the side near the door. In each round, each debater will be given 3 minutes to present his/her arguments. There will be two to three rounds, with the PRO, CON, and PRO team starting the first, second, and third rounds, respectively. Before each round, the teams will be given three minutes to discuss their arguments and strategies.

Grading of the debaters

At the end of the third round, the debaters will be asked to face the blackboard, while the audience will be asked to vote for those whom they think were the best debaters that day. Each student in the audience will vote for exactly two debaters. The students will also be asked to vote for the team that they think gave the best arguments and counter-arguments.

Voting will be by raising of hands. Students will be requested to close their eyes during the voting period.

The debaters will be ranked according to the number of votes they get. The student with the most votes (first place) gets 95 points (out of a hundred); the next student (second place), 90; the next (third place), 85; the next (fourth place), 80; the next (fifth place), 75; and the last (sixth place), 70. In addition, the members of the team that wins will each get additional 5 points. Ties are broken by alphabetically sorting the family names of the debaters concerned.

Students who get the same number of votes will each get the average of the points assigned to the places that they occupy. For example, students A and B get 20 votes each, students C and D get 15 votes each; students E and F, 5 each. Thus, A and B will get 92.5 points each, C and D will get 82.5 points each, and E and F will get 72.5 points each. As another example, say students A and B get 40 votes each, while C to F get none. Then A and B will get 92.5 points each, while C to F will get 77.5 each.