Customer Reviews

Competitive Debate: The Official Guide

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I advise the student-led debate club at our community college. Though I believe the guide was written primarily for high school debate coaches, I bought copies for the officers of our debate club after first reading it myself. The guide is straight-forward and has a lot of clear explanations and examples that can be applied immediately. Though I have to buy copies of this guide out of my own pocket since we don't have a budget for them in my department, I will be purchasing them again this year for my students - I think it is a good investment.

I am a new coach and this book was extremely helpful in both explaining and giving advice on each competitive debate event. Very pleased with the purchase.

As a tournament winning debater in parliamentary extemporaneous debate, I expected more. This book provides a tiny bit of insight into how to make strong arguments but is mostly filler words. It focuses more on using Netscape than on refutation. Poor choice for one to read.

I have competitively debated for the past three years. This year, I have become more focused on increasing my skills over the theory behind each argument. Also, I've attempted to increase my understanding of all that makes up an argument.

I purchased this book to make theory blocks for future NFL tournaments. I've been using the "Mastering Competitive Debate" book; however, I felt as if I needed back up evidence. When I ordered this book, I opened it only to find generalized statements over the types of arguments. There was no in depth information over each subject.

To say the least, I was thoroughly disappointed.

This book is good if you debate in the styles most common in North American them being Lincoln Douglass and Policy debate. If you want a good guide on British Parliamentary than I'd suggest "On That Point!: An Introduction to Parliamentary Debate" by John Meany and Kate Shuster.