This is an article I wrote some time back, but by popular demand, I’m publishing it again.

Debate will change your life, if you like it or not. There is no way out of this, mainly because a lot of people just get addicted to it after they try it. And once you are in, you can’t get out. And you do not really want to be called a quitter, do you?

So here are a couple of things that I have seen, that have changed in my life.

1. Yeah right, I don’t buy it

This is the most common answer, that I now give to people. Ok, maybe I’m not that annoying, but I really think more about what people tell me. If you are a politician or just my friend, I will challenge you on what you say. Sometimes just for fun, just to see the argument, or to see if you have an argument behind your claims, and sometimes because I really do not agree with you.

2. My first point is, my second point is…

Well I use structure. Even if I do not always use it in my debate, I use it more and more when I speak freely with my friends. It helps me to get my information to them and it helps me to get back to what I spoke in the past, because they tend to try to change what I said. Or they just hear it differently.

3. I’m more annoyed by things that people say

When you start thinking about what people tell you, you see that there is a lot of BS, that they try to sell you. It sucks sometimes, because you would just like to go and have an easy day, but you just have to think about what people tell you. Yes, Ignorance would be a bliss sometimes, but if you are a debater, you just can’t do that.

4. I know people all around the world

In all of the years, that I debate, I have probably met hundreds of people from all around the world, that I would never meet, if I would not debate. All the tournaments just push you to speak to people from different backgrounds, and this makes your social life much more fun. Yes, it can destroy the organization of the friends that you have on Facebook (if you are a debater, you MUST join) (and I don’t try to brag about the number of friends that I have on FB), but it really is great, that you have a place to crash and a couple of interesting people that you can go for a coffee with in almost all countries that you visit.

There are probably even more things that I have just because of debate. This web page, a proportion of work that I do for money is connected to debate, most or all of the travel that I do an others.

More about debate and where to debate at the website below.

You need to. It does not matter, if you live in the America’s, Europe, Asia, Australia, Africa or in Bhutan.

There are benefits for you, there are benefits for the people around you and there are benefits for the society. Even if this sounds like a bad debate case, there are even benefits for the world, and everyone that does debate, that teaches debate or even only goes to see a debate is contributing to a better world.

Ok, now I need to support these claims with something. Here it goes.

1. If you debate, you think. And thinking is a underrated consept these days. Most people believe, that thinking about something is just too hard, and that if other people think, and they just folow the orders everything is going to be ok. But I believe that we see every day (and I’m not using Hilter here, even if I could), what bad things can happen if we let other people think and we only follow orders (or just do what other people tell us to do). We come to a society, where nothing is forbidden, because the responsibility is always on someone else, and it gets lost.

2. Debate makes people change their mind

Maybe. Sometimes. But as the Policy debaters would say, if we save only one person, that is enough. And that is how it goes. We can not make people think if we order them to think (because they do not think … As Tuna would say, if I order you to think by yourself, do you do it?). What we can do, is change people one by one. One more debater in your debate club, and one more thinker. One more person watching you at a public debate, and here you go, one more thinker. Multiply this by 10000 debate clubs and here you go. We are changing the world. You just do not know it yet, because you do not think globaly.

3. Debate makes your life easier

I know. You need me to tell you, how debate is going to make your life better and easier. Here you go. Your studies will be easier. You will understand the material easier, because you are used to think about it. You will also have more general knowledge, and this will help you with your studies. And more. It will be easier for you to pass exams, because you will know how to structure an argument and structure an essay. Or if you have oral exams, each answer will be as a debate speech.

And at the end of the day, yes it will be easier for you to find a girl/boyfriend. Believe me. YOU will be the talkative/whitty/funny/smart/inteligent guy/girl that everyone wants to date (Ok, I’m still waiting for this benefit, but Im sure it will come .

Do you really need more reasons? GO! DEBATE.

If you like this article, rate it, comment it, and don’t forget to subscribe!

I’ve been chatting to a proffesor at the University of Ljubljana today (actually my debatie was) and we got the question: What are the debate books, that you would recomend for us to have them in the library? This is a good question, so this is why I’m posting it here, so to see, what do you think about it.

I’ve send them an email, stating that the “Art, argument and advocacy by Meany and Schuster” “Voices in the sky by Snider” and “Teaching and learning strategies for a thinking classroom by no idea who” are the books that they should buy, and of course I’ve added the Slovenian books on debate the we wrote (actually I’m a co-author at only one of them, but they were both published by Za in proti).

What would your list be?

I’m often called the “moral cop of the debate”, and one of the reasons for that is that I tend to nag to people, that we should do more debate in Slovenian.

I have several reasons for that, but at the end, I believe that it helps to develop the language, it helps begginers to start enjoying debate and it helps your debate in English as well.

There are a lot of people, that say that if you would like to go on international debate tournaments, and perform well there, you should practice more or less only in english. I do agree, that there is a problem, if you don’t debate in English at all, and then when you come to an international tournament, you have problems getting used to English again.

I just had a workshop, that also involved a section about specific debate terminology, in English and Slovenian. There are still some words, that we are not sure how to translate… And I believe we should translate them and use them, when we debate in Slovenian.

How often do you debate in your native language and have you developed the whole terminology or are you still using some English words?

My webpage www.debate-motions.info has a special weblinks section, where I try to post as many relevant debate links as possible.

The links are seperated into three categories “general debate”, “debate institutions/debate clubs” and “debate tournaments”.

I add the links when I stumble over a debate webpage, so that the list is slowly growing.

If you would like to add your debate webpage or the webpage of your debate club, just post a comment and I will add the adress to the list.

Well obviously there are more and more debate tournaments being organised in Europe and the “fight” to get teams to debate.

The organisers of the Amsterdam Open 2008 have released an analysis of the tab after the tournament, and I believe that this is a good way to show, that you are concearned about what has been going on on the tournament.

It does not really matter, that the results show, that two of the motions were a bit more op orientated, because this can happen on any tournament. And the CA-DCA pool was really good on this tournament, so the motions were discoussed beforehand.

What is important is, that the organisers showed, that they are concearned about what has happened, and that they will (probably) try to make the motions more unbiased the next time. And this is what is important, if you show that you are concearned and prepared to learn and to improve.

And I’ve attended the tournament and I know that they have done a lot of great steps to make the tournament as good as possible.

While I’m at it, I can write a bit about it:

1. Take care for the break-fast

If you go to tournaments where you crash at peoples places, it often happens, that you have to go without a breakfast. While I’m not a big breakfast eater, I always enjoy something to eat after a night out. And the organisers took care that the people that crashed debaters had breakfast ready for them. This was great.

2. Great name-tags

A lot of people will say that it is not really important how the name tags look like, and what is written on them, but I disagree. The idea to put all the info about you crash on your name-tag is great. If they would add the schedule on the back of the name-tag it would probably be one of the best name-tags I’ve seen. And I like name-tags, because I never remember names of people that I meet.

3. Post-tournament activities

Brunch after the tournament and a bike tour or history tour of the city is what was offered after the tournament, on the departure day. This is a thing that is great, because it happens too often that you get to a tournament and all what you see are the debating and party places. This way we got to see the city and doing it on a bike was a great way to do it.

4. Parking problems

Well, this is one of the things, where I believe that the organisers didn’t do all that great, because I had to take care of my own parking, and it is not that easy to get a parking place for a reasonable price in Amsterdam. Maybe provide info about cheap parking places before the arrival. And P+R deals are great.

5. Payment via PayPal

A great way to make the payments easier. Good job. But next time please check twice before you talk to debaters that they did not pay. It gets annoying if you payed, and you are approached about your non-payment 3 times in two days.

All in all it was a great tournament, and I believe that a lot of people from my debate institution will continue to come to your tournaments. After all, I believe that we were allready the biggest or even one of the biggest institutions on the tournament (15 people).

BTW, thanks Jana and Anne for the crash

This is an announcement post.

While I searched and surfed and have seen probably all the debate related websites, I’ve never seen a forum related to debate, that would be open for issuses about University debate all around the world.

So while I do this debate website for myself and for the whole debate community out there (and yes, only for you), I believe we need to fill this gap.

Because I know that debate needs to be about open communication, I believe that we can allow a lot on this forum, so I will try not to moderate it a lot, and now you are all invited to come and see it.

Here is the link to it, you are welcome, register and give your feedback. Would you like to see other categories? No problem…

Promoting University debate events is a hard job because you need to reach people in countries from all around the world, and these people have different ways to find out about debate tournaments.

There are three major ways how to promote your debate tournament, and I’ll write about the forth one.

The most used is the EUDC debate mailing list. It is not used any more for promotion of the Euros but also for promoting of other tournaments all around Europe.

Probably the best way to promote your debate tournament is to use all the people that you know. The more people you know, more people they know and if you use the mouth-to-mouth (advertising) tehnique, you will get the info to the people that need it.

Facebook is the new way to promote debate tournaments, because almost everyone that I know and is involved in debate has a FB account, so you just need to post about it on your facebook acount, or make a group about your tournament and people will know about it.

The fourth and new way that is here is to use this website to promote your tournament. There is a new category called “Your debate info”. If you sign up to the page and then post in the category, the info will show up in the category, and it will show up in the latest articles list, down left. This way all the users that come to this website will read about the info that you post. For now everyone can sign up and everyone can write.

If you have any problems, please contact me, and I will help you with all the knowledge that I have.

There are aprox. 100 people on this website everyday, and they come here to read about tournaments, so this is the way you should use. Other webmasters of other debate websites come here to get their info, that means if you post here, your info can and probably will be posted on other websites. I will help you with Digging, stubmling, facebooking etc, meaning publishing your information, so that it gets the exposure that you would like.

Its free, its easy, what else do you need?