PEPPERDINE UNIVERSITY
5/24/2012

High school debate tourney held at Pep

CHRIS SEGAL
News Editor

Three days of intense debate took place last weekend in the classrooms on lower campus. Local high school students came to the Pepperdine Invitational Debate Tournament hosted by the university debate team.

This year the tournament filled up the Appleby Center, the Cultural Arts Center, the Keck Science Center and the Pendleton Learning Center, said Visiting Lecturer of Communication Kylie Robertson.

 “The schools ranged from private to public and offer students the opportunity to travel, compete and possibly be recruited by a university for speech and debate,” freshman debate team member Robin Nasby wrote in an e-mail.

The debate rounds were judged by parents, members of the Pepperdine Debate Team and coaches.

“Judging is one of the best ways to improve your own debate because the perception of what you are doing is different than what is going on,” Robertson said. “And when you have to evaluate that and choose who wins you can consider how to improve your own arguments.”

Sophomore debate team member Alex Nelson judged a parliamentary round and two Lincoln Douglas rounds.

“I’ve been on the other side with Christian Conferences,” Nelson said. “This was a different side; it was great to inspire them to have them look up to college students was great. You got to critique them a little and inspire them a lot.”

Ashley Bonrer, a sophomore at Granada Hills High School, competed in the Lincoln-Douglas rounds.

“This tournament is a preparation for the bigger ones at Stanford and Berkeley,” Bonrer said.

The high school students competed in either the Lincoln-Douglas or the Parliamentary style of debate. The Lincoln-Douglas style is an individual debating a single opponent on a topic that was decided at the beginning of the school year. Debaters have months available to construct arguments and familiarize themselves with both sides of an issue.

The Parliamentary style has teams of two competing with topics that they were given 15 minutes before the competition round. Parliamentary debaters tell the judges what criteria they want to be judged on, such as the strength of their arguments or on their justification, Robertson said.

The Pepperdine Debate Team competes at the Berkeley Invitational Debate at Berkeley this weekend.

Submitted  01-26-2006