In addition to debating at universities, competition has spread at schools all over the globe in recent decades. For example, participating countries annually send a delegation of pupils aged 14 to 19 to the World Schools Debating Championships (WSDC), which are comparable to the World Universities Debating Championships. Laura Alviz of the Debating Society Germany e.V. explains what exactly that means. WSDC takes place in Stuttgart next week. After the German team had to cover long distances in 2014 and 2015 to reach the Southeast Asian cities Bangkok and Singapore, traveling becomes easier this year. WSDC takes place in seven days ...

The WUDC - World Universities Debating Championship - are hosted annually around New Year and decide, who will become the english speaking university debating champions in one of three language categories. [caption id="attachment_28793" align="alignleft" width="400"] An Komfort völlig ausreichend? Jugendherberge in Tübingen // Sufficient comfort? Youth hostel in Tübingen // © Lennart Lokstein[/caption] In the German (in this article meaning: German speaking language region - primarily Germany, Austria and Switzerland) debate szene international tournaments aren't really important. The WUDC 2013 in Berlin and the EUDC 2015 in Vienna may have risen attention and as far as I'm informed the number of VDCH ...

  Worlds are over, but some questions remain. Why was there a delay during the preliminary rounds every day? Did Tabbie2 malfunction at any time? Or were the adjudicator scores lost? Worlds Tab Master Jakob Reiter from DK Wien talked to Achte Minute about tabbing the biggest international tournament, his software Tabbie2, and other technical details. Achte Minute: Dear Jakob, you were one of the Tab Masters at the World University Debating Championships in Thessaloniki. How do you feel after this tournament? Jakob: I am really happy I had the opportunity to be the Tab Master. It is always a great challenge to ...

It is the longest time at a debating tournament: The last closed round is over and you are waiting for the break. The tabbing team always takes longer than promised, and the social can barely pass the time. [caption id="attachment_25851" align="alignright" width="300"] Debatebreaker's logo[/caption]There are the patient debaters who can sit back and relax, and let the break surprise them. If you belong to the many who are not like that, you probably spend the time constantly speculating about your chances. You have a rough idea of your score, but will it be enough for the break?There are some rules of thumb that you ...

South Africa is currently applying to host the World Universities Debating Championships (WUDC) in 2017. Should the bid be successful, Dessislava Kirova would form the Chief Adjudication panel, together with Gemma Buckley from Australia and Syed Saddiq from Malaysia. Anne Gaa spoke with her about her plans for the Worlds.Achte Minute: How did you get to be nominated by the South African OrgCom? Is there a special relationship between the German and South African debating communities?Dessislava Kirova: It was quite surprising. At the Paris Open 2013, I met someone who was, at that time, part of the organizing team. That connection ...

Shortly after this year's World Universities Debating Championship (WUDC) in Malaysia, Gemma Buckley wrote down her thoughts on the topic of discrimination based on language skills and the existing power structures in the debating community. Her article caused a broad debate on that issue on Facebook. She allowed the Achte Minute to republish it on this blog. You can discuss it here or add a comment to the existing discussion. Judging at this year's WUDC was an eye opening (and occasionally devastating) experience for me, as has been made clear through my recent posts on Facebook. After many took offense to ...

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The cancellation of a public debate in Oxford on the topic "This House believes Britain's abortion culture hurts us all" caused a controversial and emotional debate in the United Kingdom. After Tim Squirrell, current president of the Cambridge Union Society, published an article in the students' newspaper "The Tab," saying, "it’s about time we recognised that and started thinking responsibly and considerately about freedom of speech," he was exposed to hostilities. Tim allowed us to republish his latest article from his blog "Squirrelling the Motion" that reflects on the ongoing discussion. Besides offering an overview on the events of the ...

The preparations for the European Universities Debating Championship (EUDC) 2015 in Vienna are in full swing. Stefan Zweiker convenes the event, which will host 800 participants in Austria’s capital. Press representative of Debattierklub Wien (DKWien) Damita Pressl conducted a short interview. Stefan, how is the organisation going at the moment? What details have been confirmed so far? For one thing, we have a key organisation committee, meaning that up to this point, we had around 20 people completing most tasks. That number is now set to grow, and I would guess around another 20 people are going to join us and take ...

The German Peer Klüßendorf, who has been debating for Lund University for the last two years and won the European Championship 2013, went to the second French World Debating Championship in Paris. In this week’s Mittwochs-Feature, he summarises his experiences and writes about different debating formats, French humour, and a Grand Final judging panel that refused to announce the winner before an encore with reversed roles. A suavely suited up young man walks on stage. With his loud voice he fills the historic auditorium easily. He raises a sword. 30 seconds later, he is sitting on the President's chair, still speaking, ...

Having been openly trans for a while, at the beginning of this year I abandoned my old name and started dressing more unambiguously femininely. When I went to debating competitions it was obvious that there were some practical things that needed to do be done to make debating an enjoyable experience for transgender people. In particular, I argued that the debating circuit should implement pronoun introductions at the start of debates. Since then I’ve been really pleased with the UK debating circuit’s openness to pronoun introductions, and numerous competitions have used them successfully. For reference, I use the words trans and ...

Under the impression of experiences at Vienna IV, professor of rhetoric and debating coach Steve Llano advocates for an "ethical adjudication". This article was first published on his blog, Progymnasmata. The Vienna IV seems like a competition that time forgot. It's a competition that reaches back to European debate the way it was long before I got involved in it, to a time when the more weird or inside-joke funny the motion was, the better the tournament. These are examples of motions and procedures that operated debate societies before the current trend of making competitions tied at least somewhat to the ...

Achte Minute features today an article by Tuqa Khalid on Debating in the United Arab Emirates. After Ary Ferreira da Cunha's article about the "(Hi)story of Debate in Portugal", this is the second time that an international debater reports on debating in a different country. First and foremost: What is the UAE, you might ask? Well, you probably have heard of Dubai – it has the world’s largest shopping mall, the world’s tallest tower, and recently won the 2020 Expo bid. It is one of the seven cities of the United Arab Emirates (UAE). [caption id="attachment_21844" align="alignright" width="400"] A debate at ...

In March 2008, I sat with a few friends at the University of Porto, Faculty of Law, and we decided to create “the debate society”. That made some sense at the time since we felt like we were completely alone: there was no other debate society in Portugal, international tournaments sounded like something completely out of reach, and we didn’t know any other debaters. Many didn’t even know what debate was: professors and students were afraid we would be a façade for some political party and the idea that debate could have a place outside partisan politics sounded weird to ...

Last weekend a dream that many debaters dream came true for Peer Klüßendorf and Emilia Carlqvist: They became European Debating Champions in English as a second language. Peer started debating in highschool when he attended "Jugend debattiert" and advanced to its national and international final in 2007. One year ago, he resumed debating when he moved to Lund. Emilia just moved to Lund in 2011 and tried debating at a local tournament. Despite liking it, she was too busy and did not debate again until 2012 when she decided to run for the board of Lund Debate Society. Achte Minute ...

Achte Minute features today a online post by Daan Welling that can also be found on his blog. He says, that as he is now part of the “old crowd” on the Dutch debating scene, he thinks it ought to be time for him to sit down on the sofa of self-appointed wisdom, and give some general suggestions, ideas and inspirations for the coming debating season. We are excited to see what you think about his ideas. I think our circuit is incredibly fun and inclusive, and serves as a great addition to one’s (student) life. Nonetheless, there are always ...

In the past the Deputy Chief Adjudicators of the European Universities Debating Championships (EUDC) were choosen in advance. Danique van Koppenhagen one of the Chief Adjudicators of the Durham EUDC bid shares her and Fred Crowell ideas about a reform. Comment and discuss away!  At EUDC council in Belgrade, a decision was made to no longer allow bids for EUDC to announce more than two members of their prospective CA team. The Durham EUDC bid for 2014 has taken this to heart, and announced only Fred Cowell and myself as co-CA’s. DCA’s will be announced after the bid has been awarded. The change ...