In the Summer 2018 issue of International Debate, Miriam Kohn (LearningLeaders, Rochester '17) and Chris Perkins (Rochester '17) published an article titled "Fair Play: Proposals for Reform to the Break System in British Parliamentary Debate." In said article, they discussed the possibility to replace team breaks on speaks with a point-based break and additional bye-based elimination round. AchteMinute (AM): First off, so lucky to be chatting with you, Miriam & Chris. Can you tell us briefly about your background in debate? Miriam Kohn (M): Thanks for taking the time to chat with us! My high school didn’t have a debate team, so ...

Apart from regular tournaments with debates around topics that generally move - or should move - society, there are some examples were debaters just combine some of their various interests. This led German debaters to establish their very own ruleset for what they call "history debates", ultimately resulting in history tournaments. Additionally, a history debate sometimes even gets set for one round of a regular tournament. In this article, we will introduce you to this feature - maybe you even want to do your own history debate? ...

[caption id="attachment_32158" align="alignright" width="400"] Winners Katherine Dunbar (left) and Etsuko Lim (right) during prep time - © TCD Hist/Phil[/caption] The Trinity Open 2017 was won by Cambridge B (Etsuko Lim & Katherine Dunbar) in Closing Government. They debated against Oxford Tecks and Sophie (Teck Wei Tan & Sophie Large) in Opening Government,  Upgrading from Aodhan (Adam Stairs & Clíodhna Ní Chéileachair, UCD Law) in Opening Opposition and Edinburgh A (Tim Squirrel & Nish Hegde) in Closing Opposition on the motion "You are an author who has just been granted a power such that any book you write would be taken as gospel by all who read it. ...

On October 11 and 12 the Roosevelt Debating Society will host the second edition of the Roosevelt Open. The tournament will be held in lovely Middelburg, all the way in the south-west corner of the Netherlands. Last year's Open was a great success, and this year the Org Comm promise a well-organized and fun tournament. Through collaboration with the Nationale Jeugdraad (NJR), they strive to make this tournament environmentally friendly. Concise info: British Parliamentary 7-minute speeches 5 rounds & break to semis Max €25 per speaker Domestic team cap of 5 Total team cap of 40 N-1 Adjudication Rule Registration Chief Adjudicators: Daan Welling: EUDC 2012 ESL Champion, WUDC 2013 ...

Debate goes German TV - yay! Please read the German version of this article to learn more about the details. ...

And the winners are... Some tears, standing ovations and two exciting and excellent final debates - a lot of emotions at the finals of this year's European Universities Debating Championship (EUDC or Euros). Now, really, without further ado, here are the winners from two categories, ESL (English as a Second Language) and Open (open to everybody proficient enought): ...

Berlin! Berlin! Berlin! Again we're cheering for Berlin: Team A of the Berlin Debating Union (BDU) made it to the semis: Jonas Werner and Niels Schröter - yay! In quarters, they were closing opp in a debate on "This house supports life sentences without the possibility of parole for serial re-offenders." Now, they're debating the motion "This house believes that the militaries in newly democratized Arab countries should act as the guardian angels of society" from closing gov. ...

And here is the even more so awaited open break to quarters at the European Universities Debating Championship (EUDC or Euros). It's called "open" because it's open to any team that's good enough to compete with Oxbridge or TCD Hist or any of the big names. Please find the ranking and the draw below. ...

Long awaited, heavily fought for, now it's here: Theeeeeeeeeee brrrrrrreak! Please find below the teams that made it to the quarter-finals of the European Universities Debating Championship (EUDC or Euros) 2012 in Belgrade Serbia. As usual, there are two categorie, ESL (English as a Second Language) and Open (open to everybody who is good enough). Here's the ESL break and the draw. ...

Yep, the European Universities Debating Championship (EUDC or Euros) is still going on. It's day 3, the last three prelims are scheduled for today. We've got an update on the results of most of the teams from under the roof of VDCH (Verband der Debattierclubs an Hochschulen, or association of debating societies at universities). This is how they performed in the first six preliminary rounds: Results after round 6 Gutenberg, Nicolas and Robert, 9 points Gutenberg, Thore and Willy, 8 Tübingen, Konrad and Jonas, 8 Tübingen, Marie and Sophie, 6 Heidelberg, Lucas and Jan, (Sorry, no update available so far!) Stuttgart, Andreas and Gregor, 10 BDU, Dessi and ...

A little less hot in Belgrade, said the weather forecast. Only 31 degree Celsius, said the weather forecast. Must have felt like a fresh breeze after 40 degrees the day before. At least, today no one complained about the Serbian heat on Twitter. Rather, some obviously ate ice cream in between rounds for reasons of refreshment. Apart from the weather, there's more exciting news from the Serbian capital: Again, Willy Witthaut helped us gather the results for VDCH club - thank you! (Again, of some teams we only have the data after previous rounds. We're trying to collect more data.) Results after ...

Look who came up with preliminary results from the European Universities Debating Championship (EUDC or Euros): It's Willy Witthaut! Find below the results of most of the teams from under the umbrella of VDCH, or Verband der Debattierclubs an Hochschulen (association of debating societies at universities). Thanks, Willy! We also stumbled across the results of our Dutch neigbours - see below. Please do not hesitate to help us gather information on results or give us snipets of gossip to entertain those at home. Oh, something that everyone at home might envy those down in Belgrade: It's around 40°C in the ...

Profs vs. students - a show debate about how celeb thesis cheaters like Guttenberg should be pilloried or not. Please red the German version of this piece to learn more about the Paderborn show debate.

68 teams, seven prelims and a quarters round make up for semis in Vienna. The following eight teams made it to semis of the German language debating championship (Meisterschaft im deutschsprachigen Debattieren or MDD): Berlin Stadt im Norden (Annette Kirste, Julian Ohm) Mainz Anton (Andrea Gau, Daniil Pakhomenko) Stuttgart CNC (Michael Saliba, Igor Gilitschenski) Berlin Flauschpfote (Hauke Blume, Niels Schröter) MS Hamburg Loki (Kira Lancker, Barbara Schunicht) Berlin HS (Johannes Häger, Georg Sommerfeld) Berlin Babes Bolay (Dessislava Kirova, Juliane Mendelsohn) München Alpha (Valerio Morelli, Marco Witzmann) (This is not a ranking. ) Learn more about MDD in the German version of this article and follow us on Facebook and Twitter ...

German language debating championship (MDD) - Break to Quarters: Berlin Kai & Flo (Kai Dittmann und Florian Umscheid) Berlin Flauschpfote (Hauke Blume und Niels Schröter) Hamburg Loki (Kira Lancker und Barbara Schunicht) München Alpha (Valerio Morelli und Marco Witzmann) Berlin Babes Bolay Dessislava Kirova und Juliane Mendelsohn) Berlin HS (Johannes Häger und Georg Sommerfeld) Stuttgart CNC (Igor Gilitschenski und Michael Saliba) Münster Lamberti (Johannes Haug und Adrian Gombert) Mainz Anton (Daniil Pakhomenko und Andrea Gau) Berlin SW (Farid Schwuchow und Jonas Werner) München A (Wladislaw Jachtschenko und Markus Dankerl) Stuttgart A (Andreas Lazar und Sven Moritz Hein) Jena - Die Untergeher (Jonathan Scholbach und Friederike Meyer zu Wendischhoff) Karls Ruhe vor dem Sturm (Leonid ...

 

Assume you receive an email on a Monday at about 1am offering you a team slot at a good tournament in the Netherlands, which starts off 4 days later. What would you do? The correct answer is looking up a flight of course. At for Melanie Sindelar and Stefan Zweiker who confirmed the slot immediately and thus hopped over to the Dutch Debating Open in Leiden, Netherlands (30th to 31st March 2012). Whether the trip was worth the flight and how Dutch the Dutch Debating Open really were can be read in this article. Debates. [caption id="" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Later Winner Arielle Dundas ...

We proudly present the winners of this year’s German regionals: Heidelberg won the Southern German regional. Berlin won the Northern German regional. Mainz won the Middle German regional. Congrats to everyone! In the South, Wiebke Nadler und Till Kroeger from Debating Club Heidelberg defeated Teams from Munich an Vienna. Jakob Reiter (Debattierklub Wien) was awarded most popular speaker of the final; Sven Hirschfeld (Heidelberg) and Konrad Gütschow (Tübingen) topped the tab. In the North, Georg Sommerfeld and Johannes Häger from BDU Berlin defeated Teams from Potsdam and other Teams from Berlin. Jonas Werner was awarded best speaker of the final. In the Middle, Andrea Gau and Daniil ...

 

 

Debattierclub  Mainz won ZEIT DEBATTE Magdeburg. To know more please read the German version.

We're sorry, the English translation you're looking for is not yet available. Please come back later!

Berlin won the Vienna IV 2012! ...

Julian Ohm and Barbara Schunicht from Debattierclub Hamburg won the Berlin Punk 2012. They defeated Andreas Lazar and Roxanna Noll from Debattierclub Stuttgart and two teams from Berlin Debating Union: Jonas Werner and Katja Krüger aswell as Christina Dexel and Lilian Seffer. The final motion read “Dieses Haus glaubt, dass Menschenversuche Richtern als Strafmaß zur Verfügung stehen sollten.“ ...

Please read the German version of this.

Please read the German version of this.

Trauma overcome! Worlds' runner-up Dessislava Kirova gives Achte Minute'e appreciated readers an insight on how she and her team mate Juliane Mendelsohn have overcome their trauma of being defeated in quarters - and how the proceed straight on to the finals of the World Universities Debating Championships (WUDC or Worlds) in Manila, Philippines. (The story is in German, please check back later for an English translation.) ...

Female power straight on through to the final - Dessislava Kirova and Juliane Mendelsohn of Berlin Debating Union (BDU) are runner-ups to Omer and Sella Nevo from Israel who won the ESL final of the World University Debating Championships (WUDC or Worlds). Congrats from Achte Minute to all! The ladies gave Achte Minute an interview - please switch to the German page to read the full story or check back later for an English translation.

Since we guess that our appreciated readers follow us on Twitter your head will most probably be replete with impressions from De La Salle Worlds. But what are the facts and figures about the Wolrd Universities Debating Championships (WUDC)? Or maybe you have been there yourself and want to sort things out now? Your Achte Minute team provides you with all you might want to know – and even beyond. By the way, you still might wanna follow the Hashtag #WUDC on Twitter – you’ll find funny stories and how everybody copes with the aftermath of post-Worlds exhaustion. ...

Today's sixth day of the Worlds Universities Debating Championship saw lots of joy and lots of heartbreak - it was the first day of final rounds! After yesterday's break announcement started with the open octofinals, followed by English as a Second Language (ESL) quarterfinals, open quarterfinals and concurrent EFL and ESL semifinals. ...