Project Academic Debate

Full course description

Debating skills are an key component of academic life. This means that you should be able to defend your own position and refute opposing positions by providing substantial arguments based on relevant academic sources.

In this project, you will prepare, present and defend with peers a position for an academic debate on a specific topic. The available topics emerge out of a wide range of UCM courses from different concentrations. Students can submit their preferences for topics beforehand, but should be prepared to commit to any topic to which they are assigned. At the start of the project, each group will discuss their topic and settle on a concrete proposition for their final debate. After that, they splits up into a PRO (“yes”) and a CON (“no”) side; PRO will argue in favor of and CON will argue against the proposition. The two sides prepare separately for the final debate.

A crucial part of the preparation for their final debate is writing a collective position paper based on self-study of academic sources. The purpose of this position paper is to be informed about the topic of the debate, by developing arguments, anticipating counterarguments, and coming up with rebuttals to these counterarguments.

In addition, there will be practice debates, which focus on delivery. At least one of these practice debates will be scheduled in the lecture hall. The purpose of these practice debates is to familiarize students with the setting of a debate and to provide them with feedback on their public speaking skills. The topics for the practice debates will thematically relate to, but nevertheless significantly differ from, the proposition of the final debate.