The written conceptual overview of the structured arguments must include a cover page that contains the group's names, student numbers, resident campus, assessment title and lecturer. The conceptual overview should be 500 words in length. This is due one week after you present.
Each team will have 3 or 4 debaters. (NB. The number of debaters could be changed depending on the number of enrolees.)
Each speaker will have 5 minutes to argue their case. Palm cards and/or PowerPoint should be used. Students should not talk under-time - less than 4 minutes, or over-time - more than 6 minutes. A two point deduction will be applied to presentations over or under time.
Each team must prepare a team charter, including a description of the team's objectives, communication methods, scheduled meetings/protocols, task allocations, conflict resolution and quality assurance methods
Task Description: The objective of this assignment is to build students' abilities to structure arguments based on evidence and structured reasoning, including identify consensus methods for identifying coherent group arguments.
As a group, you can choose any one of the following debating topics. You will then need to identify what would be a good response from both sides. That is, you need to simulate what would be good arguments that the affirmative and the negative teams are likely to provide if very good debaters and had time to thoroughly research the topic. Since this will be a very challenging thing to do, each speaker only needs to speak for a minimum of 4 minutes and a maximum of 5 minutes.
Clearly, you need to do a lot of research if taking up this option to identify what are going to be winning arguments that all the speakers from both sides could put forward. This approaches most definitely tests your ability to look at a contentious issue and see both sides of the argument. Essentially, you are simulating the whole debate as a single team. You are not going up against another team. You are going up against yourselves.
- Corruption is the price we pay for democracy.
- Innovation is more successful in small companies.
- Multinational corporations are detrimental to national economies.
- Technological change creates economic disparity.
- Corporate Mission and vision statements are a waste of time and energy.
- Boards of Directors need quotas for women.
- Sustainability is essential for every business.
- Emotional Intelligence - the most essential factor in leadership.
- Would society be better off without money?
- Education kills creativity.
- Performance management in corporations kills creativity and innovation.
- Advertising is an unnecessary activity in today's economies.
- CEOs are given more credit than they deserve.
- Management students should be taught to learn rather than how to pass exams.
- Regulation is stifling business.
- Group think has its place.
- MBAs are a waste of money.
- Ethics and business are incompatible.
- People who are smokers should not be employed.
- Businesses should not try to influence government policy.
- We should get behind our best entrepreneurs.
- If we all spent more time working and less time networking, society would be better off.
The first speaker on the affirmative defines the topic and the nature of the team's arguments, providing some examples
The first speaker on the negative reaffirms or redefines the topic and the nature of the team's arguments, providing some examples
The second speaker on the affirmative identifies the differences between both teams' arguments, providing a conceptual overview and evidence/examples for why the affirmative team's arguments are superior
The second speaker on the negative identifies how the affirmative is lacking, providing a conceptual overview and evidence/examples for why the negative team's arguments are superior
The third speaker on the affirmative summarises what was said, including which arguments or sources of evidence were particularly compelling/flawed, and explains why the affirmative should win
The third speaker on the negative summarises what was said, including which arguments or sources of evidence were particularly compelling/flawed, and explains why the negative should win
If there is a fourth speaker, ensure the fourth speaker is able to explain how the team researched the topic and the sources of evidence drawn upon, including found evidence that could be used to refute the opposing team's possible arguments