Face Off: National Debate
Competition
Face Off, the national debate competition is the most important event in the Literary Competitions. With an extensive format of three rounds the debate is spread over three days with a round on each day. The final round will be a grand finale in the Outreach Auditorium.
There are several formats of debating popular today in colleges. In Face-Off it will be 2 on 2 kind of debating with the Presidential and Vice-Presidential Candidate on each side. We have played around a little with the format to make it more interesting.
Salient Features of the Debate:
The first round will be an extempore contest where the participants will have only 5 minutes to prepare.
e participants will have to speak for a period of 3 (+1) minutes in the preliminary round. Based on this round, the top 12 will proceed to the next round.
The second and the third rounds will be conducted as 2 on 2 debates. The 12 will be broken up into 3 groups of 4 each. Each group will comprise a proposition and an opposition and both sides will have 2 speakers each. The presidential and the vice-presidential candidates
The entire allocation process will be randomized and will be determined by a draw of lots.
The best four speakers will proceed to the third and the final round which will be conducted in the same fashion. (The selection of speakers will be based on their individual performance and irrespective of the outcome of their round.)
Please not that team work among the two speakers will also be an important judgment criterion. The two speakers on each side will have well defined roles in terms of bringing new points, presenting constructive and answering the rebuttals.
Few Points worth noting:
The speakers would judged on the basis of their matter, method and manner in that order of relative importance.
Matter refers to the content and arguments presented.
Method refers to how well does the speaker fulfill the roles of his position in the speaking order.
Manner refers to the eloquence, style, voice modulation and so on.
More details will be available after the Round 1 ie the Extempore Round for maintain equality among the participants.
Preparations:
It would surely help to update yourself with most of the burning current issues and few perennial debates among the human kind ;)
On style, manner and a general feel good watch The Great Debators (Denzel Washington), an amazing movie about an upcoming debating team of Black students which takes on the Harvard team. The climax debate at Harvard is worth watching a multiple times.
Competition:
Expect some real tough competition with top colleges from Lucknow, Delhi University, Jaipur, Mumbai coming to have a face-off.
