The Georgia Debate Union has produced a letter for high schools to use while recruiting students to their debate teams.

It emphasizes the benefits of debate, including for college admissions, research skills, travel, and fun.

Please feel free to download and use this whenever necessary.

You might think that novice debate is about basic argumentation, the structure of the debate, and basic rules of the game.  While all those things are important, you will never believe the things that require explanation...

Susan Herbst, chief academic officer for the University System of Georgia, recently wrote an Inside Higher Ed piece and made a strong argument for incorporating the principles of policy debate into a curriculum dedicated to improving the critical thinking skills of students. 

While there are other approaches that have incorporated argumentation into the curriculum, those efforts can be further improved by teaching the principles of debate to students.  Students who are exposed to debate, learn to identify components of a rational argument, methods of assessing evidence credibility, the importance of identifying both sides of a contested issue, and the capacity to listen critically to claims made on both sides of an issue.