National Parliamentary Debate Association

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The National Parliamentary Debate Association (NPDA) is one of the two national intercollegiate parliamentary debate organizations in the United States. The other is the American Parliamentary Debate Association. Its membership is national with participating schools throughout the country. In 2015, NPDA was the largest debating organization in the United States with around 200-250 participating schools in any given year. [1]

Contents

Rules

In tournaments sponsored or sanctioned by the NPDA, teams of two debate head-to-head. Tournaments issue a new topic each round, generally on issues such as politics, philosophy and current affairs. After the announcement of the topic, the two teams have 15 minutes to prepare plus the time it takes to walk to the furthest away round in which debates will be taking place (usually rounded to 20 minutes), during which to write out their respective cases.

The standard time limits for an NPDA debate are:

There are tournaments, however, at which these are modified, generally to a 7-7-7-7-5-5 format. The Claremont Colleges tournament, for instance, uses this 7-5 format. During constructive speeches, debaters may introduce new arguments and the speaker's opponents may rise to ask questions of the speaker. Constructive speakers can accept or reject any given question. Rebuttals are exclusively for summarizing the arguments that were made during constructives.

Over the past few years,[ when? ] many coaches and competitors have referred to the official title of speeches with different names. These are unofficial yet very popular with many judges:

Debaters may not bring in printed, published evidence and consult it during the round. It is expected that debaters will use their own pre-existing knowledge and research conducted prior to the start of the actual round to back their arguments with reasoning and empirical data. This places parliamentary debate in stark contrast to the other common intercollegiate debate format, policy debate, where debaters may utilize quoted evidence.

Championship Tournament

The NPDA runs one debate tournament each year: the NPDA Championship Tournament, held in late March or early April at rotating host sites. While the inaugural tournament in 1994 only hosted around 40 teams, the 2004 Championship Tournament had over 300 in the field from over a half-dozen nations. The tournament's practices are generally modeled by smaller invitational tournaments, which provide the bulk of year-long competition. NPDA sanctions many of these tournaments, and the school that does the best at sanctioned invitationals over the course of the year is awarded a year-long sweepstakes championship.

Relationship to other tournaments and organizations

There are usually several NPDA-sanctioned invitational tournaments in the US to choose from on almost every weekend of the academic year. The largest of these tournaments include the Mile High Swing held in January co-hosted in recent years[ when? ] by Texas Tech University and the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, Utah, the season-opening Bowman Debates at William Jewell College in September, the Steve Hunt Classic held at Lewis & Clark College in October and the Paul Winters Invitational at the University of the Pacific in November.

Communicating between tournaments

Almost from its inception, the NPDA community has taken advantage of the Internet to continue debates (and to debate about debates) between tournaments and in the off season. For years, this took place via the official electronic mailing list, much to the chagrin of those who saw that resource as best used for official communication such as posting tournament invitations and results.

Today, much of the online debate (especially between competitors) in the NPDA community takes place via the online forum Net-Benefits.net, founded by University of Southern California then-undergraduate Jed Link. The name Net-Benefits is a pun, referring to the debate paradigm by which the debate judge weighs the net benefits of two competing policies. The site is now an electronic hub for discourse and information on parliamentary debate.

National champions

Every year since 1994, the organization has held a national championship tournament. Winning teams include:

YearTeamSchool
2025Alexa Grechshkin & Isabel Mathy Whitman College
2024Tristan Keene & Brenna Seiersen Parliamentary Debate at Berkeley
2023Tristan Keene & Brenna Seiersen Parliamentary Debate at Berkeley
2022Jacob Tate & Maximus Renteria Rice University
2021Amanda Miskell & Ryan Rashid Parliamentary Debate at Berkeley
2020Mitch Deleel & Adeja Powell McKendree University
2019Co-champions: Jessica Jung1 & lila lavender2/Tom Kadie1 & Henry Tolchard1 Parliamentary Debate at Berkeley 1/Western Washington University 2
2018Kyle Bligen & Jazmine Buckley Mercer University
2017Co-champions: Ryan Kelly & Kaitlyn Bull/Will Starks & Quintin Brown Washburn University
2016David Hansen & Katelyn Johnson William Jewell College
2015Matt Casas & Anthony Joseph Kansas City Kansas Community College
2014Joshua Rivera & Benjamin Campbell Southern Illinois University Carbondale
2013Josh Rivera & Mike Selck Southern Illinois University Carbondale
2012Lauren Knoth & Josh Ramsey Washburn University
2011Hank Fields & Matt Gander University of Oregon
2010Brian Horton & Adam Testerman Texas Tech University
2009Max Alderman & David Pena University of Nevada, Reno
2008Kristen Owen & Anthony Putnicki Texas Tech University
2007Tim Kamermayer & Griffith Vertican Point Loma Nazarene University
2006Josh Anderson & Rachel Safran University of Puget Sound
2005Meredith Price & Paul Bingham Lewis & Clark College
2004Ian Samuel & Marie Tenny Truman State University
2003Michael Owens & Joshua Wilkerson University of Wyoming
2002Ben Garcia & Chris Richter University of Alaska Anchorage
2001Danny Barak & Will Trachman University of California, Berkeley
2000Ryan Kennedy & Jacob Stutzman Truman State University
1999Geof Brodak & Bill Herman Colorado State University
1998Heath Curtis & Rebekah Gilbert Concordia University, Seward
1997Dan Nelson & Marcus Paroske Regis University
1996Ryan Levy & Scott Ruthfield Rice University
1995Meredith Marine & Neal Sample University of Wyoming
1994Marcus Paroske & Tammy Schultz Regis University

Top speakers

YearSpeakerSchool
2025Rija Naqvi Rice University
2024Jas Liu Whitman College
2023Brenna Seiersen Parliamentary Debate at Berkeley
2022Arshita Sandhiparthi University of the Pacific
2021Cam Wade Mercer University
2020Raine McDonagh Lewis & Clark College
2019Fiker Tesfaye Texas Tech University
2018Logan Kelley Texas Tech University
2017Grace MillerUniversity of Nevada, Reno
2016Ashe Tippins Western Washington University
2015Jazmine Buckley Mercer University
2014Marten King Whitman College
2013Miranda Morton Whitman College
2012Ben Reid McKendree University
2011Max Alderman University of Nevada, Reno
2010Will Van Treuren University of Colorado, Boulder
2009MaryAnn Almeida Willamette University
2008Kevin Calderwood Southern Illinois University Carbondale
2007Ryan Lawrence University of California, Berkeley
2006Joelle Perry Western Kentucky University
2005Marie Tenny University of South Carolina
2004Ian Samuel Truman State University
2003Kyle DeBeer Colorado College
2002Audrey Mink California State University, Long Beach
2001Katie Angliss Point Loma Nazarene University
2000Andrew Vogt Colorado College
1999Bill Herman Colorado State University
1998Daniel Nelson Regis University
1997Marcus Paroske Regis University
1996Ryan Levy Rice University
1995Nick Coburn-Palo Weber State University
1994Andrea Roth University of New Mexico

Commonly used books

See also

References

  1. "About NPDA". National Parliamentary Debate Association. Archived from the original on 15 July 2015. Retrieved 5 May 2015.
  2. The Parli Prepbook
  3. Eric Robertson (2009). Strategic Argumentation in Parliamentary Debate. The author. ISBN   978-0-557-13537-0 via Google Books.
  4. John Meany; Kate Shuster (2002). Art, Argument, and Advocacy: Mastering Parliamentary Debate. IDEA. ISBN   978-0-9702130-7-5 via Google Books.
  5. John Meany; Kate Shuster (2003). On that Point!: An Introduction to Parliamentary Debate. IDEA. ISBN   978-0-9720541-1-9 via Google Books.
  6. Mark Crossman (2005). Burden of Proof: An Introduction to Government And Guide to Parliamentary Debate. CENGAGE Learning. ISBN   978-0-7593-6189-8 via Google Books.
  7. Richard E. Edwards (2008). Competitive Debate: The Official Guide. Alpha Books. ISBN   978-1-59257-693-7 via Google Books.