Intercollegiate Debate and Speech Communication: Historical Developments and Issues for the Future

The secret of quick thinking: The invention of mental speed in America, 1890–1925

“…Recently, a remarkable range of Americans had become fascinated with faster thinking and ways to acquire it. Businessmen sought to gauge the mental speed of employees and customers; spelling reformers aspired to accelerate writing and reading (Currell, 2007;Zimmerman, 2010); time limits were added to debates and speeches (Atchison and Panetta, 2009;Cornebise, 1984); and popular taste shifted from the prolixity of Victorian prose and drama to the terser "telegraphic style" of modernist literature (Douglas, 1995) and radio (Douglas, 1999). Promoting quick thinking as a benefit of sobriety and precondition for athletic victory, popular magazines such as Collier's and McClure's carried full-page advertisements for works such as The Secret of Quick Thinking for Profit (Independent, 1920;McClure's, 1914;Roper, 1919).…”

Against the grain : the challenges of black discourse within intercollegiate policy debate.

“…While acknowledging that there is merit in these personalized arguments, Zompetti and others (Atchison and Panetta, 2009) contend that making these arguments inside of the competitive debate rounds personalizes debate, therefore increasing hostility within the activity. These scholars suggest that it would be more productive to situate these dialogues outside of competition in a more -community-based‖ discussion.…”

“…Joseph Zompetti (2004) criticized the methods used by arguing that using personal narratives in debates has led to an increasingly hostile Debate environment and has failed to achieve the goals of Debate set by the more traditional members of Debate, such as learning tolerance of difference. While other scholars (Atchison and Panetta, 2009) attributed the increase in hostility to the fact that students were challenging the Debate community's inability to increase diversity in actual debate competitions. They argued that these discussions should instead take place in a community forum as a better method for increasing diversity.…”