Saturday, October 25, 2008

Yale IV

On October 24th, Dartmouth Parliamentary Debate took four teams on a slow, scenic drive down to New Haven to compete in the only British Parliamentary Debate tournament offered in America. The Yale IV tournament attracted teams from all over the broad American Northeast, Canada, and Australia. The Dartmouth team participates on the APDA circuit, but had no barrier in transitioning to a British style of debate. Although no Dartmouth team broke, Sourabh Mishra and Marcus Gadson finished two places out of the break by coming in 18th. To further Dartmouth's success, Prat Srivastava placed as the 7th novice speaker. Campbell Miller paired with Tarang Agarwal, Jen Gaudette with Prat, and Carsten Hansen with Maryam Zafer.

As a brief description, British Parliamentary debate differs from the American style in that it incorporates four teams competing in hour long rounds, preparation time for a resolution unseen by both teams until ten minutes before a round, and a wider variety of accents.

No comments: