Name four broad areas that can be by a person learning about debate

1. Debates can help you practice and demonstrate your critical thinking skills.

2. Debates can help you learn to discuss complicated topics calmly, clearly,

and competently

3. Debates can help you cultivate your persuasion skills

4. Debates help deepen your understanding of topics when you "actively"

listen to opposing views

5. Debates help sharpen communication skills – you can learn to say more

with fewer words

6. Debates can be mind-opening – "actively" listening to opposing opinions

can help you think out of the box – they can offer a broader range of

alternatives, excite imagination, and ignite creativity

7. Debates help remind you that while business is about competition it is also

about compromise and cooperation

8. Debate teams can offer a sense of comradeship, demonstrating the value of

teamwork.

9. To those with a truly open-mind, debates can broaden and deepen

reasoning and communicating skills. They can enhance the ability to

think and communicate clearly and quickly.

Debates are not...

1. Debates are not wars

2. Debates are not arguments

3. Debates do not mean one team must win and one must

lose (both can be successful or both can be losers)

two years ago, when picking flowers in the mountains back of yosemite valley, i found a book. it was blotted and storm-beaten; all of its outer pages were mealy and crumbly. the paper seemed to dissolve like the snow beneath which it had been buried, however; many of the inner pages were well preserved. and although all were more or less stained and torn, whole chapters were easily readable. this is the condition of the great open book of yosemite glaciers today; its granite pages have been torn and blurred by the same storms that wasted the castaway book.

two years ago, when picking flowers in the mountains back of yosemite valley; i found a book. it was blotted and storm-beaten, all of its outer pages were mealy and crumbly. the paper seemed to dissolve like the snow beneath which it had been buried, however, many of the inner pages were well preserved. and although all were more or less stained and torn; whole chapters were easily readable. this is the condition of the great open book of yosemite glaciers today, its granite pages have been torn and blurred by the same storms that wasted the castaway book.