What is Public Forum?
1.
Public Forum is a type of high school debate usually reserved for those who aren't necesarily the brightest kids. Set up by
"I hear Billy was really interested in receiving a free "A" in his debate class; so much that he even took up
Public Forum !"
See
2.
debate for kids who either:
1. are too unintelligent to do a real event,
2. can't do their normal event at a tournament and want to be in an event that's easy to win,
3. don't really like debate but want it on their transcripts,
4. don't have time for real debate, or
5. want to practice empty rhetoric.
Ted Turner invented the event so that he could use the "Crossfire" from CNN in a high school activity, but after its first year in existence he disowned it because the debaters were too rude and whiny. Hence the current name, public forum.
This event almost always has lay-judges, or mommy judges, as real debaters call them. The team with the best voice wins. The topic is always simplistic and changes every month. The emphasis is on dumbing down the world so you can explain it to an idiot.
1. I tried so many times to explain the parts of a disad to him, but it was just over his head, so he switched to PF instead.
2. We could only take 4 teams in policy, so they had to go in public forum. They still qualified to nationals, even though they'd never done it before.
3. She's really good at science. She won the international science fair last year, but she wanted to have debate on her transcript, so she's doing PF.
4. He used to love debate, but this year he's taking so many AP classes that he doesn't have time, so he just does PF.
5. She's running for student body president next year and wants to learn how to talk pretty, so she's doing PF.
That lay-judge forgot which team was which and marked the wrong team as the winner. Oh well, such is PF.
See
1.
Public Forum is a type of high school debate usually reserved for those who aren't necesarily the brightest kids. Set up by
"I hear Billy was really interested in receiving a free "A" in his debate class; so much that he even took up
Public Forum !"
See
2.
debate for kids who either:
1. are too unintelligent to do a real event,
2. can't do their normal event at a tournament and want to be in an event that's easy to win,
3. don't really like debate but want it on their transcripts,
4. don't have time for real debate, or
5. want to practice empty rhetoric.
Ted Turner invented the event so that he could use the "Crossfire" from CNN in a high school activity, but after its first year in existence he disowned it because the debaters were too rude and whiny. Hence the current name, public forum.
This event almost always has lay-judges, or mommy judges, as real debaters call them. The team with the best voice wins. The topic is always simplistic and changes every month. The emphasis is on dumbing down the world so you can explain it to an idiot.
1. I tried so many times to explain the parts of a disad to him, but it was just over his head, so he switched to PF instead.
2. We could only take 4 teams in policy, so they had to go in public forum. They still qualified to nationals, even though they'd never done it before.
3. She's really good at science. She won the international science fair last year, but she wanted to have debate on her transcript, so she's doing PF.
4. He used to love debate, but this year he's taking so many AP classes that he doesn't have time, so he just does PF.
5. She's running for student body president next year and wants to learn how to talk pretty, so she's doing PF.
That lay-judge forgot which team was which and marked the wrong team as the winner. Oh well, such is PF.
See
