Skip to Main Content

Pro/Con Debate Project: Home

True Dialogue

"Dialogue in its traditional meaning referred to people with divergent viewpoints coming together in hope of discovering a different, more complex and perhaps higher truth." - WSJ 11/1/2023 "Where’s Socrates When You Need Him?"

Pro/Con Debate Topics

Pro/Con Issues (for class debate) - Putting students in the driver’s seat

 Topics

  • Federal legalization of recreational  marijuana, 
  • Lower the drinking age, 
  • Opioid crisis: should opioids be prescribed for chronic pain? 
  • Performance - enhancing drugs should be allowed in professional sports and the olympics ? 
  •  There should be a national red flag law that is the same for every state for gun owners. 
  • Raise the legal age to Social Media to 18. 
  • No Social Media access during the school day 
  • The government is not allocating appropriate resources to combat the fentanyl crisis. 

Coming Up with Keywords!

Keyword Do's

  1. Use your background knowledge
  2. Strong keywords can include: People, Places, Location names, Significant events
  3. Add to your keyword list as you find new keywords

Keyword Don'ts

  1. Avoid long phrases or complete sentences
  2. Don't get locked in to your original list - keep adding as you learn more

 

Citing your Sources!

Best Practices:

  • Create a new project in your mybib.com account as soon the project is assigned.
  • Add each source into mybib as you find it and you will have a list of all your sources so you will not forget or lose any.

Debate Tips and Tricks

TIP - best way to refer to your sources in a verbal debate - show off their expertise! It makes your argument stronger!

"According to Dr. Smith, professor of medicine at the University of Massachusetts"
"Recent CDC research indicates..."
"The World Health Organization says..."

 

TRICK - research the other side
Do a little bit of research into the other side of your debate to help you get an idea of what their arguments might be. Then you can prepare some answers and have your statistics and data lined up to challenge their arguments.

Google Advanced Search

Searching in Google?
Remember you are looking for Trustworthy, Relevant, Accessible and Current (T. R. A. C.) information when searching for sources using Google. Ask yourself these questions about any websites before using the information for your debate.

To limit your results to a .gov or .edu website, type your search this way:
site:gov lower drinking age
or
site:edu safe injection sites