Evaluation of Evidence

In the next blog entries I will be addressing five additional prompts. The prompt I address in this entry is:

Write an evaluation of the supporting evidence you found for your claim.

I used two articles on why a person should debate as sources in my essay. Both sources were persuasive articles written by debate societies (the Amos J. Peaslee Debate Society, and the Erasmus Debating Society), trying to convince non-debaters to begin debate. 

Both articles are persuasive articles, and only offer one perspective on debate: the good side. Both articles focused mainly on the three skills that I included in my essay: public speaking skills, research skills, and reasoning skills. There evidence was not based off of studies, but I determined it to be factual because they were writing with their experiences as support. Because both are a debate society, it is implied that they belong to, or are in charge of, a large group of debate programs, or debaters. It would be reasonable to assume they are backing up their claims with their experiences dealing with debaters over periods of time. 

The articles' audience is most likely aimed at future debate students who are checking out the society's program to decide whether they want to join or not. I see no reason why another person would read the article, with exception to students like me who are using it a source. Both articles are aimed specifically at those who may wish to debate within their society or team.

The article by the Erasmus Debating Society was slightly more formal in style than the Amos J. Peaslee Debate Society's article was, which leads me to think that the Amos J. Peaslee Debate Society is directing their instruction towards general college students, while the Erasmus Debating Society may be direction instruction towards students more serious about debate—communications majors, political science majors, etc. This holds up because The AJPDS is the debate society for Swarthmore college, where any student can join the team.

I had found good sources with statistics of improvement (such as grades, literacy, and graduation levels) for debaters or schools that offered debate, but they did not apply to my essay well enough to actually include them.

-Ace