ABSTRACT
This chapter explores how the juxtaposition of two public debate exemplars carries the potential to transcend this potential lacuna by discerning how some design features translate to broader audiences. Interscholastic debate tournaments provide venues for debaters and scholars to come together and learn from differing approaches to argumentation. In contrast, single schools, uncoupled from the social network of the tournament format, typically host public debate events. This relative isolation can limit opportunities for theory building through the exchange of design perspectives. The Anderson Public Debate addressed the topic of a proposed minimum wage ballot initiative, Proposition 1, that would immediately raise the minimum wage in Tacoma, Washington to 15 dollars an hour on January 1, 2016. Some public debate formats make slight modifications to the Woodward audience shift ballot procedure to measure changes in audience opinion about issues subsidiary to the overall question that frames the debate.
