This comprehensive introductory textbook gives students the framework and tools to become great debaters and use those skills to further civil and respectful responses on contentious topics. Focusing on core concepts and skills of research, reasoning, and argumentation with a special focus on debate rhythms, the book builds students' ability to express ideas and respectfully dissent, ultimately improving their individual resilience in adverse circumstances and encouraging the emergence of communal values in society.

An Invitation to Debate takes students on a step-by-step preparation of case research, speech composition, rebuttals, and resolutions. It is not specific to a particular debate style, allowing professors to use the book across a variety of procedural types, including policy, British Parliamentary, Lincoln-Douglas, International Public Debate Association, world schools, and Coolidge.

As the most up-to-date debate textbook, An Invitation to Debate will show students how to use AI technologies to aid (but never replace) their own case preparation. Throughout the book, students will be challenged to consider opportunities for debate to create more civil and fruitful discussion in their daily lives and on the world stage-where respectful debate can break through political barriers and counteract social injustices.

Ben Voth is professor of rhetoric and director of debate and speech programs at Southern Methodist University, USA. His latest book is An Invitation to Debate: Reasoning and Argument as a Framework for Civil Society. As a collegiate speech and debate director he has coached more than five world champions, more than thirty national champions, and more than fifty state champions in speech and debate competitions over the past thirty years. He is also the author of Rwanda Rising: Debate as an Empowering International Pedagogy and The Rhetoric of Genocide: Death as a Text, as well as co-author with Robert E. Denton of Social Fragmentation and the Decline of American Democracy: The End of the Social Contract.