Ethics bowl for environments of the organization  (Page 11/14)

Competition time line

Competition time line

1. Team 1 Presentation: One minute to consult, seven minutes to present.
2. Team 2 Commentary: One minute to consult, seven minutes to present.
3. Team 1 Response to Commentary: One minute to consult, five minutes to respond.
4. The question and answer session between Team 1 and the judges will last 15 minutes with the clock running. Each judge is permitted to ask a question and a short follow-up.
5. In the second round, the time line is the same while the debating teams change roles.

Advice for presenting teams

• Tell us what you are going to do, do it, and then tell us what you have done. In other words, start your presentation with a summary, then proceed to explain the parts summarized in more detail, and conclude with another summary. This will help the listening audience understand what you are trying to do.
• Be professional, formal, and courteous. Address yourself to the other team and to the judges. Some presenters stand facing the judges and other team when delivering the initial presentation.
• Be sure to address the scoring criteria in your presentation, commentary, response to commentary, and answers to judges' questions. What do you and your team understand by intelligibility, ethical relevance, ethical irrelevance, and moral imagination/creativity? Take time to listen to the other team and the judges to gauge whether they picked up on how your team has addressed the criteria. If they miss aspects, repeat them later in the competition. Don't be afraid to use phrases such as "As we said earlier in the presentation or in our commentary...." During the commentary and the question and answer session you will find crucial clues into whether others have understood you as you wished to be understood.
• Be sure to thank the judges, other team, audience, and moderators before and after the competition. Such formalities make it possible to penetrate more deeply into the practices of civility and reasonableness.
• Relax and have fun! You may not have the opportunity to say everything you want to say. One of the purposes behind this competition is to help you see just how hard it is to advocate for ethical positions. We almost always have to do so under serious constraints such as time limits. Also, remember that you have other forums for "getting it said," namely, your group self evaluation and your in-depth case analysis. In these places you will be able to discuss these issues in more depth.

Advice for commenting teams

• During the commentary, you and your team need to show that you have thought carefully about the case and question and that you have understood and assessed the presentation of the other team.
• This could be demonstrated by a point by point rebuttal of the other team. But this is not necessary and not always advisable.
• You may agree with the presenting team. Feel free to say so but then go onto say why by giving reasons that go beyond those offered by the presenting team.
• You may agree with the presenting team but base your agreement on different reasons. Describe your agreement and then go onto explain your different reasons and offer grounds for taking these additional reasons into account.
• You may partially agree with the presenting team. State where you agree and why. Then go on to clarify and justify points of disagreement.
• To make your point, use ethical considerations such as the tests (harm, reversibility, publicity) and the SOV values. This helps you to establish ethical irrelevance. But don't go overboard. This helps you to avoid ethical irrelevance.
• Always be courteous. Begin by thanking the presenting team. End by summarizing your commentary. Thank your audience for listening.