Self- evaluation of the debate process
The purpose of the debate process for this course was to present an issue and present the pros and cons of each side of the issue. This process was new to this writer and presented a learning opportunity for presenting issues in a debate fomat and critically examining them. Through this process, this writer presented a position and also evaluated and rebutted another person’s position. This self-evaluation will examine strengths and weaknesses during this debate process.
Strengths
Part of the debate process involves taking a position on an issue and arguing that particular side regardless of one’s own personal subjectivity on the topic. As part of the debate process, the emphasis is on objectively presenting data and arguing the support of it. This writer discovered through her research that I was able to develop my own learning about this issue and present the material effectively to the class to support the coverage of Complementary therapies in the Canada Heath Act.
One of the challenges that this writer noted was that while there was ample evidence supporting complementary therapies there was also valid evidence not supportive of complementary therapies. This writer took the approach regarding how complementary therapies would be beneficial to health care. The research I did indicated how these therapies could promote holistic care, management of chronic diseases and prevention of acute care. The strategy was to show how it could benefit health promotion and improve health care outcomes. These premises were significant to emphasize how common its use was and how these therapies could positively contribute to the health care system (McGrath-Terry, 2009). This writer felt that it was necessary for my classmates to understand this connection based on how it could be integrated into the health care system and also see how it could offset some of the negative arguments that were provided by x (Chin, 2009). 
This writer felt that it was essential to define what complementary therapies are. This was for different reasons. The term complementary therapy is broad in the literature and is often combined with alternative therapies. Often the literature did not positively reflect alternative therapies as some make false claims or are not legitimate. The rationale was to highlight the legitimacy of complementary therapies as opposed to combining it with treatments that were of a more questionable value. The emphasis was to define it so that the readers would understand this concept to apply it to the argument based on its legitimacy. This writer also felt that since my own knowledge initially was minimal on complementary therapies then likely my classmates might have differing knowledge regarding these therapies. Lastly as arguing the pro side of the debate this writer felt that defining these therapies was necessary for my colleagues to interpret and understand my position.
Additionally to highlight the criteria of the Canada Health Act was to explain how the Act could influence this position related to complementary therapies and again some of my classmates may not have been familiar. The basic argument that the Canada Health Act should cover these therapies was dependent upon the readers understanding how these therapies could be applied to the basic criteria. Additionally it was important o explain the breakdown of the responsibilities of the federal and provincial governments to understand how funding was provided and determined (McGrath-Terry, 2009).
This writer provided a strong debate with compelling arguments to promote this argument. Data presented clearly demonstrated the connection between holistic care, integrative health care, ongoing research and the prevalence of chronic diseases with ongoing issues in quality of life(McGrath-Terry,2009). The arguments were coherent and flowed from one point to another.
The rebuttal to X’s debate was strongly presented based on arguing her main premises. This writer based my research was able to anticipate what some of her maim premises would be and counter these arguments. In particular, this writer felt it was important to argue her stance on evidence based knowledge to prove how different forms of knowledge are valuable not just evidence based and how conventional medicine was not always effective or safe (Chin,2009). Secondly, this writer realized that cost would be an issue for the system to absorb so took the position that the cost of acute care and illness care were important factors that were not being considered in the total costs. The final summation highlighted effectively the main arguments of the debate and continued to focus on the main premises to support my argument.
This debate was researched from a wide variety of sources. This writer felt that because it was a more difficult point to prove that it should be covered that multiple sources of data would help promote this side of the argument. In addition, I felt that the research would promote the validity of the position as presented to my classmates.
This debate utilized APA guidelines regarding format and referencing. Appropriate sources were acknowledged by the appropriate citations. Lastly, this writer utilized critical thinking to link the research to show how complementary therapies could be integrated in the health care system.

Weaknesses
One of the difficulties that was encountered was the definition of complementary therapy is variable depending on the literature. Some referred to it as “complementary and alternative therapies” or “alternative therapies” or “complementary therapy” and this writer found it a challenge to isolate the statistics from each stream to focus on the specific therapies that were the focus of this debate.  However, it was impossible from a logistical point of view to completely separate the two streams of therapies in terms of statistics as they were often combined in the literature.
One concern this writer had retrospectively is that some classmates were a little confused by the statistics presented. The presentation of the statistics could have been more concise and clearly stated. Additionally the cartoon that in the initial debate was confusing to some. My objective was to show nonverbally the attempt at domination of the conventional medicine over complementary therapies. While utilizing a creative approach it was mildly confusing for some people. This will be a consideration for future debates that interpretation is subjective.
This self-evaluation includes an analysis that the debate had strong arguments supporting the topic perhaps the debate language defining the main premises could have been stronger. Upon retrospection, the debate’s main premises were less strongly defined compared to some of the other debates that were presented. This is something that will be presented stronger in future debates.  However, the rebuttal did have a stronger debate tone to counteract x’s position.  
Conclusion
This debate was a learning experience that was creative and thought provoking for this writer and successfully met the objective by critically examining an issue without the use of personal biases. This debate successfully presented the position that the Canada Health Act could integrate complementary therapies in the health care system.