This study addresses the impact of roles in group debate and of students’ awareness for them on the quality of their individual writing. For this purpose, 38 undergraduate students were divided into groups of five. Each group executed debates as a method for their individual writing. The roles in each group consisted of debaters, observers, and a host, all of which were randomly assigned. Following the debates, all participants declared a position on the assigned topic and wrote individual argumentative essays. Debaters and observers did not show any significant difference between them in terms of text quality and in awareness of the effect of role assignment. However, the more students appreciated the effect of the random assignment of roles between debaters and observers, the better text they produced.