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Making an Affirmative response sheet

31May

May 31, 2016 by PotentSpeaking Leave a Comment

Winning Affirmative debate rounds is an essential part of your tournament strategy. If you routinely lose an Affirmative round, that’s a big red flag. You should be able to win all your preliminary Affirmative rounds, leaving you with just one Negative round you need to win in order to get to outrounds. One of the […]

Phrases — Getting your #1 point across

19Feb

February 19, 2016 by PotentSpeaking Leave a Comment

Credit for the idea of this phrase goes to Samuel Sefzik. It’s easy for your audience to get overwhelmed in a debate speech. There are a lot of points and plenty of logic floating around in any given debate round. Getting your audience to remember and care about all of your points is usually impossible (unless […]

Why preparation can be a bad thing

09Feb

February 9, 2016 by PotentSpeaking Leave a Comment

It is a common cliche that it is impossible to over-prepared. I can see an argument for it, but do not be deceived into believing that all forms of preparation are good. It is possible to prepare with the wrong goal in mind, resulting in a disastrous round. The kid in the picture is probably […]

Get organized

05Nov

November 5, 2015 by PotentSpeaking Leave a Comment

For more articles on organization, check out this list: http://debate.potentspeaking.com/category/organization/ Organization is important for these reasons: 1. It helps the judge to understand your arguments and how they tie in with the opposing team’s arguments. 2. It improves the judge’s flow, meaning when they review the round afterwards your speeches will stick out. 3. It helps […]

Preparing for the 2AR

10Apr

April 10, 2015 by PotentSpeaking Leave a Comment

If you haven’t already read preparing for the 2NR, please read that first. I will be skipping several repeated concepts. The last affirmative speech is the most important speech in the round, arguably. It’s the last thing the judge hears. With this power, of course, comes the responsibility to avoid saying things that are untrue. […]

Preparing for the 2NR

07Apr

April 7, 2015 by PotentSpeaking 2 Comments

The last negative rebuttal is the most important negative speech of the round. While you can’t bring up new arguments or evidence, you can certainly bring back a losing round and win. Because this speech is so important, let’s talk about how you can best prepare yourself for it. Note: Some of the best preparation […]

6 ways to stop rambling

27Jan

January 27, 2015 by PotentSpeaking Leave a Comment

I noticed that some debaters seem to be saying a lot of words, but not a lot of sentences. And if you were to really concentrate on what they’re saying, you’d see there’s no connection between one sentence and the next one. If you’re unsure what I mean by this, here’s an insanely perfect example. […]

Using downtime

04Nov

November 4, 2014 by PotentSpeaking 3 Comments

In pretty much any speaker position, you have some “downtime”. A time when you might as well twiddle your thumbs, because you don’t necessarily have to prepare a speech. It might feel good to twiddle your thumbs, but here are some ideas of better uses of that precious downtime. Potential uses for downtime Instead of […]

Run less arguments

14Oct

October 14, 2014 by PotentSpeaking 2 Comments

  One of the first challenges for a novice is to fill up all the time in their speech. They are drilled and pushed to get to that 8 or 5 minute time limit and fill up their speeches. And rightly so! The only problem with this approach, a problem that I hope to remedy in […]

Improve your introductions

30Sep

September 30, 2014 by PotentSpeaking Leave a Comment

  They say first impressions are solidified within 5 seconds of interacting with someone. In the same way, the judge’s first impression of what you are as a speaker is solidified after a few seconds of your first speech. They will have an impression of you before that, don’t get me wrong, but the judge […]

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Recent Posts

  • Drawing a line in the sand using false equivalence
  • Debate traditions that you need to drop
  • 7 Debate Tactics You Probably Don’t Use (but Should)
  • Book Gleaning — Made to Stick
  • Making an Affirmative response sheet

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