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Debate traditions that you need to drop

07Jun

June 7, 2017 by PotentSpeaking Leave a Comment

When I first joined the NCFCA, I was overwhelmed by all the things I had to learn. Depending on how long it has been since you were a novice, you may have forgotten what it was like to learn all the terminology and ways of doing things. Wait, so what is the difference between Inherency […]

7 Debate Tactics You Probably Don’t Use (but Should)

22Feb

February 22, 2017 by PotentSpeaking 2 Comments

This is a guest post by Isaiah McPeak of Ethos Debate.  I’ve been coaching debate since 2003. Tactics and strategies have come in and out of style. Giovanni asked me to identify some tactics that are underused right now but should be used more often. Here’s what I came up with! Hope it helps 🙂 […]

Book Gleaning — Made to Stick

17Oct

October 17, 2016 by PotentSpeaking Leave a Comment

Book gleaning is a series of posts that highlight specific books and what we can take from them to apply to public speaking. In this post, we’ll be discussing the book Made to Stick, by Chip and Dan Heath. Why do some ideas thrive while others die? And how do we improve the chances of […]

Cross-Examination: Drawing a line

01Mar

March 1, 2016 by PotentSpeaking Leave a Comment

There are plenty of benefits of being the Negative team. One of these benefits is that you have a lot less to prove. The other benefit is that you don’t necessarily have to take a fierce stand on anything until the Affirmative team has. When the Affirmative team proposes their plan, they are taking a […]

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 […]

Owning the lectern

02Feb

February 2, 2016 by PotentSpeaking Leave a Comment

Credit goes to Samuel Sefzik (several time tournament champion and high-placing debater at Nationals) for the second and third idea. Confident body language sometimes boils down to small details in how you act in a debate round. Some of the things you don’t even pay attention to while debating can affect the judge’s perception of your […]

Cook up a catchphrase

20Jan

January 20, 2016 by PotentSpeaking Leave a Comment

Part of your preparation for important negative strategies or for your affirmative case should be coming up with one or two memorable catchphrases. A catchphrase is a word or expression that is used repeatedly and conveniently to represent or characterize a person, group, idea, or point of view. Let’s look at what makes a good […]

Phrases — Outweighing their arguments

17Dec

December 17, 2015 by PotentSpeaking 2 Comments

Sometimes, arguments in a debate round are like fireworks on the fourth of July. Everyone’s lighting off their little bottle rockets, roman candles, and maybe even some small mortars. None of these fireworks are really memorable, they only become memorable if they hit someone or if something important happens around one. But sometimes there’s an […]

Phrases — Common misunderstanding

29Oct

October 29, 2015 by PotentSpeaking Leave a Comment

When you’ve been running your affirmative case for a while, you have a pretty good mastery of all the possible arguments that may be run against your case. (Although you may be occasionally surprised by the… creative… arguments people come up with from time to time). There are some arguments, however, that always seem to […]

Statistics and Quantification

15Oct

October 15, 2015 by PotentSpeaking 2 Comments

You’ll often run into situations in debate where you need a basic grasp of statistics and willingness to do the math in order to argue effectively. As a result, here’s a quick overview of statistics and some helpful thoughts on doing the math. In debate, you’ll often come across inferential statistics. Inferential statistics is using […]

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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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