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
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 […]
Making an Affirmative response sheet
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 […]
Presentation makes all the difference
Every once in a while, it’s good to be reminded just how much persuasion lies in the delivery of a speech. That is, after all, the point of this website. A good speaker can talk about any topic and make it interesting to the audience. The effective use of vocal tonality, humor, pacing, and hundreds […]
Cross-Examination: Drawing a line
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 […]
Phrases — Getting your #1 point across
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
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 […]
Cook up a catchphrase
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 […]
Learning through observation
One of the best ways to be a better speaker, besides practicing, is to watch other good speakers. Debaters that started out by timing others and observing how they speak generally have an easier time when they begin debating. Some of the best speakers I know enjoy watching presidential candidates give speeches, or finding other […]
Phrases — Outweighing their arguments
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 […]
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