Three Tips for Debating
Some Things That Have Helped Me On My Debating Journey Thus Far
M. D. Kwak
It’s midway through the GPS debating season and for the boys wondering what the enormous hype is about, that’s your cue to take up one of the best activities the School has on offer. Why have a Friday afternoon off when you can spend six hours devoted to the joyous activity of debating? For all the debaters out there wanting to hone their skills (especially given the slump that certain ISDA-successful teams have been in), here are three things that have helped me improve over the years.
- YouTube is King
There are hours upon hours of debate recordings, training seminars and lectures online and for obvious reasons, most sane people wouldn’t (and probably shouldn’t) have the time or effort to watch all of them. Lucky for you, that’s not the case for myself, so based on my valiant YouTube crusades, here are the top channels/series I would recommend:
- Australian Debating Council. The channel was only recently made but nevertheless is exceptionally good. It is frequently updated with debates from university tournaments as well as featuring some older recordings that are of the highest quality.
- The Grand Finals or ‘out rounds’ of major tournaments (i.e. WUDC, WSDC, Australs, Easters and EUDC). Along with the competition name, always type in a round (grand final, semi-finals, Round six, etc) as well as the year. I would recommend watching debates from the past four or five years, but they are some excellent ones from 2008-14 worth watching as well.
- Manchester Debating Union and Ateneo Debate Society both have very useful (and very many) online lectures. So, navigate your way towards the playlists and search for video titles that best correspond to what you are looking to improve on.
- Digital Matter Files is a very useful channel for matter-filing (learning information about certain topic areas). I would highly recommend checking out some of their videos.
Watching lectures have their obvious educational benefits but actual debate recordings are tremendously useful, not purely for their content, but also for the purposes of imitating the stylistic and structural elements of high-level speeches. If you don’t have the willpower to sit through an hour’s-length recording, you can always navigate to the debaters you want to watch.
- Debate (a lot)
My view is that the thousands of different debating topics can really be reduced down to 20 or so fundamental clashes. Each motion just has a few of those clashes applied in a certain context or with an added nuance. So logically, debating as many topics as feasibly possible would increase the competency and confidence by which you debate as you get more familiar with the arguments and manner in which you construct them. But a word of caution: steer clear from recycling stock analysis – you leave yourself vulnerable to a good opposition team out framing your points or pointing out their generality.
Bonus Tip: Watch the adjudicator. Turns out some university students are physically incapable of refraining from nodding whenever they agree with a point or looking comically confused or outraged whenever they don’t. So, as your first speaker or any opposition speaker is giving their speech, silently observe the adjudicator and take a mental note of what your team might want to emphasise or de-emphasise during the rest of the debate. But beware, the most competent adjudicators tend to have a poker face when judging, so this tip only works on a case-by-case basis.
- Always be Comparative
It’s often inadequate to prove that a point is true or a set of outcomes, important. Most adjudicators don’t tend to be the most objectivist, so it’s quite possible that arguments from both teams can be simultaneously true and important. To help the judge decide in your favour, all your arguments must be made comparatively. Starting from the level of mechanisms, then sub-premises, and all the way to big-scale impacts, every single component should go towards proving why your world (or position being advocated for) is necessarily better than the opposition’s – not just true in some general context.
