Drafting and Delivering an Impressive Debate Speech

TO BE ENGANGED in an oral debate exercise as a speaker necessarily means that you have to deliver a debate speech that should not be less than impressive if not necessarily “for the win.” Regardless of the debate format you are using, the following guidelines can significantly help you in this regard.

Guidelines in Preparing and Delivering a Debate Speech

Notice that the following tips can be helpful in preparing for other kinds of speeches as well:

1. Plan your speech by considering your audience and the judges.

Plan to make your speech appealing to the listeners. Usually, the adjudicators give high score to a debater when they feel that the people witnessing the debate can relate to his speech. So identify your audience. Keep in mind their age bracket, educational attainment, profession, cultural background, etc. Be clear on why your topic is of interest to them.

More importantly, aim to convince the judges in your speech. If possible, know their background or ‘demographics’ and keep those information in mind as you proceed. Especially if the adjudicators have background in Philosophy, make your speech logically appealing in form. If the judges are politicians or community leaders, consider also using statements that appeal to the people or to emotion.

However, since debate is a contest in argumentation, debate speeches must primarily be argumentative and logical. To accomplish this, consider employing the various forms of valid arguments in Logic (such as the valid ‘categorical syllogisms,’ ‘rules of inference,’ and ‘Toulmin model of argument’ discussed previously in this book).

2. Organize your speech by identifying your main points.

Jot down few key points you want your listeners to remember. Express each thought in a single unambiguous statement, and support each statement with pertinent information. Facts, statistics, historical background, quotations from authorities, case studies, and the like may be helpful to your topic.

Some contemporary modified types of debate have begun to allow the use of visual aids like power point presentation. So if (and only if) the situation would allow it, consider using visual aids to emphasize your significant points.

3. Write or prepare your speech in an understandable, organized, listener-friendly, and conversational manner.

Employ simple words as well as short and clear sentences. Avoid using jargons, technical terms, ambiguous, and vague terms unless your topic or the debate proposition calls for them.

You can make your speech conversational by:

(a) using adlibs

e.g. transitions like, “Moving on…”; signposting like, “First…Second…Last but not the least…”; and responding to what is happening, like, “While our audiences are smiling…”

(b) asking questions (including tag and rhetorical ones)

(c) sparingly addressing the audience

e.g. “Dear Friends…”, “Brethren…”, “Ladies and gentlemen…”).

To make complex concepts understandable, consider using analogies. Telling dramatic stories involving real people can as well have great impact on the audience and adjudicators (though you have to consider the time limit in planning to do this). Try using 3×5 cards especially in writing down your main points or arguments. Your written main points may also help you in managing your time during the delivery of speech.

4. Rehearse the speech.

By rehearsing your speech, you will be able to time your delivery to fit in the allotted duration of your speech. Practice in front of a mirror, your family, or a friend, and seek for honest feedbacks. (If the debate format allows it and you’re planning to use audio-visual equipments like laptop, projector, and speakers, learn how to make them work.)

If possible, visit the venue of the debate beforehand or go there early. Familiarize yourself with the space, the acoustics, and the technical equipments.

5. Deliver the speech directly, earnestly, interestingly, and eloquently.

Stand in a relaxed manner: your feet slightly apart, your hands at your side or on top of the lectern. Try not to merely read your speech: refer to an outline or to your 3×5 cards.

Speak slowly and with enough loudness that the persons at the last row could clearly hear your speech. With modern sound system nonetheless, there is no need to always amplify your voice. Try modulating it instead and use volume variations for emphasis.

Use the combination of the oratorical and the conversationalstyles. The conversational style has the texture of being casual, extemporaneous, simple, and straight-forward. It involves an appeal to the intellect and makes use of the friendly form of attack. On the other hand, the oratorical style consists in being declamatory, fiery, forceful, and full of enthusiasm. It is appealing to the emotions and uses the explosive form of attack. As an advice, “The dominant style throughout the beginning and the middle of the speech should be conversational…but in the concluding paragraphs, the style may well become oratorical…” (Aquino & Devesa, 1995, p. 161).

To be direct in one’s speech requires that you frequently make eye contact with your audience and judges and avoid looking up at the ceiling, down at the floor, or to the left or right side of the hall. Looking straight into their eyes not only establishes rapport but also enables you to assess the effect of your words and make adjustments if needed.

Being earnest in speech, on the other hand, entails speaking with conviction and emphasis as a result of a sincere enthusiasm for one’s thought. It does not necessarily mean shouting or bellowing at the audience or making bombastic gesticulations. But it does mean that you should express your thought “as if it were for the moment, at least, the most important thing in the world; and at the same time, [you] should utter it with so much reserved force that [you] will appear to create the impression of being able to say it with a thousand times more emphasis if [you] only would” (Aquino & Devesa, 1995, p. 161).

Your enthusiasm and interest, reflected by your intonation, will help hold the audience’s interest. With proper pausing, forcefully pronouncing important terms or phrases, and parallelism (the deliberate repetition of words or sentence structures for effect), your delivery can be emphatic.

Examples of Parallelism:

“When you are right you cannot be too radical; when you are wrong, you cannot be too conservative.” (Martin Luther King, Jr.)

“Truth is not a diet… [Truth is] a condiment.” (Christopher Morley)

Remember that pre-performance jitters and stage freight can be minimized or even overcome by enough preparation and mastery of your speech.

Also Check Out:
Reasoning and Debate: A Handbook and a Textbook by Jensen DG. Mañebog

The Common Speech Methods

The following are the most common methods in delivering a debate speech. As each method has advantages and disadvantages, you should consider the most appropriate for your particular audience and/or the type of debate format you are engaged in.

1. The impromptu method

This speech method consists in delivering a speech unpremeditatedly, that is, without any preparation. Employed only by the most experienced debaters, this casual and unrehearsed method may be considered only when situations prevent the use of any other manner. Though this method has the advantage of naturalness and spontaneity, it has the disadvantage of becoming shallow, trivial, superficial, verbose, circuitous, and even imprecise in treating a topic.

2. The reading method

As the name suggests, this method consists in reading a manuscript or written speech, word-for-word, as it was prepared. Effect-wise, the impromptu and the reading methods are contrary. For although the reading method promotes an in-depth and well-planned treatment of the topic, it nonetheless discourages enthusiasm, thereby spoiling audience confidence in the skill of the debater. Thus, this method should either be sparingly used in debate or employed in combination with other methods.

3. The memory method

This method consists in delivering a word-for-word speech that has been memorized.

It involves writing a speech and afterward committing it to memory. Similar to the reading method in many ways, the memory method tends to put the debater into fixed patterns and forms of expressions which disallow him to make necessary adjustments during the debate. Unlike the reading method however, it may produce some degree of confidence in the speaker and may even stimulate enthusiasm especially when adeptly utilized. As such, this speech method is permissible among the beginners, but must be dispensed with as soon as possible.

4. The extemporaneous method

Basically, the extemporaneous method is preparing the speech in advance but delivering it without the manuscript. It is different from ‘memory method’ in the sense that the speech is not delivered word for word the way it is pre-written or prepared. In fact, only the key concepts are remembered or memorized in this method. Using an outline which contains the speech’s key concepts and speaking from it without any predetermined order of words is also considered an extemporaneous speech.

Though the extemporaneous delivery may at any moment lapse into impromptu speaking, the method is still highly recommended, especially if one is looking forward to win in a debate contest. It encourages in-depth treatment of the subject, arouses enthusiasm and confidence in the speaker, and allows adjusting one’s case to meet the demands of ever changing situations.

5. The mixed method

The so-called mixed method is basically a blend between the memory method and the extemporaneous method. As such, it allows learning by rote the speech parts that are difficult to express while permitting freedom of expression in other portions. Also, it permits the making of necessary adjustments as the debate progresses. The challenge nonetheless in employing the method is to perform without detection a transition from a remembered portion of a speech to an extempore part.

Some experts nonetheless include as well the reading method in this mixed method as some speeches do require directly reading from texts, say Scriptures or constitution sections. Some even claim that an effective mixed method also involves the impromptu delivery. Even when just using an outline, many seasoned speakers insert portions which are not in any way prepared or planned in advance especially when circumstances call for it. (© 2014 by Jensen DG. Mañebog/MyInfoBasket.comz0

INTERACTIVE ONLINE ACTIVITY

Go online to www.OurHappySchool.com. Through its search engine (upper right section), look for the online debate “DIVORCE BILL: Online Survey and Open Friendly Debate.” Read the short teaser. Below the article, click the button that corresponds to your stand (“I am ANTI Divorce” or “I am PRO Divorce”). Accomplish the Facebook “Add a comment” (3-5 sentences) below the page. Leave a reply also to at least three (3) other comments. Print your comments and submit the print-out to your professor.

SUPPLEMENTARY ONLINE READING

Look for the lecture “Science: Beneficial or Threat to Humanity?” through the search engine (upper right section) of www.OurHappySchool.com. In the comment section below the online debate, pay attention to the way students prove their stand.