Hey,
Where doing a lots of debates at school at the moment. I was just wondering if anyone had any good points or notes to help me with my speech? I know all the stuff about eye contact and expression but what else helps? Are there any good debaters out there??

Thanks guys! :)

Research your own work and put effort into it.

Do not take up any notes with you. Or if you do, just a few points.

NEVER read.

It is better to talk without any notes and miss a few points than to read from your notes. That is, when you are doing a school presentation.

Eye contact and interaction is very very important.

Pretend you are talking with your friends. Do you read a piece of paper with your friends or just talk?

I know it will be hard, is had taken me a while to get better at presenting myself.

But I think I good now at it, especially when I practice before hand and know the material that I am presenting.

Hi...
There are many consideration to present a debate. When we talk to a group of persons who are well versed in the topic, basic definitions will bore them. If they are from another academic discipline, not giving them do so.
Start with a 'punch line'! You may endorse the opposing side and then negate it saying that only 'illogical' to accept that kind of opinion. This is a dangerous weapon. If you can use it correctly , it will mesmarize people. If not, this will endanger your position. But, this is one thing I found most effective.
I think most effectvie part of speech in dabate is SILENCE. If you can use it when you throw a question at the audience and are going to give them unexpected answer.

Great speech is always punctuated with most cleverly thrown in silence, which creates expectation on the part of the audience.

A good speaker not only knows when to start, and when to stop as well. Always, stop at such a moment that the audience really wish you to continue. Of course, not before you have made your points.

These are a bit advanced techniques of debate. If these are mixed with beautiful advice given in the earlier post, that can be a great speech.

With best compliments,
Ramanmlv

Think, really think, esp if you are the ones getting to define the words, think of unique meanings that the other side did not define that way.

The one funny one was a practice debate, for Thanksgiving. It was
"should turkeys be served on Thanksgiving" the term served was defined as to wait on, having nothing to do with eating. The other side had no way to debate them.

I belonged to the debate club all through my high school years and found it to be one of the most rewarding experiences in all of my education. It really helped me to learn to listen and process information. I recommend it to any student, its fun and very rewarding! There are several debate formats. Speech writing and presenting to a fixed topic such in a more formal debate is very different than a more relaxed, free flowing point-rebuttal-point type debate. Will you have to listen to your opponent and think on your feet, essentially or is this just about thoroughly researching a topic and presenting it well? I ask because I have different things to say about each.