As in, how do you get better outside of just doing debate, since coordinating practice takes time with the group and you can’t do it a lot due to time restraints. That and I don’t think I can do it in a manner frequent enough, and focused enough. I assume you just do drills with your role? If so, what would be best?
For context, I got accepted as a 1st speaker for a college debate event in Asian parlament format. Experience wise, I am a beginner. Though I have done adjudications and had some practice with a newly formed club in the last year of high school, it was only isolated to that. No competitions with other schools or anything. Which is why I’m definitely not confident I can match a teammate of mine which has been doing debate for years and got to international level (to my knowledge). I’m not so much worried about my opponents per se, more so just that I don’t want to hold my teammate back since as the 1st speaker, you have to set them up. I at least wanna do a somewhat decent job so that they can - to be blunt - “carry” us without worry.
Right now, I’ve just been dabbling with using ChatGPT as a sort of coach/adjudicator and I think it’s pretty effective? If there are other methods I can do alone/in downtime/outside group practice, I would like to try them at least given the short time left until the event.
Sorry if this ended up a bit ramble-y, this was done on a whim and close to midnight, but yeah.
- Ask your teammate what he studied to get better
- Watch a lot of good debaters; note what they do that is good
- Watch some bad debaters; note why they were bad
- Debate, debate, debate, even if you have to do it over the phone
Watch some good debaters
He is the master debater.
I was tricked - I expected a community reference!
You don’t. Practice makes perfect. If you want to get good at something, you have to put in the work.
Actual practice is the best answer, as everyone has already said, but to tag in something you can work on outside of real debates – work on controlling your emotions so they don’t interfere with your mind.
Learn to spot logical fallacies and how to exploit them. And never let them put you on a defensive to the point where you lose focus of your point.
How do you get better at playing the guitar without actually playing the guitar?
(edit): Point taken, but “playing the guitar” still wins by a mile
Finger exercises
Music theory.
Ear training
Rhythm training
learn to be skeptical, recognize logical fallacies, and never get angry.
Studying philosophy can help. Try writing your take on what you’ve studied. Offer it for critique and try to understand any flaws that were pointed out.
Nice try, Donald.
Debate.
You don’t need to do this in a formal setting, I think groups like Philosophy clubs are excellent for learning how better to support an argument (and they’re usually quite positive and supportive settings).
Imo the only way to get better at debating is exercise. If you have an idea of the topic it’s always a good idea to do research to build your familiarity but rhetorical skills gain with practice.
Don’t rely too much on ChatGPT here. It’s not a human and isn’t going to respond the same way a human would.
If you over practice with that tool you might become great at debating ChatGPT but that may entrench bad habits that hurt you when debating a human.
