Hello everyone!

Debate days in the world scholars cup are very long and tiring, not only for you but for your judges as well. And so, in order to stand out in the crowd, you’ll need to leave a special impression. Therefore, here are a few tips for beginners (that everyone else could also use) for building a debate “personality”:

1. Cut your introduction: I know you’ve probably been taught some sort of script to how the beginning of your speech should sound, something like “good morning honourable judge, respected opposition, my name is __, from __ school, my teammates are __ and __, and we will be discussing the motion that reads: *motion*”. While an introduction is very important for your speech, both for your speech organization and for the judges to recognize who you are, it shouldn’t take meaningful time off of your speech. Saying hello and your name is completely enough for the situation, as your teammates will be introducing themselves and the motion is already usually written right behind you. As for the respectful judge part, I understand how some of you may find it disrespectful, but the overuse of this script makes the words kind of lose their meaning. So make it short and focus on what’s actually important- winning.

2. You don’t have to define EVERYTHING: a very common mistake I see with newer teams is the urge to define absolutely every word in the motion. Let’s take a few motions for example and understand what is important to explain and what isn’t:

In the motion Resolved: that we should ban Pink-washing, definitions are key. We want to make sure that both teams understand the confusing term and agree on the definition of Pink-washing, as well as define a mechanism for the “ban” part of the motion, explaining how exactly our system is going to work. However, in a motion like Resolved: That AI should be made illegal we don’t need to define any of the words themselves nor do we need to have a mechanism for how illegality works, as those are pretty simple, straightforward terms that both teams are expected to understand. The only definition we could, but not necessarily have to give, is to which kinds of Ai we want to make illegal. In this case, we want to choose a definition that still makes sense and keeps the debate contestable for both sides, while giving us as the affirmative team a bit of an easier playing field. For example, I would define this as only Ai that can be freely used publicly. This keeps the debate engaging, is short and doesn’t take away time from your speech, and makes both teams come to an agreement on what topics the debate is discussing.

3. P R A C T I C E: in order to actually improve, it’s never enough just to read guides and theories. You gotta put things to the test. Let’s say you’re in the worst situation possible: you’re traveling individually and have no debate class available in your school or college. You still have many, many ways to practice debating with your teammates and individually. Revisit past speeches from debates you have done in the past, organize debate nights with another team you know, visit the many WSC online communities and try finding opportunities to debate there, and even find debate motions from the Practice area in this website or online and do mock-preps for both sides. Even alone you can try analyzing a point from a random motion online, and work on style by reading out loud some of your favourite speeches from movies, tv shows and real life. Even reading books and watching tv with captions turned off/in English can help you enrich your vocabulary. And if you do have the opportunity to take part in debates in school- DO IT!!!! Never miss a chance to better yourself and practice.

4. Have a powerful opening/summary: there’s nothing more important to your impression on judges than the first and last thing you say. Therefore, introducing yourself is never the first thing you do in a speech. Instead, try to come up with a clever statement/example to start off your speech in a creative yet meaningful way. One thing I really like doing is taking an example the opposing team has said and turning it around over to our side. Say they gave an example of how people get to meet new friends on the internet, I would give the same example, except end it with the cool new online friend being a potential predator, showing the risks of the internet. As for the summary, always have a bottom line, repeat the key statements you have made in your speech and connect it back to the motion in a compelling way that will also aid the adjudicator in following your team’s claims.

5. Work on your accent: the WSC program has been blessed with mediocre, mostly amateur debate judges (no offense to them, but they're mostly parents/teachers who don’t have any background in debate), who get impressed easily by strong stylistic speeches. A large part of that is having a voice that's easily understandable and coherent. Now, I'm not saying everyone should have a politician style american accent, far from it. A part of your personal style is your distinct accent. But working on your pronunciation, as well as “cleaning” the way you pronounce some letters (every language has some letters in English that are a bit of a struggle, R is a rough one in Hebrew for example) can prove to be very effective.