What do you think?
Rate this book
Training Guide for University Debating: Tips, Tactics and First Principles
“I do not dismiss the potential of the right speech, delivered by the right speaker, in the right way, at the right moment. It can ignite a fire, change men’s minds, open their eyes, alter their votes, bring hope to their lives, and in all these ways, change the world. I know. I saw it happen.”
Ted Sorensen, speechwriter and advisor to JFK, in ‘Counsellor’ 2008.
This is the fourth edition, updated and expanded yet again, of my guide to university debating. It is designed to help debaters and adjudicators of all levels improve their understanding and skills. Ultimately good debating is about having good ideas – because you will never know all of the facts or details of every topic, but you can learn enough key ideas to equip you for any circumstance. In this guide I refer to that concept as ‘first principles’, and that term covers both knowledge of fundamental philosophical concepts, but also basic logic and rhetorical tactics.
Ted Sorensen, speechwriter and advisor to JFK, in ‘Counsellor’ 2008.
This is the fourth edition, updated and expanded yet again, of my guide to university debating. It is designed to help debaters and adjudicators of all levels improve their understanding and skills. Ultimately good debating is about having good ideas – because you will never know all of the facts or details of every topic, but you can learn enough key ideas to equip you for any circumstance. In this guide I refer to that concept as ‘first principles’, and that term covers both knowledge of fundamental philosophical concepts, but also basic logic and rhetorical tactics.
55 pages, Unknown Binding
Published January 1, 2010
1 person is currently reading
4 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 of 1 review
April 19, 2018
Sitting at an airport at 4am, I realise I’m perpetuating a cycle. A half-typed essay and an annotated copy of A Modest Proposal stare back at me as I rerun the basics of debating through my mind. Doubts arise at this point: Wait...basics? What am I doing? How scary are the unis over East?. But it’s too late because my new team mates arrive and we board QF574 for Sydney.
The Easters’ Tournament is akin to being swept up by a flying carpet; a whirlwind of new faces met through controversial topics, typically “lit” uni socials balanced out by late night library visits, fantastic debate and hotel room banter (the latter two often indistinguishable). I’m clearly the least experienced speaker on my team but we manage to land a couple of wins and aside from tonsillitis, I return with a renewed drive; perhaps a little more enlightened and grateful for the intriguing friends I’ve made.
So I seek out a bit of reading on argument construction, analysis, and general debating and unearth Tim Sonnreich’s guide. It’s a charismastically, clearly, and consisely written almanac that provides a fabulous overview of rhetorical frameworks complete with grounding examples. It particularly highlights the importance of contextualising, using more than one perspective/critique of arguments (e.g. what assumptions have the opposition based their model off? Why is this incorrect or implausible? what other stakeholders might be affected/how might they react?) It was interesting to note the mention of a gender bias, not just at the 2018 tournament but in this guide written in 2010. Sonnreich points out that the most experienced adjudicators are able to consciously account for the bias that privileges males as a more authoritative source than females (largely due to factors beyond their control such as the depth of their pitch when they speak). At the tournament it was pointed out that a thesis had been written by one of the convenors that found female speakers were disproportionately penalised for using filler words such as “um” and “like” - a pivotal finding that I think could be applied not only in debating, but also within institutions such as schools and businesses.
Part of me wishes I’d stumbled across this earlier: highly informative and solidified by case studies/experience, it would have been an awesome resource to apply lessons from. Equally though, I am aware that I wouldn’t have gotten as much out of it without having been fortunate enough to experience the intensive intervarsity debating of Easters, and that there is still a myriad of opportunities in which to apply those skills both within and outside of debating. One thing that I think could be added to Sonnreich’s guide is the best/worse case scenario analysis whereby the opposition’s case is analysed and critiqued on the assumptions of their most beneficial and most detrimental outcome: something our third speaker did exceptionally and a skill I’m still trying to master😜
4am airport Millie interrogated whether investing the modest wages earned from adjudicating/debate coaching in...debating was more than a simple injection into the economy; whether it fueled a perpetual debating addiction. Whilst it was indeed both of these things, Sonnreich provided me some peace when he put it this way:
“There are really two types of debaters. There are those who think debating is just a hobby...The second group think debating actually has some inherent meaning and importance – not because the outcome of any given debate ever really changes much, but because in its totality, debating changes everything. Unlike any other hobby or sport, debating – if done well – will shape your personality, your intellect and your beliefs.”
Whether seeing it encourage empathy and multiple perspectives in students, experiencing how it pushes adjudicators and debaters to be a fair listener, or the platform it provides for the expression of multitudinous voices of youth and wise men and women concurrently, the reason I do it, I find, is simply that I love it.
The Easters’ Tournament is akin to being swept up by a flying carpet; a whirlwind of new faces met through controversial topics, typically “lit” uni socials balanced out by late night library visits, fantastic debate and hotel room banter (the latter two often indistinguishable). I’m clearly the least experienced speaker on my team but we manage to land a couple of wins and aside from tonsillitis, I return with a renewed drive; perhaps a little more enlightened and grateful for the intriguing friends I’ve made.
So I seek out a bit of reading on argument construction, analysis, and general debating and unearth Tim Sonnreich’s guide. It’s a charismastically, clearly, and consisely written almanac that provides a fabulous overview of rhetorical frameworks complete with grounding examples. It particularly highlights the importance of contextualising, using more than one perspective/critique of arguments (e.g. what assumptions have the opposition based their model off? Why is this incorrect or implausible? what other stakeholders might be affected/how might they react?) It was interesting to note the mention of a gender bias, not just at the 2018 tournament but in this guide written in 2010. Sonnreich points out that the most experienced adjudicators are able to consciously account for the bias that privileges males as a more authoritative source than females (largely due to factors beyond their control such as the depth of their pitch when they speak). At the tournament it was pointed out that a thesis had been written by one of the convenors that found female speakers were disproportionately penalised for using filler words such as “um” and “like” - a pivotal finding that I think could be applied not only in debating, but also within institutions such as schools and businesses.
Part of me wishes I’d stumbled across this earlier: highly informative and solidified by case studies/experience, it would have been an awesome resource to apply lessons from. Equally though, I am aware that I wouldn’t have gotten as much out of it without having been fortunate enough to experience the intensive intervarsity debating of Easters, and that there is still a myriad of opportunities in which to apply those skills both within and outside of debating. One thing that I think could be added to Sonnreich’s guide is the best/worse case scenario analysis whereby the opposition’s case is analysed and critiqued on the assumptions of their most beneficial and most detrimental outcome: something our third speaker did exceptionally and a skill I’m still trying to master😜
4am airport Millie interrogated whether investing the modest wages earned from adjudicating/debate coaching in...debating was more than a simple injection into the economy; whether it fueled a perpetual debating addiction. Whilst it was indeed both of these things, Sonnreich provided me some peace when he put it this way:
“There are really two types of debaters. There are those who think debating is just a hobby...The second group think debating actually has some inherent meaning and importance – not because the outcome of any given debate ever really changes much, but because in its totality, debating changes everything. Unlike any other hobby or sport, debating – if done well – will shape your personality, your intellect and your beliefs.”
Whether seeing it encourage empathy and multiple perspectives in students, experiencing how it pushes adjudicators and debaters to be a fair listener, or the platform it provides for the expression of multitudinous voices of youth and wise men and women concurrently, the reason I do it, I find, is simply that I love it.
Displaying 1 of 1 review