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1705135618 13.3 Flowing the Debate

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1705135620 13.4 Summary

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1705135622 13.5 Terms and Concepts from Chapter 13

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1705135624 13.6 Discussion Questions for Chapter 13

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1705135626 13.7 Exercise for Chapter 13

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1705135628 Appendix A—SAMPLE DEBATE FLOW SHEET

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1705135630 Debate fosters excellence in speaking and critical thinking, but success in competitive debate depends primarily on good critical listening and note-taking skills. Debaters need to develop proficiency in listening because it is a fundamental communication skill in debate. Inadequate listening skills will contribute to unclear dialogue in the debate and will create significant difficulties for the judges and the participants. Good listening habits are necessary for providing clear and insightful responses to arguments, and debaters can develop and enhance listening skills through practice. While participating in debate is an excellent way to practice listening skills, explaining some of the basics of listening and note-taking to beginning debaters in advance of debates or tournaments practice is an important aspect of this text. This chapter will discuss techniques for listening that can help both debaters take better notes and provide clearer responses to arguments.

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1705135635 13.1 Listening in Debates

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1705135637 The first thing that debaters should understand is the distinction between listening and hearing. Hearing is the physiological process of taking in sound waves through the ear canal. Listening not only involves the physiological process but also includes the mental process of understanding what is being taken in, making sense of it, and formulating a response. Listening involves processing the auditory cues being received. Listening is obviously important to a good debate because the mental processing of what is being heard fosters the critical thinking skills that generate a good debate.

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1705135639 As an active process, listening requires effort and energy. Listening is often viewed as a passive activity. That viewpoint regarding listening is particularly prevalent in oral communication activities like public speaking and debate. In speaking situations where one person is doing all or most of the talking, the popular perception is that one individual (the speaker) is applying all of the energy and effort. However, careful listening demands just as much energy and effort. The mind has to be fully engaged in the communication situation to carefully absorb and process information. The notion that listening is a passive activity is one myth about listening that needs to be dispelled.

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1705135641 A second common misconception about listening is that it comes naturally and is easy for everyone to do without any formal training. Of the major communication skills emphasized in most educational systems throughout the world, listening typically gets the least attention. Students receive focused training on how to read, how to write, and, although less often, on how to speak. However, very little if any time is devoted to teaching students how to listen. Debate can help address this deficit in communication skills training by providing students opportunities to practice listening skills in both a supportive and competitive environment.

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1705135643 An awareness of the common misconceptions about listening can help improve debates by maintaining the quality of dialogue. In Worlds-Style debate, every speaker after the first speaker in the debate has to provide some refutation of the previous speaker’s arguments. And, even the first speaker needs to listen carefully in order to be able to raise points of information. Active listening, the process of investing energy and effort into listening critically to the arguments presented by the previous speakers, allows debaters to strengthen their cases by formulating appropriate responses to the previously presented arguments.

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1705135646 13.2 Paraphrasing

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1705135648 One simple listening skill that debate students can and should practice is paraphrasing. Paraphrasing is simply restating someone else’s argument using your own words. A good paraphrase is not simply a repetition of the complete argument presented by the previous speaker, but is a concise summary of the major claim or position that the previous speaker presented. The goal of paraphrasing is not to change the intent of the message or to manipulate the message, but rather to provide a concise and accurate version of the original argument.

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1705135650 As a listening skill, paraphrasing is important. During the round, debaters should silently paraphrase as a way to take mental note of the various arguments that are being presented by other speakers. Paraphrasing is also important as a speaking skill because it is also the first element in refutation. As a component of refutation, the paraphrase should be more descriptive than evaluative. A complete point of refutation will, of course, also include evaluation and critique, but, at the stage of paraphrasing, the focus should be on providing a simple paraphrase that is a short summary of the argument that the previous speaker presented. As noted in Chapter 10, the first of the four-step process of refutation involves identifying the argument made by the other debater. That identification should be a simple paraphrase.

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1705135652 For instance, assume that a speaker makes the following argument:

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1705135654 China should not ban smoking in public places because it will lead to personal economic losses for some of our most vulnerable workers. Shopkeepers, tobacco factory workers, and workers on tobacco farms will all lose jobs or income. Since the livelihood of so many of our poorest workers is tied to the tobacco industry, we must reject any ban that will put those employees at risk.

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1705135656 In that case, a simple paraphrase of the argument would be as follows:

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1705135658 My opponent states that a ban on smoking in China will create economic losses for workers in selected occupations.

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1705135660 The paraphrase of the argument is neutral in tone because the goal here is simply to identify the specific argument for judges and the other debaters. Later in the debate, when referring to this same argument, the paraphrase can be even more succinct:

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1705135662 The opposition argues that economic losses will result from the proposed ban.

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1705135664 Debaters should avoid unnecessary details when paraphrasing during refutation. Debaters should avoid taking too much of their own speaking time summarizing the arguments for the other side. A good paraphrase in refutation is a short summary that lets the judges and audience members know which argument the speaker is addressing. However, debaters should avoid unnecessary details (such as repeating all the previous speaker’s evidence) since the majority of time in refutation should be spent on developing unique arguments for one’s own side in the debate.

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1705135666 After an argument has been paraphrased several times by different speakers throughout the round, a few key words, such as “economic loss,” are often sufficient to identify the argument in a point of summary or refutation. Also, a short keyword paraphrase such as “economic loss” is precisely the type of information that debaters should place in their notes about the round.

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