Thursday, December 10, 2009

Public Speaking Skills Vs. Argumentation Skills

I've come to the dire conclusion that I suck at debating. Debate is made of 2 parts, one is public speaking and the other is argumentation. My partner made this evident to me as she sucks with her argumentation skills but is a really good public speaker and will spew bullshit out of her mouth with confidence. Now which is better? A person with good points that he cannot get across or a person that says bullshit with 100% confidence. I'd say the latter, but what good are those points if he cannot get them across? In retrospect of my lastest debate, I was the affirmative #1, so I set up the whole debate basically. For my reconstructive speech, I had 7 minutes, I had too much to say and went over it. Now I won't get into the details of the debate since that'd take up too much time, but my partner didn't even go over my points and thus introduced new information into our solvency. WTF. In the middle of my rebuttal, I just gave up. I couldn't do it. The negative called us out on so many topicalities and I had a fucking laundry list of problems to address on my legal pad. LITERALLY FUCKING 2 PAGES OF THINGS TO SAY. I couldn't have possibly gotten it within my 3 minute time limit and thus would not be able to get my point across. So then I was like "fuck it, we're not going to win, might as well not try." I couldn't even rely on my partner.

But in a more broader sense, my public speaking skills not only suck in debate, but I think also in personal relationships. As sometimes I cannot get my point across. But in debate, (I also forgot), between public speaking skills and argumentation skills,, there's something to connect the two and that is critical thinking. I lack critical thinking and public speaking skills. The ability to think on the spot and be witty. I'm working on that right now and I am getting better. How am I working on that? Ha, just stupid shit like flowing and mock debates with my close friends.

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