Research

[shona]

You will normally have at least two weeks in which to research the motion for the debate. You should use this time to gather facts, statistics and examples which will support your case, and also to find out facts that the opposing teams may use to support their arguments.

If the motion is a topical one, then it is a good idea to read a newspaper every day, to see if there have been new developments on the issue which you will be speaking about. This should ensure that you are not caught out using old and out of date information. It might be helpful to check in your school or local library, to see if there are any books with helpful information on the topic. In addition, some magazines (e.g. The Economist) may contain useful information. Please see

The best source of information, however, for many of the motions that you will be given in the ESU Juniors Competition is the internet. There are numerous websites that contain archives which allow you to read months, or years, of news stories about a certain topic in a brief period of time. Three of the best are as follows:

www.bbc.co.uk/news
www.guardian.co.uk
www.telegraph.co.uk

All of these websites have search facilities which allow you to type in the phrase that you are looking for (‘smoking’; ‘vivisection’; ‘drugs in sport’ etc) and read previous news stories about them. This is probably the most efficient way of researching for a debate.

Many debaters use the resource: www.debatabase.org

It is an excellent resource but if you do use it, remember that it is easy to fall into the trap of relying only upon the arguments it provides. It is a great starting point but teams who can think of points not listed on debatabase will beat you. It is good for your debating development to think arguments through for yourself.

Two further hints: Try to avoid personal anecdotes. These are unlikely to be persuasive and are unverifiable. The fact that your uncle had trouble changing money on his last holiday does not prove that Britain should join the Euro.

Also, try to avoid comparisons to Nazi Germany in your speeches. The fact that Hitler was a vegetarian is not an illuminating argument in an animal rights debate. This is known amongst academics as reduction ad Hitlerum, or more commonly as Godwin’s Law- the first person to spuriously compare an opponent’s argument to the Nazis will lose the debate.

Finally, remember that facts do not, on their own, make a good speech. A speech which merely recounts facts, figures and statistics will wow the judges and show off your research ability but it will not necessarily be persuasive. Remember you are trying to persuade the adjudicators and you should use facts to back up your key arguments.


Adjudicators will reward you if:
You provide clear, relevant arguments that support your case. This applies to any Points of Information you offer (see page 14)
You provide good evidence which supports your arguments. This will reflect the research that you have done.
You are original in your analysis of the debate, you use statistics to highlight your analysis and you avoid personal anecdotes.





Adjudicators will mark you down if:
You provide unclear, irrelevant or tangential Points of Information, or fail to show how your arguments support your case.
You provide irrelevant or poor evidence, you only make assertions i.e. arguments that are not supported with any evidence or you use wilfully obscure evidence.
You are unoriginal or have obviously used someone else’s case; you make a speech which is simply a string of statistics, facts or personal anecdotes as opposed to arguments backed up with facts.