Debate: 10th of Feb. '14

So today is the debate that goes under the motion: THBT the media should be prevented by law from intruding the lives of public figures. Darrell came late so eventually Mandy, Febe and I are the ones who debated for the opposition team. We were all very nervous. I felt like I forgot all of the things that I have learned in debate club before. At first I can't remember the technical aspects of a debate but thankfully my mind switched on again (phew!). I believe the affirmative team actually started the debate quite poorly because they didn't define the motion clearly and didn't explain the mechanism at all. They defined media as papparazzi and reporters, public figures as celebrities and intruding lives as taking pictures and interviewing celebrities that are walking down the street to go to a shop. When my team pointed out some flaws in the definition of the motion, especially for intruding lives, the second and third speakers of the affirmative team defined the motion differently. Each person in the affirmative team has different interpretations of the motion and my team made a very big deal of that. The biggest setback of my team is probably that we were too focused in arguing about the definition. We were so focused on that that we didn't completely rebut the arguments made by the affirmative team. We paid attention too closely on the definition of the motion that we didn't realized that the affirmative team has not set forth the mechanism to their proposal. As the opposition team, my team also didn't suggest a better way to solve the problem that is stated in the status quo. Thus, at the end my team lost. I believe that the debate is fair and my team still has a lot to improve on. Specifically myself, I did sign post and I feel proud that I can carry it out before but I still lack confidence. As echoed by the adjudicator, my tone isn't persuasive enough. I stutter a lot. Thus, I believe that to be a better debater I should increase my confidence and put my emotions into every word I say, just like the debater in the WSDC video I watched last week.