Debate One

Our first debate was about whether or not the drinking age should be lowered to 18 or should stay at  My team was on the affirmative side saying that the drinking age should be lowered. My team did very well in this debate. We all had thought out and had written out what we wanted to say and our points were clear and conscious. Our team also worked really well together and we all contributed thoughtful ideas and searched a lot about the topic. Another thing that we did well was we came up with possible rebuttals that the other side could have brought up and wrote responses to what they could have said and what we could rebut. Also, the team really fed off of each other very well. We used each others strengths and applied that to  the debate and who would do what.

The other team however I believe was not as organized as our team. The opening speaker said they knew they were doing the opening response the day before. Another thing was they did not have a strong rebuttal. Their ideas were not clearly laid out and were very short. I think their strongest speaker was the closing speaker and the opening speaker. The opening speaker although had a short opening, had very good points and spoke very well. This also goes for the closing speaker, even though he read off of the paper, he had strong consist points and brought up points that were not rebuttal  in  other teams arguments. This was a very strong point for them because there would beno opportunity   for my side to rebut.

The team that I believe won was my team. I think we had stronger arguments than the other team. We did a lot of research and used multiple sources to reassure that our sources were credible. We also had stronger rebuttals and touched on every point. We also used the other teams mistakes to strengthen our arguments and really listened to what their arguments were and picked at little details to rebut.

For my team, we need to keep up our organization and for the next debate assign people what they will do on the first day.  Also, we need to continue to our research on points because that really helped us all to work on something together and bring our points together. Also, we nee to keep up
our good teamwork because that results in a strong debate team. Also, we need to continue to listen very carefully and pay a lot of attention to the opponents arguments and rebuttals. This was something very strong that we did because then we gave our notes to the next rebutter.

What my team needs to work on is speaking slower and work on enunciation. This will allow for our audience to better understand our arguments and our points. Another thing is making sure that the thesis statement in properly stated and clear. I think another thing we need to work on is making sure we stay on topic because sometimes there would be rants or side conversations irrelevant to the debate and that took away from research or brainstorming time. Also, no matter what side your on you have to put in as much research as you would the topic you agree with even if you don't like that. I think that was a problem with our team as well and that weakened our arguments by saying they do not agree with our side.

The other team needs to work on their organization skills and rebutting skills. They should plan out who will be doing what for the debate and help each other figure out a good opening statement, not just the person saying the opening statement. As well as with the rebuttals, coming up with possible rebuttals my team could make and thinking of points and arguments based around that. This will help them organize their arguments better and allow for a better result and a stronger debate. Also, if they work on their communication between Q that will help them. After the debate they argued about how one person said they couldn't make a point because they were going to make it and never did. This then left out information or arguments that they could have used to strengthen their argument.