Communication and Rhetoric
Advanced Verbal Techniques – Get Inside your Audience’s Mind.
How do you take your speeches to the next level? How do you separate yourself from the rest of the room, and even the other speakers in the debate round? Focus on the key distinguishing factors that make all the difference. Most of the time you can just get good or...
How Much Passion is Too Much?
Passion can be a cornerstone for an effective or persuasive speech. Many speeches on certain subjects don't need it, but many do. It's a hard delineation to find. If you've ever seen a speaker with too much passion, you know how easy it is to become quickly annoyed. A...
Speaking to an Audience: The Techniques
Specific/Advanced Techniques and Devices After the last post on more general techniques, this post will focus more on the concrete speech devices you can implement. However, as mentioned before, you don’t want to go overboard with these devices or use them without any...
Lessons From A Three Year Old
"How could the judge not understand our mandate?" "Did they really miss that round-winning statistic?" "We addressed that Disadvantage! Why was it in their RFD?!" If you've ever had questions like these after a round, then this post is for you....
How To Have Influence, 3.2: Commitment and Consistency
This post is a continuation of our series on how to have influence. Part one examined reciprocity, part two focused on the contrast principle, and part three began a discussion on commitment and consistency. This post finishes up part three with a few more tips on how...
How To Have Influence, Part 3: Commitment and Consistency
This post is part of a series on how to have influence. Be sure to read parts one and two for more tips on building your influence. "It's easier to resist at the beginning than at the end." - Leonardo da Vinci This post will cover the third part of Influence, by Dr....
Confidence: Fake It Til You Make It
Looming ten feet tall, their steps shattered paving stones. The rumble of their debate boxes sent panicked crowds fleeing. Several witnesses reported seeing them breathe fire on at least one occasion, and their refutation skills had been known to make small children...
How To Have Influence, Part 2: The Contrast Principle
In my last post, I covered Reciprocity, the first “principle of persuasion” examined by Dr. Cialdini in his book Influence. In this post, I will discuss the contrast principle, another essential point covered by Cialdini. The contrast principle says that perception is...
How To Have Influence, Part 1: Reciprocation
“A few years ago, a university professor tried a little experiment. He sent Christmas cards to a sample of perfect strangers. Although he expected some reaction, the response he received was amazing—holiday cards addressed to him came pouring back from people who had...
Building Blocks of Thought
Everyone who is reading this has, at some point, taken apart something, examined the pieces, then put them together again—sometimes in a different way. For some, it might have been some old computer or furniture. For many others, it may have been toys such as legos....
Language and Thought: Why Rhetoric Works
Let’s say you’re visiting Australia. On the western edge of Cape York Peninsula, there’s a group of people called the Kuuk Thaayorre. The language they speak doesn’t have words for left or right, forward or back. Instead, its speakers describe locations using north,...
Speaker Points: The #1 Thing You Can Do To Improve
It was the first tournament of the year, and it was going to be a good one. It had to be. A National Open in my neck of the woods. It was Gonzales/Segar’s time to shine. Nicknamed the two tall Mexicans (guess why), we didn’t have a ton going for us. This was my fourth...
Transform Your Speaking: Figures of Speech
Having trouble getting your points across? Feel as though your audience is almost falling asleep as you talk? Getting comments like, “try not to speak monotone” or, “try to sound more interesting”? If any of this sounds like you, fear not, because all is not lost. You...
Introducing: Ethics Bowl
What do the Electoral College, “Fake News,” the Goldwater Rule, and 13 Reasons Why all have in common? Not much, except they were all cases in the Intercollegiate Ethics Bowl this season. In fact, they are just four of the 15 cases/topics that ethics bowl teams at...
How To Recover From Mistakes: Here’s A Simple Drill
Audiences dread public speaking because they think, from a whole pile of bad coaching on the subject, that public speaking is about being perfect. It’s not. Nobody likes a perfect person. Public speaking is about being likable, so your message shines through. Today...