Video transcript
The Arts Unit @home Art Bites – High school debate club 1

[music playing]

TONY DAVEY: Hey, there. So my name is Tony Davey. I'm the Speaking Competition's assistant for the New South Wales Department of Education. Obviously, this time of year, you'd normally be getting ready to be in the Premier's Debating Challenge. Maybe you'd have had your first debate already. And, of course, with the way things are, that's not possible.

So, what we're going to do to keep you in touch and make sure you're still picking up debating skills is every week, we'll put out a video that has a bit of a skill of the week and some explanation about something you could learn, and then we'll also run through a definition with you and show you how a definition for one of last year's most popular topics would work if one of our best adjudicators and coaches was doing it.

And finally, we'll practise a little bit of rebuttal by looking at an old debating final and having someone do some rebuttal and show you what that rebuttal would look like. So hopefully, that will keep you in touch with debating until we can get back to business as usual.

Alright? So, the first thing that we're going to do is just talk through really basic steps to an argument, an argument framework. You probably will have heard some of this already, but we just want to make it a pretty basic opening video so you kind of have an idea of the basic steps to putting together a good argument, and the different kinds of tips and tricks you can use to improve that argument, when you're in a debate.

OK? So, normally, we think of arguments as having basically 4 steps to them. The first step that we're going to talk about today, sometimes called Point, is about introducing your argument and making sure it's really, really clear what that argument is going to be about. So, in a public speech or in an essay, or even in creative writing, it's great to take the audience on a magical journey with you and have them sort of guessing where you're going.

A debating argument is the exact opposite of that. You want everyone to know, from the very, very first sentence, exactly what the next one and a half or 2 minute chunk is going to be about. So, you're going to use the phrase 'My team's something argument will show that' - and instead of 'something,' you'll give it a number, probably first, second, third, fourth, or maybe even fifth.

And instead of 'something,' we need you to come up with the perfect half sentence-long heading for that argument. So you're going to, again, start every argument with this simple sentence. 'My team's something argument will show that perfect half sentence heading.' The half sentence heading is going to be repeated during your allocation. It's going to be repeated when you point back to old arguments, so it's really important that half sentence heading is absolutely perfect and summarises everything you want to say.

Later on, one of our best coaches is going to give you a definition for the topic, 'that we should punish sports clubs for the off-field behaviour of their players.' So, just thinking about that as a topic for a while, one of the arguments you might have will be kind of about how that will change players' behaviour and hopefully fix the problem, right?

But, a lot of people give it a kind of a mushy heading. They say like, 'My team's first argument will show the benefits to punishing sports clubs.' That doesn't actually tell you what's going to happen during that argument. They might also use other debatery language, like 'My team's second argument will show the impacts on the different stakeholders.'

But, the truth is that doesn't really tell anybody what's coming up. So instead, you want your heading to be more like, 'My team's first argument will show that when we punish clubs, those clubs have a reason to act proactively and manage their players' behaviour better,' something like that. Or 'My team's second argument will show that now fans will put pressure on players to make sure they behave properly, so that their team isn't penalised.' And when you hear that, you know that argument is going to be about fan pressure and how it will work.

So, it's really important that heading be a clear half sentence-long explanation of exactly where you're going. Everyone should hear it and say to themselves, 'Oh yeah, I know what this is going to be about. I reckon I could even take over for myself and run that argument myself.' OK? So, that's the first step. You start with that single sentence that we call Point.

Your next job is the most important job, and that is to Explain your argument. There are lots of different ways to explain an argument really, really well, but just so you've got a quick framework in your head, there's a really simple 3-step process you can use to explain a practical argument really well.

So, that 3-step process goes like this. You begin by painting the picture of what things look like right now in terms of the topic and the argument you're trying to explain. So, you talk about right now, before the change in the topic has occurred, and you paint a picture of what's going on that you're about to attack and say you should change, if you're the affirmative, or defend if you're the negative.

So, say your argument was about how now clubs will have to get proactive and ensure that players are behaving well. You might start by saying, 'So look, right now, clubs, there's really no pressure on them to look after their players' behaviour. When a player misbehaves off-field, they can say, look, that's a private person.

That wasn't our fault. It's not really anything to do with us. That happened in the off season.' And they find various ways in the media to dodge the problem and say that the problem isn't theirs.

Because they're not being hurt, there's really no incentive for them to get involved and try to manage those players' behaviour. In fact, they're better off just sitting back and pretending there's nothing they could do and then blaming the player themselves afterwards. So it's this little paragraph of what it looks like right now, in terms of clubs, being invested, in managing players' behaviour.

The next thing that you would do is you would turn to what things would look like after the change had come in and clubs were being punished for their players' off-field behaviour. So, you might say something like, 'After the change, or after we bring in this rule' - and then you want to paint a little 2 or 3 sentence picture of how different things will be.

So you'll say stuff like, 'Now, once we bring in this rule, those clubs are going to have a really strong incentive to try to manage their players' behaviour. They'll be worried about losing fans if they start dropping down the ladder. They'll be worried about losing games if we punish them due to losing points in game. And because they're worried about that stuff, they're now going to say to themselves, how can I better manage my players' behaviour?

Maybe they'll bring in more staff to deal with player welfare. Maybe they'll have more training and education for those players and make it more mandatory so that those players are getting the instruction that they need and getting the support they need at the club to make sure that they're not going to go away and misbehave or do something stupid or do something illegal outside of the club. So you just paint that opposite picture of what it will look like and how much better it will be, if you're the affirmative, once things have changed.

The last step that we want you to use, if you're explaining a simple argument, is just to do another 2 or 3 sentence, maybe 30-second chunk, where you tell us why what you've been talking about actually matters. So, you're going to say something like, 'That's important because,' and then give us another final paragraph where you talk through why it's so important that clubs work with players to ensure that their behaviour improves.

You'll probably talk there a little bit about what kinds of role models they are, about how impossible it is for young sportspeople to manage their own behaviour when, suddenly, they end up with all of this money and not many rules in their life. You'll talk about all that kind of stuff. You might even want to pause now and give it a shot yourself. I reckon you guys could easily do a 'That's important because' and then tell me why it's important in 2 or 3 made up sentences that clubs help to manage players' behaviour.

One last thing about those 3 steps, and that is to remember that if you're on the affirmative, your 'right now' chunk is going to be really, really ugly. It's going to be here's how terrible it is right now. And then your 'after we bring in this rule chunk' is going to be look how great everything is now.

If you're on the negative, it's going to be opposite to that. The negative are going to go 'right now,' and they're going to talk about all the different ways that the current situation works really, really well. Clubs actually do look after their players really, really well.

And then, maybe, they're going to say, 'after the change, after we bring in this rule,' and they're going to paint a really bad picture. Paint a picture of how this is going to backfire or fall apart or make fans hate the sport, and so on and so forth. Both sides still do a 'that's important because' and give it 2 or 3 sentences.

Cool. So that's the most important part of your argument, is your explanation. The next step that we want you guys to go through is called Example. This one's pretty simple. We just want you to name an example by saying, for example, and then calling out a real world instance that demonstrates what your explanation was all about. And then we want you to make sure you take a couple of sentences to explain how that example works.

So, just a tip with examples. There are certainly some debates where it's harder to find an example than others, but there are also lots of debates where it's really easy to find an example and speakers don't bother. So, last year, I saw this topic quite a few times because it was quite popular.

And I got through a lot of debates without anyone ever even telling me what was the instance of an off-field player who displayed poor behaviour, who was the player, what did they do, what were the consequences. And that's stuff that I think is in our collective brains. Most people can mention an off-field performance by a player that was less than OK and talk about the consequences that they faced.

So, remember, when you're doing that example, actually call out that thing that has happened. Name the player, name the incident, and explain the response and show how it backs up your argument. Basically, we're looking for a case study. A case study might be an even better way of looking at it than an example.

So finally, it works best when your explanation is in the abstract, talking about clubs in abstract as entities, players and what they're like, fans and how they respond. And then your example is the specifics. It names the player, names the club and the incident, and names the response that we saw.

OK? So, that's what a good example would look like. And the last thing is just to end that whole thing by giving us a link. That link is typically just you saying 'and that's why,' and then saying the topic again. So you've just got to go like, 'and that's why we should punish clubs for the off-field behaviour of their players.'

That sentence just lets everybody know that the argument is over so that they can get ready for the next heading that you're going to give them. Again, so if you memorise those steps, you'll be able to explain lots of the arguments that you have without really that much written down, because you know that you're talking through the chunk about right now. You know that next comes the specific example. Those kinds of things will help you with really simple arguments. It won't work for all arguments, but it's a great starting place if you need to quickly write an argument for a debate.

The next thing we're going to do is just talk through very quickly what's coming up later this week with these videos and how the weeks are generally going to work. So, every week is going to start off with a video like this one, where we go through a certain skill and talk about what you need to know to get better at debating with that skill. Don't worry, it won't always be me. It'll be other coaches doing much more fun stuff, and the other videos will also be more fun.

About midweek, we'll put out a video where one of our very best coaches goes through a definition with you. So they'll pick one of last year's most popular Premier's Debating Challenge topics and they'll define that topic with you and deliver the context and the definition as if they were a speaker in that debate. Then towards the end of each week, we'll put out a video where, again, one of our best coaches or adjudicators watches one of their old speeches from a state final, back when they were a kid, and they'll give their former selves some feedback. And finally, rebut themselves and hopefully crush themselves.

With both of those videos, the defining one and the rebuttal one, you could really learn a lot by pausing beforehand and practising your own definition, your own rebuttal, and then comparing it to the champions who are giving the lesson. And one last thing. We're also going to be putting out videos like this for primary school kids each and every week, and it's not the worst idea to go and check some of those out as well.

The same coaches will be doing the same kinds of things with definition and rebuttal, and honestly, they can't help themselves. They give insanely advanced feedback, even to those primary school kids, so they're probably worth a look. All right, thanks for listening, and we'll see you with a bunch more videos as the lockdown continues. Stay safe.