Re: Speed

[asnider@moose.uvm.edu (Alfred C. Snider)]

>I have had this discussion with Steve many times.  I take the position much
>further.  As a teacher of Speech Communication, I cannnot vote in a debate
>round for a style of delivery that I would flunk in the classroom.

Glad to have you as a judge.  We at the University of Vermont are anxious
to adapt to you and other judges.

> My
>question to those who go fast is WHY?

As I have explained before, in any timed competition speed of play becomes
a strategic choice.

> Where do you use this skill that you
>spend so much time learning?

After 23 years of coaching students who probably, on the average, talk
faster than you would like, allow me to share my experiences. Slowing down
is easy. After mastering rapid delivery, speaking at a more moderate rate
is even easier than before, you have a lot of extra brain processing power
to work on wording and read audience non-verbals. As a host of my former
debaters can attest, they become excellent lawyers, advocates, business
persons, etc. and most of them deal with the public. Not oner has said
learning to go quickly hurt them later, and many, many have said that it
moved them up to a new notch of cognitive awareness. To imagine that once
they can go fast debaters have only one speed is, in my view, incorrect.

Mike Korcok has mentioned in great detail currently, and again with a
couple of citations, that rapid delivery tends to improve cognitive
functioning. I'll let him handle that part.

>One
>assumes that the final round contains some of the best debaters in the
>country.

One assumes that a different panel will produce a different discourse. In
the final round of the West Point tournament respected scholars and
soldiers judge each year and the debaters (from various fast-talkin' debate
programs) do very well. Tell the debaters who has the ballot, and they will
adapt to them.

Do debaters currently talk too fast? For some judges, yes. The problem is
not in the debaters, however, it is in the judges. If judges will be honest
about the speed they can comprehend then debaters will adapt to that speed,
but if judges do not, then they are not being honest with the debaters.

I salute you for being honest about the rate of deliver you find most
communicative. As long as I am honest about mine, I hope that you would
also respect it.


Alfred C. Snider AKA Tuna
Edwin W. Lawrence Professor of Forensics, University of Vermont
Mail: Box 54225, UVM, Burlington, VT 05405-4225
Phone: 802-656-0097, Fax: 802-656-4275
DEBATE CENTRAL:
http://beluga.uvm.edu/debatecentral/dc.html
gopher://beluga.uvm.edu
LAWRENCE DEBATE UNION:
http://beluga.uvm.edu/debatecentral/ldu.html

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