Re: Speed

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

Mike Dugaw says:

>        As for the argument that they can adapt, I"m sorry, I disagree.  In
>a long run, they can unlearn the delivery style they learned, but when you
>ask for a communicative delivery from teams who usually do not use it, I get
>a very wierd combination of incomplete sentences.

Well, people have been singing this song every since Seikel and Miller from
Houston started going fast in the late 60's, and I feel a hugely successful
critical  mass of debaters who have come through this supposed speed
nightmare prove you to be wrong. My specific alums disprove your notion. My
debaters from the last few years have disproven this as well, having been
successful at getting 29s from spew judges and 29s from judges who demanded
a very rhetorical style in back to back rounds. I can think of many, many
debaters who have shown this. None of our students seems to have become
less eloquent after doing speed drills. Saying that students get stuck in
one delivery rut, either during or after their debate careers, may be what
you claim to be true, but with all due respect, I do not believe it is
true.

25 years after rapid delivery was predicted to "destroy" debate, academic
debate in America is still here and is still healthy, even if it does take
place in different formats. Students are not trapped into rapid delivery
debating, but may opt for other more spacious formats as well.

You have yet to respond to the West Point example of successful adaptation
or the empirical evidence that it improves cognition mentioned by Mr.
Korcok.

I respect and honor your rhetorical preference, which is a respect due to
all audiences, but I would hope that you could reciprocate and respect and
honor the rhetorical preferences of others.

To return to a theme, speed of play is a factor in any competitive timed
activity, and the factors definitely include the nature of the judge/critic
in the case of debate. If we are to be "audience centered" in this way then
you must understand that a differently paced message may be for a different
critic/audience.

Frankly, I try and teach my students to win. They can do that with
beautiful delivery, but to me that is the easy part. I focus more on having
something important to say. Our world is full of beautifully presented and
eloquently spoken empty messages, where form seems to triumph over content,
and my involvement in debate attempts to fight back against that.


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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