How to Compose a Speech

A few things to be said in advance

Start early: If you compose a speech just a day before the debate takes place, you’ll run into several problems. That’s why you should start writing as soon as you have agreed on your team line. First, your coach can give you any advice. Second, there’s still time to coordinate your speech with the other team members. Third, if you cannot take part because of some unforeseen problem, you can pass on your speech to someone else. Fourth, you can rehearse your speech.

Role-fulfilment: It’s a big difference whether you’re opposing or proposing, whether you are a first, second, third, or reply speaker. Nobody wants to see a debater who doesn’t know what to do. So, get to know your job. If you’re proposing, you have the burden of proof. It’s your task to show why you’re right and why the motion must stand. If you’re opposing, you need to refute all of prop’s arguments and tell the audience why the motion must fall. Depending on your role, you will have to do no rebuttal at all (1^st speaker PROP, reply speakers) or mostly rebuttal (3^rd speakers OPP and PROP). Reply speeches are notoriously tricky. Many inexperienced speakers will try to use their reply speech as an opportunity for some more rebuttal. That’s not what a reply speech is for.

Time management: As your speech should take more or less 6 minutes (or 8 minutes in Senior League), you need to check on your time management. As you are supposed to accept two Points of Information (which should not take more than 30 sec altogether), it’s always better to allow for some delay. Mark some supporting arguments or additional examples that you can drop as soon as you notice that you need to win some time. Here’s a very brief guideline on how to use your overall time:

SPEAKER	PROPOSITION	OPPOSITION
1^st	1:00 min for case, definition, team line 4:00 min for the substantive parts of the speech 0:30 min for a conclusion	0:45 min for addressing the definition, case, team line 1:15 min rebuttal 3:00 min for the substantive parts of the speech 0:30 min for a conclusion
2^nd	2:30 minutes for the rebuttal 2:30 minutes the substantive parts of the speech 0:30 min for a conclusion	3:00 min for the rebuttal 2:00 min for substantive parts of the speech 0:30 min for a conclusion
3^rd	4:30 min for the rebuttal 1 min for the link to the case 0:30 min for a conclusion	4:30 min for the rebuttal 1 min for linking your speech to the case 0:30 min for a conclusion
Reply	3 minutes	3 minutes

Greeting (00:00)

Usually, a speech will start with greeting whoever is present, excitedly waiting for your speech. Most important: the judges. But also the other “ladies” and “gentlemen” in the room, namely those you will debate with and, not to forget, the chair person. You don’t need to give the timekeeper special attention. Choose your terms of address wisely, you shouldn’t sound too formal (“Esteemed Mr Chair”), nor should you sound too informal (“hi guys”, “hello everyone”). If you’re lucky enough to debate in an international context, people might expect you to address other dignitaries in the room. In this case, make sure you know their names and titles. But in a normal Junior League debate, it’s perfectly fine to say:

Ladies and gentlemen, judges, fellow debaters, Ms Chair!

Case (00:05)

At this point, it’s rather common to “welcome everyone to this debate” – which is exactly why I don’t recommend it all. First of all, everyone knows they are attending a debate. Secondly, I suppose it’s also a bit of a motivation killer for the audience if you start with the usual blah-blah. The first thing you ought to do is: Get the audience to listen carefully to what you are going to talk about. Tell them something new, something fresh, something shocking. Start off with a personal story or a few surprising facts. This part of the speech doesn’t need to be extremely long. But it needs to be attractive. You should also give the audience some hints what to expect of your team’s overall argumentation.

What is it that makes you beautiful? Is it your hair, your face, your skin? Or the way you walk or the way you dance? None of that is really important. Beauty is who we are and what makes us special. It’s the kind of beauty you feel when you look into each other’s eyes. Whether you’re slim or fat, white or black, fair or black – beauty can never be judged. But judging is the essence of every beauty pageant. At beauty pageants, however, you’ll be judged by your looks, not by your talent or education. Women are reduced to dolls to be watched and measured by a male audience. If you fail to please, people will put you down. It’s a very painful experience for all women, but especially for teenagers.

Introducing yourself (00:30)

Now, it’s about time to say who you are and what you stand for. Name your position and welcome the audience to the debate before you come to the motion

My name is Lisa and I’m the first speaker of Team Proposition. Welcome back to Junior League Round 2 and to an exciting debate: “This House Believes That beauty pageants should be banned. “

Defining the terms (00:45)

A few words have to be said about defining the terms of the motion. A definition needs to be fair, it must be precise, it must be debatable, neither too narrow nor too wide. One of the worst things that can happen to a debate is a definition debate. If two teams have nothing better to do than fighting for the best possible wording of the motion, something has gone wrong. So, how should you define the motion?

First, Find out which of the terms call for a definition. In this case, we would like to know what a “beauty pageant” is – and it would be necessary to point out what you mean by “banning”. The audience as well as the judges are seen as averagely educated and debaters suppose there is a common understanding of the terms you want to define.
Second, it’s always a good start to look up words in a monolingual dictionary. You’ll get a clear and concise definition that way. But that’s not all.
Third, you might want to work with the definition and define the words of the motion in a favorable way. It can be rather helpful to include or exclude certain aspects. But whenever you try to manipulate the framework of a debate, you run a certain risk the opposing team is aware of what you’re doing. If you’re the proposing team, however, side opposition should agree with your definition if it’s not completely ridiculous or outrageously unfair. Watch out, if you resort to squirreling, you may lose the debate. Squirreling is defining the terms in a way that has nothing to do with an obvious understanding of the motion.
It is also helpful to locate the debate so that you don’t wander from one region to the other, from your nation to the next. As international consensus is dreadfully difficult to achieve, you may want to locate the debate in Germany or the U.S., depending on the motion. As a Junior League debater, you should stick to countries you know well – especially your own.

Let us define the terms of the motion. Beauty pageants are competitions in which women are judged on how physically attractive they are. Physical beauty is the main aspect. Please note that “beauty pageants” are only for women, contests for males are not referred to as beauty pageants, which is why we exclude contests for men. To “ban” those contests means to make them illegal, with fines and further consequences for anyone who organizes beauty pageants for financial profit. We locate the motion in Germany.

With this debate, Team Opposition will not be able to talk about contests for men or children. The term “women” rules out men and children. It’s not possible to water down the motion by talking about talent shows. You clearly say: beauty pageants are about “how physically attractive” these women need to be. Finally, they also cannot come up with examples from Samoa or Bolivia, as you have located the debate in Germany. If you’re proposing, stay alert – remind the other team that they have agreed with you on your definition (that is, if they have agreed with you).

Case (01:00)

First speakers will always explain the framework of case. They will explain their motivation and justify what they stand for, pointing out why the status quo does more harm than good. As the case is all yours, PROP’s first speaker will have to offer reasonable solutions. If you just want to “ban” it (make it illegal), the other team will come up with lots of questions about the hows, ifs, and whens of your plan. Use your imagination.

Beauty pageants came up in a time when women could neither vote nor decide what kind of job they want to do. In more than one hundred fifty years, the social role of women has changed – but not the main goal of beauty pageants. Women are still judged by a jury – mainly by how pretty they are. This is backward and sexist. Moreover, it harms women’s health, dignity and prospects. For the sake of equality, against exploitation and sexual abuse, we proudly propose a complete ban of commercial beauty pageants in Germany.

Teamline (01:15)

As a first speaker, you will introduce yourself, but also the other speakers. Your “teamline” is basically who says what – or: who takes over which role in the debate. These are the essential elements of the teamline section:

Your name as the first speaker – your team (side proposition: the proposing team / side opposition: the opposing team).
Your arguments in brief: What will you say in your speech?
Your second speaker: Who is it? First name is enough! What will the second speaker talk about? There are usually one or two arguments left. Talk to your team mates whether they will really say what you think you will say!
Your third speaker: Who is it? The third speaker will usually rebut the other side’s arguments and establish a link between your side’s arguments and the case.
The reply speech: Who does the reply speech? It’s not necessary (or even advisable) to talk about the reply speech – nobody can tell how the debate will develop in the next 45 minutes or so.

It’s advisable to label the different aspects of the motion you will cover. One speaker might talk about the moral side of the problem, a second speaker will tackle financial issues, while a third speaker will examine ecological issues.

Now, let’s come to our teamline. My name is Lisa and I will open the debate with two arguments having to do with health: First, I will explain how beauty pageants create a wrong idea of beauty and impose a lot of pressure on women. I will then point out why beauty pageants kill off their self-esteem and cause eating disorders. Competition and its consequences will be addressed by our second speaker, Nele, who will name social aspects of the problem by telling you how beauty pageants create a wrong picture of women. Our third speaker, Emilia will rebut side opposition’s arguments on grounds of practicality and show you why the motion must stand. The reply speech will again be given by myself.

Your substantive arguments (01:30)

If you’re a first speaker, be prepared to offer two arguments. As a second speaker, please concentrate on one argument. As a third speaker, you don’t present any substantive arguments at all. However, you can mention potential arguments when you link your case to the debate.

As a rule, you start with the most important point. This is to ensure that the other team can properly rebut your argument. If you start with an extremely weak point, the other team cannot rebut and the whole debate ends in turmoil. As debating is not only about defeating the other side, but also about good argumentation, this really matters. An argument has at least three parts. It starts with a claim, which is followed by a warrant, supported by some kind of evidence or proof. Before we come to that, let us first cover the overall structure of an argument. A good argument appeals to the audience. Besides being well-structured, it needs to be eloquent. There are five things you should keep in mind:

Establish a connection to what has been said before. Usually, this will be your announcement in the teamline.
Introduce the argument, show why it matters, make people listen. Give an example.
Establish your major claim.
Give a warrant. Add some supporting arguments, moving elegantly from one statement to the next.
Give some evidence.
Sum up your point.
Link your argument to the motion.
Link the argument to what will come next.

Why do beauty pageants create wrong ideas about beauty? And why do they kill our self-esteem? In a world of mass media and social networks, we see lots of pictures of perfect faces and perfect bodies: on billboards, on TV, on Instagram. It has become so easy to create better versions of normal faces. If there’s anything you don’t like, go and photoshop it. It’s not as easy to change your looks for beauty pageants. This creates a lot of pressure. You may use special eyeliner or wear a perfect swimsuit, you can get some exercise – but there’s a limit. You can’t change your general build. At a beauty pageant, you will compare yourself to girls that seem way more attractive. This will make you feel ugly. If you fail to meet the beauty standards, you’ll never win a beauty pageant. You’ll be a loser – that’s the way you’ll be seen and that’s how you will finally see yourself. Constant frustration will lead you into depression. Depression can make you suicidal. Everyone is unique. Shouldn’t we accept ourselves the way we are? Shouldn’t we try to improve our mind rather than our looks? What Heidi Klum has said about modeling is also true for beauty pageants: “In this job an illusion of beauty is sold which doesn’t really exist like that.” What we get at beauty pageants is an illusion. Real beauty comes from acceptance – accepting our little faults and weaknesses. Beauty pageants create wrong ideas about beauty. They make us feel bad in comparison with others. They exert lots of pressure on us. They kill our self-esteem. Banning beauty pageants may not completely solve the problem. But it’s an important first step. If nothing will be done, we’ll face lots of problems with our health which can cause enormous costs in the long run.

Since it is very important in a debate to get your arguments right, let us take a closer look at the three basic steps of reasoning in our second argument. Remember: claim, warrant, evidence.

So, let us start with our claim: Beauty pageants cause eating disorders. You may have heard that or read it somewhere. Sounds like a valid claim. But why?
We’ll come to the warrant It answers the question why beauty pageants cause eating disorders. If you want win a beauty pageant, you need to be slim. If you’re a little bit overweight, you should go on diet to reach your ideal weight. This can lead to addiction. Usually, there will be a trigger in this process. And this trigger may well be a beauty pageant.
Now, evidence. Whatever proof you want to give, it must appeal to common sense. As it is really difficult for the other side to check on materials you may have used, you should at least make your proof seem reasonable. What kind of evidence can you use? Normally, you’ll find examples or statistics to back up your claim. You may quote from law books or reference books.

Unfortunately, it’s not enough to come up with a claim supported by a single warrant and a solitary piece of evidence. You’ll have to come up with a whole chain of supporting arguments to make your argument sound absolutely waterproof. This is called reasoning. Also, you may want to offer more than just a name or a number when you validate your warrant. All of this requires you to do enough research. I daresay not a single debate has ever been won by beautiful words or brilliant thinking alone. If you have nothing to say, there’s no way of saying it well.

As we have just heard, beauty pageants can have strong negative impacts on our health. The most important problem: Taking part in a beauty pageant can trigger various kinds of eating disorders. Except for very few exceptions like Curvy Supermodel, beauty pageants are only for the slim. You learn that slim is beautiful – and you’re only beautiful if you are slim. Once you’ve started your first diet, you’ll soon get positive feedback from other contestants and judges – and this makes you want to go on with your diet. In many cases, this can result in serious weight problems or even eating disorders. A recent statistics of the NHS in the UK tells us that 80% of all women who enter beauty competitions are already underweight. Out of those, 20% have eating disorders – eating disorders make their hair fall out, isolate them socially, cause problems with their heart and liver. One million girls enter Germany’s beauty pageants every year. If it’s only one fifth that suffer from anorexia or bulimia – 150.000 girls have eating disorders. Some of them will die. You may say it was their own choice. That’s cynical. Those girls have never had a fair chance. At first, beauty pageants seem very attractive. When you realize what kind of damage they do, it’s too late. They can’t get away. It’s a vicious circle. We need to protect those girls. This is why we need to ban beauty pageants.

Conclusion (05:00)

Speaking time is running and you can see it’s about time to finish with your speech. In this case, you will most likely a) sum up your arguments, c) make sure everybody else shares your point of view, d) say good-bye. That’s not really difficult, but keep in mind that a good first impression and a good final statement can improve your overall performance.

So, let’s come to a conclusion. Beauty pageants focus on face and body – they make us believe in a standardized concept of female beauty. Beauty standards do not represent what we see as beautiful – everyone is beautiful by himself. We don’t want anyone to judge our looks – and we don’t want anyone to decide whether you are pretty or not. Beauty pageants make us feel low – they make us feel bad. The only thing you learn is that you will never be good enough. This can lead to depression, health problems, eating disorders. Beauty pageants are toxic: you don’t learn to accept who you are, you learn to hate yourself. We want to live in a society that does not encourage such kind of behavior. And, ladies and gentlemen, this is why beauty pageants must be banned – this is why the motion must stand! Thank you.

Buffer (05:30) – and how to integrate Points of Information (PoI)

If you’re an experienced debater, you can already see the small faults and weaknesses in your speech. There’s always some kind of gap in the wall. Even if this is your first speech, you can sense some breaches that the other team might possibly use. That’s why you need some additional material you can use in the case of attack. I suggest you go through your speech with a critical eye and write down all possible PoIs. Try to answer them briefly. You can use separate cards, but I suggest you add your defense material as boxed text in your manuscript. Be prepared for all kinds of silly questions, fishy tricks and misinterpretations of your arguments. As you should accept two PoI during your speech, it will cost you about 30 sec to address both of them.

The rest is silence (06:00) – and a few words about the rebuttal

The exciting thing about debating is that you never know what the other team will say. Luckily, there is always a limited number of things that could possibly be said. No matter what side you are on, it is essential to make clever assumptions about the opponent’s line of arguments. Take over their perspective for a minute: if you were in their position, what would you say? List off all the arguments they might have and write down a few sentences you can use to start your counterattack. When you design the rebuttal part of your manuscript, leave enough space for additional remarks. If you listen carefully, the other team will provide you with enough material you ca use against them – logical fallacies, bad examples, weak arguments. Whatever the motion may be: Combining spontaneous attacks with materials you have collected beforehand is always possible.

Now, how to organize the rebuttal part of your speech? Every rebuttal can be divided into four steps:

First, your version of the other team’s argument. It’s up to you how you will render their argument if you don’t change it too much. It’s always good to use less favorable terms when you describe the other argument.
Second, your attack – giving reasons why it’s a bad argument. Here, you will analyze the argument, looking for all kinds of problems. It may be too general, it may be biased, it may contain any kind of error or mistake.
Third, a counter argument. As you already know what the other side will say, you have a range of prefabricated counter arguments you can use.
Fourth, a refutation of the argument. It will usually take the form of “This is why this point does not apply here” or “I cannot see why this should be a reasonable argument”.

So, before you start with your rebuttal, tell the audience what you will do (“I would like to address three major faults in side opposition’s line of argument”). Then, tell the audience which part of the argumentation you will attack. Which speaker? Which argument? Then, start your attack! Keep to the order you have announced and cover the arguments one by one and step by step.

Now, I would like to address three major faults in side opposition’s line of argument. Your first speaker told us that beauty pageants teach you important skills. Your second speaker made us believe beauty pageants are not exclusively about beauty. Let me start with your first point. (1) Do beauty pageants teach you important skills? (2) Let me just point out that these skills are restricted to beauty pageants. You mentioned the example of using a catwalk. Where else would you have to use on a catwalk? This kind of walk can’t be used in classrooms or supermarkets. (3) Also, I believe there’s a better environment for learning everything you might learn on a beauty pageant. You can attend a dance school or drama class. (4) As you can see, this point is not very convincing.

Third Speeches

Third speeches tend to be a favorite genre among lazy debaters. As they usually comprise of three fifths of rebuttal, people think they needn’t prepare anything. This is a common misconception.

First of all, you can prepare for rebuttal. Think of all the possible arguments that might come up during a debate.
Second, you can prepare a short introduction that underlines the fact your team has a clear team line and that you understand the problem.
Third, you can compose the last part in your speech where you link the rebuttal to the case.
Fourth, you can gather some examples you can analyze in the course of a debate. It’s also possible to write down what you intend to say when you give some more examples.

Reply Speeches

In a reply speech, you will comment on the course of the debate. First, you would always welcome the audience, say your name again and point out that you will give a reply speech. It can be helpful to refer to the motion once again. Don’t forget to do some signposting! Consequently, you’ll try to analyze the course of the debate – was it a very heated debate? What went well? What didn’t go so well? You may say: “I’ve seen a rather interesting debate with good arguments on both sides, with our side, side proposition, being more convincing” – or you can give a more profound analysis what happened during the debate. If the other team didn’t keep to the rules or completely misunderstood how debating works, you can point it out here.

Judges, speakers, ladies and gentlemen,

Welcome back to “This House Believes That (THBT) beauty pageants should be banned”. This is Nele again with our reply speech. You’ve seen a rather interesting debate with good arguments on both sides, with our side, side proposition, being more convincing – banning beauty pageants is not necessary nor is good it in any way. First, I will first give you the main clashes. Second, I’m going to go through the course of the debate. Third, I will also show you why we should win the debate.

After your analysis of the debate from a bird’s eye perspective, you would compare your team’s argumentation and the other team's line of argument with respect to clashes. A “clash” is a when you disagree about a certain aspect of the motion. Let’s say your team says beauty pageants are helpful because you learn how to deal with stress. The other team rebuts the argument, saying that beauty pageants cause more stress than people can handle. Here, you’ve got a clash about the aspect of stress. So, those are the three steps you will take when you present the clashes:

First, name the aspects the clashes were about – usually three: The first clash was about health and the level of stress in a beauty pageant, the second clash was about money, the third clash was about the concept of beauty.
Second, you’ll start with the first clash. Name the aspect you disagree about. If you are PROP, start with your argument, then present the other team’s view.
Finally, explain why you were right and why this point is clearly yours because the other team failed to destroy it. If you’re OPP, you’ll do it the other way round: First, say what PROP said. Then, show how you successfully destroyed their point and why this point clearly goes to team OPP.

After you’ve dealt with the various clashes, you need to take the debate to a higher level to show why you should win the debate. It’s rather common to take a look at the consequences (they’re more or less drastic), applying the “two worlds” strategy. If you’re opposing, you might draw a very dark picture of a world where beauty pageants are banned.

In a world where beauty pageants are banned, people still have eating disorders. People still have little confidence. People still judge you by your cover.

Then, you give a rather bright and idealized version of a world as you would like to have it:

In a liberal world as we see it, everyone is free to join a beauty pageant. People can profit from it in many ways. They can meet new people. It’s a great experience.

Last but not least, you should finish your speech with a conclusion that highlights your main arguments and tells the audience once again why you should win the debate.

Ladies and Gentlemen, we live in a world where old concepts of beauty have faded. We need to understand that beauty pageants are outdated. As we have shown, they bring about so much harm that banning them is the only way to handle the problem. It would be completely irresponsible not to ban them. After all that we’ve seen and heard, we must win the debate. Thank you very much.

Sample Speech (First Speech Proposition)

Ladies and gentlemen, judges, fellow debaters, Ms Chair!

What is it that makes you beautiful? Is it your hair, your face, your skin? Or the way you walk or the way you dance? None of that is really important. Beauty is who we are and what makes us special. It’s the kind of beauty you feel when you look into each other’s eyes. Whether you’re slim or fat, white or black, fair or black – beauty can never be judged. But judging is the essence of every beauty pageant. At beauty pageants, however, you’ll be judged by your looks, not by your talent or education. Women are reduced to dolls to be watched and measured by a male audience. If you fail to please, people will put you down. It’s a very painful experience for all women, but especially for teenagers.

My name is Lisa and I’m the first speaker of Team Proposition. Welcome back to Junior League Round 2 and to an exciting debate: “This House Believes That beauty pageants should be banned.”

How to Compose a Speech

A few things to be said in advance

Greeting (00:00)

Case (00:05)

Introducing yourself (00:30)

Defining the terms (00:45)

Case (01:00)

Teamline (01:15)

Your substantive arguments (01:30)

Conclusion (05:00)

Buffer (05:30) – and how to integrate Points of Information (PoI)

The rest is silence (06:00) – and a few words about the rebuttal

Third Speeches

Reply Speeches

Sample Speech (First Speech Proposition)

Kontext