I’ve debated as well and I’ll add the following disadvantages:
Sometimes debates enter what is roughly called “debater-world” where the arguments are ones that tend to get accepted within the debating community, but wouldn’t actually get accepted in real-life
Persuasion in the real world is much more about understanding your opponents psychology than trying to argue them into believing you
I think there’s a few concepts in debating that people here might find useful:
Claim-Truth-Importance-Comparativity: First make a claim, then explain why it is true, then explain why it is important, lastly explain why it is more important than what your opponent is saying. It’s very easy to leave steps out if you haven’t had a lot of experience in debating
Painting a picture of two world: In particular, for comparativity in policy debates, you want to paint a picture of the world where your opponent’s policy is accepted and a picture of the world where your policy is accepted to make it as clear as possible why your world is better
Structure: This is one area that I was never good at, but generally you want to start off strong with something your opponent has not addressed at all, outline your speech so that people know what’s coming (generally with three main arguments), then finish strong by reiterating what you proved
I’ve debated as well and I’ll add the following disadvantages:
Sometimes debates enter what is roughly called “debater-world” where the arguments are ones that tend to get accepted within the debating community, but wouldn’t actually get accepted in real-life
Persuasion in the real world is much more about understanding your opponents psychology than trying to argue them into believing you
I think there’s a few concepts in debating that people here might find useful:
Claim-Truth-Importance-Comparativity: First make a claim, then explain why it is true, then explain why it is important, lastly explain why it is more important than what your opponent is saying. It’s very easy to leave steps out if you haven’t had a lot of experience in debating
Painting a picture of two world: In particular, for comparativity in policy debates, you want to paint a picture of the world where your opponent’s policy is accepted and a picture of the world where your policy is accepted to make it as clear as possible why your world is better
Structure: This is one area that I was never good at, but generally you want to start off strong with something your opponent has not addressed at all, outline your speech so that people know what’s coming (generally with three main arguments), then finish strong by reiterating what you proved