Self-Improvement & Drills with Anna Shreder

So okay cool recording is in progress um so again hi everyone I will uh I will start based on the number of people here so uh if your partners didn't Joy yet didn't join yet just tell them to come otherwise you know the recording is always available so thank you everyone for coming um okay let's start by sharing a screen so we have you won't only hear me but also see a [Music] presentation okay cool I assume you can see it and let me open the chat just to have it here amazing okay so um

thank you for coming H let's do a quick intro so hi I'm Anna I see some familiar names so I know so I know some people here and you know me but for those of you who don't know me H I'm in Glasgow this year I'm from The techon debate society and and their proud coach they won the Nationals yesterday so we're very happy about that um and I've been around debating for I don't know nine years I think my first Euros was VN UDC in 2015 so yeah so I've been doing this for a

while while and mostly coaching and judging these days um and now I guess it's enough about me ER so let's do a more General inro so first of all just to note feel free to H Use uh use the chat to ask questions I will uh after section I will address them so you don't have to wait for the end of the uh of this session for with this just write them in the chat and whenever I'm like done with a specific uh subtopic I will address those H otherwise you can also raise your hands

I'm not sure you will be able to see this through the entirety of the session because uh you know I'm sharing a screen and I'm looking the chat so that would Be a bit harder but I'll try to do that as well and you know if you have something uh so important that you can't hold it you can feel free to interrupt but just make sure you don't do it every 5 Seconds right so in terms of the session itself so we will be talking today about um self improvement about drills about how you can

ER use your time efficiently to improve in debating and judging as well so I'll try to cover uh both of these uh most of it will Touch more on debating less than judging in terms of just how how I will allocate my time but judging will be a there as well h a few things to note so this is obviously more relevant for competitive Debaters for for people who are willing to invest a lot of time in h in Improvement so uh and you know I'm a strong believer in h h in a in like

in in saying that uh if you dedicate a lot of time then you will improve more if you dedicate less time you will improve Less H so there's no magic tricks tricks here today in order for you to just improve in a in a glance in a blink and be better tomorrow H this is more more about how can you use your time to work gradually but to reach a better improvement with time so with that being said H I think first of all H I will give you different ways to look on Improvement and

different drills to do and you should know that those things are subjective to a degree because Obviously each and one of us has different starting point we have different issues different struggles when we when when we're debating and also different approaches work uh differently for each of us so with that being said just know that you might that some of the drills might might work amazingly for some of you even for your debate partner for example then for you other things will work better or some things won't work at all this this is Entirely okay

this is how we are built right right H then again each and each and one of the drills that we are going to talk about I don't think that you should do once I think you should do a couple of times I think you should work on through weeks even maybe for through months in order to reach actual substantial change ER and uh and doing it once doesn't mean that something doesn't work so you can't expect results at once you can't expect them without Actually investing the hard work then handing hand with that we will

have a session about this as well in this amazing train Training Academy but you should keep in mind a few things about your mental health right so don't stretch yourself too much don't overdo ER practices don't overdo training H to an extent because you you know keep yourself healthy um then lastly I guess um remember that we can't be perfect all the time that you should look for Improvement that is ER small and gradual but you can't expect that if you know you work on re battles then after you work for two months only buts

Z Butters will be perfect for the entirety of your life doesn't work like this you still will mess up sometimes some of us still even even after we you know we win amazing competitions still have bad rounds it's h still very much dependent on the specific down the specific motion on how you specifically acted on this uh In this round so remember that you sometimes you can go backwards in your training H like regretfully or sometimes you can do bad even if you are worked on something and don't let it like bring you down and

don't let it let it disappoint you or discourage you from uh from continuing to do the hard work okay so that was a bit of just introduction some uh you know holistic nice stu stuff for you to H to keep notes Then from here how this will H this will go is that I divided the uh this session to specific types of drills and uh things to do uh to self-improve that I will uh that I will uh cover in different sections at the end we will have some general notes and if we will will

be left some time then we'll try to perhaps do a small practice of one of those things together ER and obviously you will uh have time for questions but again also feel free to uh To ask questions during the uh in the chat during those things H during like the session itself don't wait for the H for the end okay so then I will start with the most obvious thing which is H debate rounds so obviously all of you know that in order to improve we need to debate right and with that being said I

do think that uh doing a debate round uh like an entire round eight people debating H with a chair getting feed feedback is the most time consumed stuff That you can do in order to practice but it also but it's also the most real thing right so it's exactly what you will do in a competition presumably it it simulates the prep time the positions the uh the rankings everything to uh everything to quite exact point so H I do think that that it's like I said takes takes a lot of time for you I don't

think that it's something that you should not do you I think it's something I think it's something you should do a Lot right but I do think that sometimes we and we go into this routine when we're just doing as much rounds as we can in order to prep for for important comp or in order to prep for a specific thing and we don't necessarily do it effectively so I'll try to cover in this session how you should how you should use the all those debate rounds that you are doing but trying to do them

H with as much focus on Improvement as you can okay so then the first thing is Obviously get feedback right so don't do around without actually getting feedback feedback on that and when I'm saying get get a feedback I mean not just listen to the OA approach your chair approach your judge and ask them for individual feedback now a lot of times you don't want you you can do it after rounds and I know that some of us are feeling a bit more a bit more like timid or a bit more uncomfortable reaching out to

chairs Because we don't we are not friends on Facebook or because Discord is not a very convenient platform or stuff like this ignore it guys send them a message I'm getting tons of messages after every competition from people I never knew or for people I just met and it's very much okay to ask for feedback I would also o stress that it's perhaps even a bit better to ask for feedback after the round or after the comp because sometimes during the comps your chairs Like during the comp or even during the after the specific practice

your chairs are a bit busy we all have schedules we kind of plans to do the round or the comp for specific amount of hours and then we want to do some stuff so try to ask for feedback individually afterwards ask for it in a nice way obviously ER and uh ER and uh don't like don't don't feel stressed if don't feel bad if the CH chair doesn't answer you but you can always gently remind them that they're Still oh like hey still didn't got some feedback maybe if you have a few minutes tomorrow you

can kindly sending to me stuff like that most of the judges I know will answer you and will send you and will like take a few minutes to send you some recorded message with feedback or some written stuff then I think the next thing to note here is not only that you should get feedback but you should sometimes focus on asking specific stuff and this is I think very H very Important because a lot of times we just ask the chair for well how can I do better or what do you think or can you

give me General feedback and sometimes it's okay right sometimes it works and the chair gives us amazing stuff we're very happy but the thing is is that when we want to work systematically on stuff we should prioritize that and and what do I mean by that so first of all if you are working on a specific thing right now we will talk a bit a bit later on How to do this but if you are you you know that you are struggling with framing or or you know that you're struggling with analysis or uh whatever

you know that you're struggling with with style or you don't you're not clear enough when you're talking as specifically about that always and I don't mean ask just about that try to ask for General feedback but then also what do you think about Mar battles but how would you and you can even and it Depends on on on you on like how would you uh how would you like to receive your feedback but if you're if you want a very like if you want to understand your improvement in a better way you can even ask

for a judge to say like how would you rank my B from one to five for example then you can track your improvement over re but so always try to also ask about the specific stuff that you working right now in order to track your improvement in in order to note if You are actually doing better with this specific stuff or works so then a few more things that I think you should focus on when you're asking your chair and this is also if H obviously if the chair has time and obviously very very relevant

in like home practices with your coach or your friends who are judging or or when you have like specifically ask a judge to help you practice stuff like this this is where you even can feel even more comfortable Right so uh one of the things that you can you should always try to ask is how would H to your judge is how to get at least one rank up right so a lot of times we don't necessarily we can't necessarily win the room with the material that we provided or we don't necessarily know uh the

exact thing that we could have run that we could have run or couldn't improve stuff like that but to ask how could you specifically move one rank up a lot of times H first of All helps you to read the room a little better and show you what you could have done exactly strategically in order to get from a third to a second from a second to a first all those sorts of stuff the the amount of things to do that is also a lot of times smaller right so you don't need to improve largely

to get from the four to the first you just need a lot of times a little bump and understanding this little bump helps you H understand Strateg strategy better and specifically strategy that you kind of Mi missed when you debated this round so it's not like uh reading a room from a zero or learning strategy from from scratch is about a thing that you already understood already did but just how to improve on it a bit then I I guess the second thing that you should H should ask which is kind of similar is that

how to get better in a specific stuff that the chair told you you were worse so a Lot of time you were bad right so a lot of times the chair will tell you in a feedback well your engagement wasn't good okay thank you very much how can I improve specifically my engagement in this round and this is where the chair can give you a weigh to that you could have given to the other teams or perhaps give you some analysis or perhaps again talk to you more about strategy the rationalis very similar to what

I just said about how to get one Rank up it sort of allows you to work with stuff that you already have and a lot of times it helps you H understand things better because it again works on something that you already did but show you how to improve it just a bit then the other H the third thing that you can probably ask ask ask a chair is what would they do right what would have they run if they think your EXT extension wasn't good what what would if they run in this motion h

if they think your Engagement wasn't good what would if they do this is obviously very uh very much um very much useful to ask when you have like amazing chairs who are amazing amazing Debaters one major stuff like that so people always have interesting ideas but it also gives you sometimes and specifically if you struggle with that a a sort of broader understanding so sometimes there are extensions that you wouldn't have about or sometimes you are kind of were focused On a very practical thing and your entire room perhaps will F were focused on specific

clashes specific specific cases and then the chair can say can say something about the round that is so different from what you would you would have expected or or thought of that will kind of help you to see another way into the debate then the fourth thing is a bit more practical and it kind of it has two angles so first of all what would what should you cut from your speech Because presumably a lot of times the chair tells you you should improve this this this this this but we only have seven minutes right

so you should try to understand what you could have H cut from your speech in order to prioritize all the additions that the chair tells you to have because you can't do it all right so you want to understand what to cut from your speech the other side of that coin is what to keep so you want to make sure to know what were the things That you shouldn't cut from your speech what were the things that were very important and this is kind of an important note to focus on for a second because a

lot of times we are very focused on what to improve we are very focused on how we could have been better and and a lot of times our the feedback that we get is also very much focused on okay this was a bad engagement or this point locked analysis but it doesn't really show you what were the things That you should preserve or keep in in your speech so it's very important to also note what were the best thing that was there what I should what I should keep it's also kind of a very helpful

mentally right so H in order for you to actually understand that there are some things that you are doing in a good way in order for you to H get get a better feeling about your speech so H understanding what you're doing good is very much helpful when you're uh both For your mental staff both in order to prioritize your speech and also to understand your improvement what you should work on then lastly I will say if H if you had a panel um and not on leer so a lot of times you and I

won't tell you go to every one of the Wings and ask everyone because this is a lot of time consuming because not everyone will answer so so kind of like obviously if you can do it do it but if there was a pun try to ask the chair which one of The Wings you should approach for feedback because sometimes specifically during the panel one of the Wings credit you less and there was a discussion where the wings f f that your I know engagement was poor or the wings kind of didn't understand some of the

logic on your in your point and a lot of times the chair will reflect it but it's still helpful to get it from the specific person because then the specific person will be able to tell you why they they Weren't able to follow you and I think this is very important because a lot of because like we all come from different circuits different societies we have different language barriers and we have different prioritization of under of how we run cases how we do cases different debate Styles all those sorts of things and when you're prepping

for majors and and specifically also when you're prepping for Euros or a worlds and international comp you want to make sure That you're approachable for a VAR iy of judges for people who understand debate differently who know different styles who are focused on different things so obviously you know there's a judging manual and we should all judge in a specific in a like similar way but also there are differences between H between different people and you want to try to note that or at least I would say you would want to try to a track

where is if there is a consistent weakness in uh With with with a certain type of Judges or with certain time type of circuit or with certain type of motions so you're always trying to look for consistency with those sorts of things and understanding if you're uh consistently doing something uh in in a good way or something that you can improve on so this is I guess the most important things that I would say about how to how to get feedback and what to ask for then the next thing to note here is that ER

You obviously you obviously want to when you do debate rounds when you do comps you want to debate with your partner right so if you have a consistent partner someone who you're going to H to you dece with to Majors Etc you want to debate for them but you should always also try to first of all debate with other people as well and this is something that I kind of think that helps you a lot because a lot of times when you debate with and and obviously I'm not talking uh for prep for euros one

month from Euros right so if so we're talking for a bit of a more long term now if you have half a year before Majors you want to debate with not only with your partner if you even if you're sure you're going to euros together you want to debate H with some other people in order to show If U you see if those people kind of Enlighten you with new stuff that they know maybe you want to debate with some like older Debaters More experienced on not just older by age right so maybe you want

to maybe you want to like learn something from what they know or maybe you want to try and see what they focus on with when they debate because a lot of times and you learn a lot simply by doing threat with other people and the and simply by kind of working together with them you learn new ideas you learn new H New Perspectives new cases all those sorts of things uh and this is also also good In order to like you know shaken stuff a bit H shaken stuff a bit more when you're stuck with

the same person even if you love this person you love your partner you're still kind of stuck with them for a lot of times and a lot of times you become you kind of have this then tunnel view of how and this specific um specific template of how you work you do prep in a certain way you run cases in a certain way and you become a bit more stuck on this on this Thing and a lot of times it's it's stuck in a good way because you have something it's working you're happy about it

you're doing good but in order to sometimes break it up a bit or learn how to improve it by a bit you would want to like switch switch a partner for one round two rounds see if things work differently in a good way try to then come back with those things and Implement them on your work with your partner then H the the important thing To note here is that when you're debating with other people you should also ask them for feedback afterwards now obviously uh obviously your your partner a lot of times will give

you very valuable feedback but also people that you're not kind of used to H used used to debate with right so and the H the kind of um the kind of important thing here is that they know your case yeah like your partner the one that you're debating with in this round know The case that you want to run from the beginning like you prepped it in during the 15 minutes they know what you want to say to a very large extent they also have the same information that you had prior to your speech right

so they heard the same debate they presumably you kind of consulted about rebuts consulted about strategy Etc so then when they when your partner is looking at what your speech ended up to be they kind of have very similar information to what You had so a very very similar St point to what you had the most similar one and this is where a lot of times their feedback right after your speech or right after the round is kind of valuable because it show it probably means that you could have implemented that most easily because they

had a very similar similar idea to both your case both the debate ER all the things that you that you discuss so and they and they also can exclusively H understand Understand what gaps there were from what you discussed during the prep to what actually happened during the debate so this is something that the chair won't know for example and this is something that other people panelists won't know but your partner will H will know if you had some problems to follow youing prep or some problems with perhaps writing down something that was discussed or

some something or like some problem with the order of things or Prior I ization of things because again they discussed it with you during prep they know that you could have done it now a note here like be be willing to receive feedback because a lot of times it's also kind of harder to receive feedback from your debate partner they're not supposed to be your judge to an extent there are a lot of times like this it's a very delicate relationship right so don't be willing to accept this Fe understand that it's coming from a

Loving place where where they want you to improve and you both as a debate couple right or debate partnership to become better H but if you see that it's harming you if you see that it can't be done in a constru in a constructive way then obviously don't do it um another thing to do H to note here is that H you would presumably want to if you have the time again so talking like half year before a major you would want to switch up roles with your partners sometimes During H during the debate round

so so if you are a whip and your partner is an extension speaker you would want sometimes to switch up same goes for first half debates right sometimes you do PM sometimes they do PM again not one month before eudc now you should have you kind of should already know your specific roles if you don't still obviously still do it obviously not everything is lost you still have some time H but uh if you have a lot of time To prep you would want to H do this switch up sometimes in order for first of

all understand a bit more what your partner is struggling with so if they are so when you when you kind of do the same thing you do the same role you you have this better understanding but more over and more importantly you understand better how to help them afterwards so if you are an ex an extension speaker and your partner is a weip and then H and then you do weip a Few times you understand more how to help with wngs you understand more how to help with engagement for example and you can do it

in a more structured way in a way that will kind of help you both as a team more so try to do this switching up a bit if you have the time again in order to become better as a team and just let me see the chat the chat sorry okay yeah sure ER okay Then let's see then what do we have next okay so then during the round itself so it's important to note here that during the round and uh you kind of want to work every time on only a few specific things so

again and we're not talking here about during a major we're not talking even about during a debate competition I'm talking specifically during practice rounds during spars during your like uh home rounds your weekly practices stuff like that so You would want to focus your work in this specific round on one or two things you would want to uh know uh to actually write down on your pages before the debate that you're working on engagement or you're working on analysis or you're working on I don't know strategy whatever you're working on write it down focus on

that why am I why am I saying this because sometimes and I honestly think that sometimes it's okay for us to H de prioritize everything else during This practice so it's okay for if you're working on engagement you can even de prioritize running a case you can do an entire speech that is solely focused on engagement yes sure you might get a forth in this round but it is a practice it's not really crucial for you to get the first year it's crucial for you to improve on this specific stuff so you might H ditch

your extension or you might um or the opposite way right if you're if you're working on specifically On wings or specifically on on analysis you might not do rebuts at all so try to see what you're working on and sometimes try to prioritize it other everything else so a good way to like a good strategy for practice is trying to see if you can do the entirety of those seven minutes of speech only on this thing and then H because sometimes if you do seven minutes of rebuts first of all you will have more feedback

on this specific thing and a lot of times the The chair will be able to do to say to you which of the reutter were better which of them were worse and you will be able to understand oh okay so so when I'm doing this specific thing then my re Butters are actually becoming a bit better when I'm thinking about this then my rebuts are again a bit a bit worse so this is why I should do it less because then it gives you sort of a a larger sample of those things to get feedback

on so so you can use the seven minutes To work on those things it's okay to get a forth in the practice obviously if you feel really bad on about it or if it's like a very important practice for you then don't do it but what you can do again if you have the time is focus on those specific things and then gradually try to sort of go back to a normal debating where you don't give it the entire seven minutes where you perhaps give it only three minutes or only two minutes or and then

gradually just just Work the norm H the normal way when you don't do a special priorization for it but it's still written down on your page and then you will sort of make this habit you kind of build this habit of actually doing those things that are written down then I would say h like I told you write it down work on one on two things at a time not more and note well to change those so if you're working for one month on a specific thing and uh you should probably already See some progress

if you're not seeing progress you should change the way that you're working on or you should switch around because it probably won't help if you and I'm saying one month uh where I assume you do at least like four or six rounds of debate a week if you're doing just one or two debate rounds a week then obviously you should work uh you should do more when you're prepping for Majors to be honest H but if you're if you don't have the time and with you Know work study stuff like that so then you can

take larger chunks of time to work on stuff so then ER note when to switch those things up note that you don't stuck too long working on a specific things and sometime even if you think that you are still not perfect about something switch uh like try to work on uh if you worked on it for a long time perhaps ditch it because sometimes we just some of us just have things that we're weaker on so some of Us just won't get amazing at some specific stuff but you also don't want to get too frustrated

so you don't want to spend two months working on one specific thing get stuck on it without a ways to improve obviously this is the time to reach for some help from your uh coach from someone who is more experienced in order to actually flag out hi I'm stuck I can't continue like this but all H but also perhaps switching things up and focusing Something else will help you better at this point other than just like you know H going with your head into the wall about one specific thing um so this is what you

are sort of H sort of doing during the round you're focusing on one stuff it's always written down you're working on it in a in a way where you're trying to implement all the all the specific feedbacks that we talked ER in the beginning of the ER of the session about After the round then H so obviously all the stuff all the things that we said about get feedback write down the the feedback what should you ask for is happening after the round but another thing that is I think very important important to do after

the round ER and this is something that uh that you can do without your partner something that you can do on your own is that try to think about the speech that you gave like spe the specifically the speech That you that you actually did during the round and and try to think in your head how can you tweak it to make it better so don't build an entirely new speech because building an entirely new speech is something that that is presumably Obviously good but it's not something that you could have done H with the

with the setup with the set of mind with the skills that you had in the beginning of the round but try to think how you could have taken the speech that You had and improve some small stuff H in order to get it better in order to get a few more speaks in order to get one rank up in order to perhaps tweak just a few a few lines try to change some specific rebuttal or add one weighing or try to think how you can make this specific analysis clearer or have a better H how

do you say it um not underline bottom line H so H and this is something that you can do on your way home in your hand in your head while You're driving or while you're taking a bus whatever something you can do before your sleep something you can do the day afterwards during uh during work when work when your space out whatever so it's not shouldn't take a lot of time but working on in your head on this specific speech allows you to then H Implement those uh those stuff easily afterwards because H you are

presumably thinking about the stuff that you got during feedback you're presumably Thinking about the stuff that you are a bit weaker on or need Improvement in the moment and you implement them with the skills that you already have so it's not like you're doing an entirely new round H where you have a different motion and different judges and different teams and all the challenge and all like the challenge become different right when it's a different motion different position H it sort of mixes things up and it's much harder to trying to try And implement the

specific thing the specific feedback in an entirely different setting but when you're trying to implement the feedback in the specific setting where you got it so presumably the same speech it's easier for you to understand how you would actually do it and it's also important because a lot of times what what the chair is saying to you in terms of like how to do it better you can't you a lot of times like understand it conceptually But you can't you you're not always sure or you don't always know if you can actually implement it and

this is where thinking about your speech specifically and trying to implement those stuff would help because presumably yeah you understand that you need a weigh in order to win your in order to weigh your case so you understand that you need better engagement but how what is the specific weighing what is the specific engagement with the material that you Already have so then trying to play about this in your head is H is very much uh is very much helpful and very much helps you to understand the feedback and then build again build the habit

of implementing it in the rounds afterwards because you already sort of started the work even before the next practice you're already working on improving on those specific things H another thing to note here is that don't be too obsessive right so know when to Let go know when to let go of the round that that you sucked in before or that you got a forth know when to sort of uh prioritize your um having just a fun evening after the round and drinking a beer with your friends and not consistently just speaking about about it

or thinking about it so it's always a balance of yes I want to think in my head how to how to improve my speech but I also want to know when it becomes too obsessive too harmful for me and sort of Let go and continue to the next round and start start a new right so um yeah this is most of the things that I think is very useful to do again when you practice specifically on debate round so when it's the same thing as competition but a debate round in a practice in a spar

stuff like that a few things for judges so when you are practicing to be a better judge when you practice him to be a major judge like a judge in Majors so first of all note That a lot of the stuff that we just discussed about feedback about the writing down the specific stuff to work on on about um how to ask what to ask you can do all of those things as well as a wing always ask for feedback if you are H if you not sure H like if you want to get feedback

as a chair you can always ask for feedback as a chair as well ask for feedback H from your panelist if you're Wing from your chairs from your other Wings if you're chair From your wings you can always ask uh the teams for feedback if you feel comfortable with so feedback goes not only for debators feedback goes for judges as well as a judge you can also after the H not in all competitions but most of the competitions will also will be willing to give you Anon anonymized feedback after the comp so the feedback that

teams actually submitted about you they will reduct it ER in terms of like not telling you who submitted what but They will give you General points or the C will give you General points of feedback and here I think also what's important to note is that if you are a wing you want to ask feedback not only about like uh how how should I judge better or how should I track better but a lot of times you also want to focus on how should you improve in the discussion right because the discussion is the thing

that you are being ranked on a lot of times so sometimes like you're it's Not just how you track debate and how you judge the actual debate but how you express yourself during the panel would need that needs Improvement so as a judge you should try to understand and to note if the difficulty that you are facing is actually while judging the debate or is it during the panel discussion because those are two different two sort of a bit of a different stuff it's sort of like for it's sort of similar for a debator to

Understand if the challenge that they're facing is the case that they have written down or on their pages and that they can't deliver it in a good way or if they don't have the case to begin with right so this is the two the two distinctions there H as a wing even if you're not cheering you can afterwards in a after the round kind of practice giving OA right you can think about how you would have structured the OA further round H you can if if the if you have Some teams that you know or

that you know in the room you can always ask them hey guys can I can I kind of practice giving OA on you because a lot of times and this is something important to note a lot of times you are winging for a lot of times and then you get this jump to a chair and the first the first few times that you need to give away to a room of people is very stressful right this is something that you didn't work on a lot didn't have the opportunity to do this Is where all the

teams are judging you some of like one of them gets the forth so it's always hard hard to explain it it's always you always kind of um and if if you're not and if you're like a very confident person then don't listen to me be confident it's okay but uh most of us are kind of a bit a bit more like we have some difficulties with those things in the in the first in the first time so try to practice giving OA even if you're not sharing in your in your uh like home Practices in

your societies ask your whoever do the allocation sometimes to be chair even if you're not a chair judge ask them to sometimes perhaps be chair or sometimes to ask if you can wing and then and then the chair for the chair to listen to your OA even if you don't think that you're ready so first of all again because you need to practice giving away specifically this is something that you would be judged on and receive feedback On but moreover H when you are trying to build an an entire a an entire justification for the

round a lot of times it kind of helps you to understand better it's much it because it's much more holistic and comprehensive than just doing two comparisons and a lot of times when you are kind of forced with finding the reasons and and finding dig justification dig justifications for the teams it h forces you as a wing to ER to Come up with the stuff that you might not come come up H with before so uh uh this is why I would say always try to if you if you're working on how to improve in

as a judge try to give a away um and lastly and I think I already said said it but I'm not sure uh still write down on your pages what to work on and try to H try to see if you can work on those specific things during the round so if you know that you are ER H per perhaps not very good in engagement during the Panel so you're not talking with the other Wings you're only kind of talking with the you know engagement in the panel is where sometimes the one of the Wings

says something like they saying I think CG won for one two three three reasons and the a lot of times the other Wing or you won't necessarily engage with them but just give like parel reasons to why oh1 if this is your stance so a lot of times you would want to work on how to Respond to the other panelists during the round so not only provide during this panel not only provide your reasons but try to also respond to their reasons and this is something that you perhaps want to work on or or perhaps

you would want to work on noting engagement or perhaps you would want to note being specific perhaps it's even stuff like don't talk too much or something like that so A lot of times those are easier stuff the easier stuff that we are kind Of losing track when we don't have them before our eyes so try to also write those stuff down note when you want to H move from them H same strategy as as for debaters you can work on only those specific things during H during a panel so if it's a practice round

not a competition you can tell to your chair the thing that I need to improve on is um tracking so please uh uh please give me feedback on whether I track the debate well and then you will focus your Participation in the panel on showing your tracking skills again not want work for a competition where you need to present like a good job on all fronts but very good in order to prioritize practice so this is for judges in debate rounds um before we move to to the next thing do you have do anyone have

any questions cool so other than yel wanting to debate with her coach ER we don't have any specific Things okay amazing um then let's move on the other thing H that I think is very very uh good for people to improve on is doing preps and let's let's let's do uh let's uh break this down so what do I mean by prep DRS so the first kind of prep Dr to have is a h with your partner like it's just you and your partner and you're H picking a random motion or not a random motion

but you're picking some sort of motion that you Want to work on and you're doing 15 minutes of prep cool H you presumably build kind of uh build your speeches and then you uh you and then you do some reflection afterwards so this is H one sort of a prep that you can have and we will talk about um uh H pros and cuse of on each and one of them and how to do them in a second but just to break down which types do we have then we have a prep drill where you

can do it um just with your partner or With or by yourself or with multiple people where you just break down the motion so you don't necessarily take 15 minutes you might take 30 minutes or you might take whatever time you want but you want to have this motion and analyze the like the the hell out of it so this is like another prep to that you can have ER another another kind of prep that you can have is where a you have a you have you're doing prep with your partner but someone else is

watching Your prep so your coach or an experience debator is watching you D during those 15 minutes of prep and then gives you comments on this specific prep session that you had ER and then The Fourth Kind I would say that you can that you can do that would would be relevant during this slide H is a prep session sorry we talk oh it's a prep session where that you may doing not with your partner but with some other Debaters so with a with with your coach with a more experienced Debator but where you are

acting as if you are Partners as if you are debating together and then how which things are each and one of this is better for so obviously the prep session where your coach is watching you and your partner or an experienced debator watches you and your partner is very good for working on Partnerships so on Partnerships on strategy and on and specifically on on things that you are struggling about during the prep so for Example it's not always is useful to work if you have if you have problems with u h doing your buts or

if you have problems with h getting a deeper analysis this is not always something that is helpful but if you are having problems with thinking of extensions or if you have problems uh with uh finding the basic case for a debate or if you have problems that uh that for example um I don't know even what else but with thinking about the Mechanisms or stuff like that this is where a coach or someone experience looking at your prep is very useful why because a lot of times we are doing a prep in a certain way

when we are missing something that is important so we're not thinking about the other side enough or we're not going too deep on specific questions or we're going or the other way around we are going too deep too soon on specific questions or perhaps we don't listen carefully enough To our partner or we don't speak enough so all those sorts of things are very useful for someone else to note and this is important to do at least I think once or twice I would say even three or four before a major because usually nobody sees

you doing prep other than your partner so usually you don't get any feedback on your prep sessions and a lot of times you don't know if the mistakes that you're afterwards making in a debate are are Like come to life as soon as your prep session or is it something that happens only afterwards when you build your speech or when you track the debate so some mistakes we can eradicate very early in in in the prep in the prep H by somebody who doesn't know how who doesn't like uh who is not our partner that

would see your prep session and comment on it know that it should be someone who knows you so it should should be someone who kind of saw you Debated so you ER debated against you judged you a few times because you don't because you want them to have some perception of how then your speaking looks like you don't want to have somebody new entirely who doesn't who doesn't know you do do a per like how to say it like in a perfect situation if you H if you don't have it it's uh it's still okay

or someone who is experienced as a coach because then we see H mistakes that are repeating themselves And we can understand those sorts of things so you would want someone to look at your prep session H then uh doing a preps with your partner specifically like short prep session on of 15 minutes repeatedly is something that is very H it's another like Prep Prep drill which is very useful in terms of time right so it's short you don't need to have two hours to do an entire round you can just do 15 minutes of prep

and then everyone would go their separate ways and think More about some stuff and things like that but you don't need to uh like clear out a lot of a lot of times for that H and it it's kind of good to work on specific things that you struggle with like a a specific motion types so if you know that you you have problem with actor motions or with economy motions or philosophy motions whatever so it gives you this opportunity to work very targetedly and in a quick way on specific things um for motion analysis

So a prep D that will take motion and analyze it this is where motion types are I think probably the only important thing to note so this is very good if you're struggling with specific topics or specific motions ER whether it's like U again actor analysis stuff like that or whether it's econ IR things like that so this is where uh like again analyzing the hell out of em motion would help you and you would want to do a few of those specific Types so obviously it's not enough to do a in order to improve

an eon Motion in Eon motions to analyze one of those you want to take a variety of eon motion one on a fiscal policy one on a monetary policy one that is more about ir and Eon one that is more like philosophical philosophically talks about economy and approaches there and you want to have an analyze a lot of those things this is also where it's very helpful to not only work with your partner but also have Something someone who is better at those specific stuff so if you have someone from your Society who understands economy

really good you would want to sit presumably with them on those motion types if they don't have the time you can always send them the analysis that you made and ask them hey maybe you can think about more lines about more things to say here so this is where those specific type of drills is help for and then I think we had another One all right let me just move forward and maybe I will remember the other one so what um what is then in what what is then we we covered here so let's go

over the slide now so who to prep with so we talk about preping with Partners we talked about prepping with oh the last the last part that I just forgot prepping with someone who is not your partner so this would help to work on specific gaps that you have right so If you know H for example that you struggle to think about um about extensions or something like that or your struggle to think think about the other side like you're not prepared enough with engagement when you're entered around a lot of times doing one or

two prep session with another person who don't have the same problems as you would help you because then you would see how they do prep in a different way and then you can try to come back to Your partner and Implement those sorts of stuff so then when H when we're doing prep Dives what are we working on so we talked about working on a a specific uh specific motions uh we can work on specific positions right so do doing five six prep sessions only on OG OG has different burdens right we need to think

about a mechanism in order to like a model for the debate we need to think about definitions we need to think about cases that are more solid or strategies Of first half how to spread out so all sort of things are different than what we do in CG when we try to think about what the first house would have drawn stuff like that so working on specific positions then another thing that you can work on during prep deals is kind of having a path Victory so like you can work simply on strategy you can do

15 minutes where you are looking at a motion with your partner and you're not trying to do the usual prep of where you Like break it down to different cases and you're trying to understand what you would have run but you're trying to build this strategy of how am I taking one case am I and I'm winning with it so it would uh presumably mean that you are taking one case and you are doing the framing for it and you are doing the wings for it and you are thinking how it this case specifically interacts

with different cases in the debate this is not something that we always want to do During a regular prep because we want we don't want to like H put all of our ABS in the same basket we want to think about different cases during a debate because someone might this case might not be left for us or might not be relevant other sorts of things but we can do specific preps where that are very focused on this on a like P Victory with one case in order to practice our strategy in order to practice how

we then ER how can we then implement it During the debate afterwards H okay before I'm moving on I can see we have a question how useful do you think is it to still give PMS after prep this is there something specific the second speaker could do during the PM speeches to improve as well um okay so I think first of all it depends on time so and this is important here because presumably if you chose to do a prep through you chose it h because you are you perhaps don't have the the Time to

do an entire round right and you and this is might be something like a bit too bannner to say but you don't want to choose a specific thing a specific thing like a prep where you want to do a quick but efficient job and then stretch it out to last for one and a half hours because this would kind of ruin your own expectations and make and and make you de prioritize those sorts of of practices but if you do have the time and if you're willing to do this Then I think ER so I

have this uh so first of all personally I do think when you can do more do more so if you can do a PM speech or if you can watch a recording the debate round about this specific motion that you just did or if you can actually do a an entire round the day afterwards or something on this prep sure do it I I I am a big big fan of hard work so if you can do more do more H how then specifically on how helpful is it I do think that it's a it

It helps when you work when you have specific gaps more so if you are not sure how much you are a uh you how successful you are in implementing what you did in prep H into your speeches then it is very important to try and do an actual speech and see how it works out and this again depends on each and one of us subjectively because some of us are very much sure that what they have on the page is what they will have in their speech and they don't have any Problem H uh kind

of uh vision visioning and understanding how their speech would look like some of H the Gap from what they have on their pages to what they actually have in their speeches is huge it depends on how we do note taking it deat depends on how much we're writing how how what is our debate style Etc so if you're very confident on your notes on your pages then you don't have to a lot of time to actually do these specific speech Afterwards if you're struggling with or you're not sure then yeah it's very important because then

doing the prep is not always as helpful because your pages are presumably not very much reflective of what you would actually do and the second speaker during your speech should do the same stuff that they do always I think they should try to note what are you missing from what you were supposed to do H so if they know that you should have had four lines of analysis but you Only had fre like ways of analysis then they should know that H if they are are if they know that you have two cases to run

but you reach the second case only during your six minute they should know that all those sorts of things that your partner should kind of uh know know in regular rounds are also relevant here and I think H so this is possible what they should know what they should do to improve is also I would say very similar to what that what they should do during The round so a lot of times the second speaker um is kind of stuck with trying to understand what you did B and how can we improve it so whether

there was a gap in analysis whether there was some point of Engagement missing whether something wasn't clear enough or one of the one of the points was explained ER sufficiently well H very very analyzed the second point was rushed so the second speaker should all always kind of understand what is not good and then H make it it Better evolve on that make the analysis that was missing make the make the engagement reut the weighing whatever wasn't there A lot of times because presumably if the first Speaker did a perfect job then the second speaker

can just focus on running another case or focus on just rebutting just engaging just W but a lot of times we do need to strengthen the speech that that we had that our first Speaker have the are I don't know third I think or fourth thing That the uh that the second speaker can do then is try to think of rebuts and this is important on two on two levels first of all because presumably the speaker afterwards would actually have rebuts and you want to have those rebuts and rebuilding to begin with but also you

you can then uh think of how you simply even if the rebuts won't come a lot of times when you think of rebuts to your own case you then think of how you can strengthen your analysis regardless So this is where you can think of which where is where is our weakest point and what can I had add there in order to make the the case stronger so as a second speaker you can always try to think of rebuts and um and rebuilding specifically when it's not an actual H comp when it's not an actual

debate round it's just a prep as we discussed here thinking of reats thinking on how we can improve the case would help you to actually improve it Um yeah this this I think is the most important stuff H in this scenario by the way the second speaker can also think simply like uh how they how they would struct their own speech so and and those are things that we are think that you should think from the prep right so as a second speaker you are you you should be very H how do you say it

um very Flex ible in your speech you should not have it finalized during prep but you still should note that some things Should be there from the prep itself so some wings you should already have H some uh lines of um some like thinking about the other side maybe a another case or maybe another like ways of analysis you should already have on your pages so this is what I think the second speaker can do during a those things um then I think we're jumping to uh what are we doing after after this prep session

so er a thing to know so a few things obviously if we did a prep Session with somebody else with our coach with a more experienced debate or somebody then watched us then we are receiving feedback and we're receiving feedback in a very similar way to what we discussed before that we're trying to make the feedback specific we're trying to see if there are stuff that are repeating them s we're trying to not only ask the coach or the experienced debator how what was wrong but how to actually improve on it how to do it

Better what would they suggest Etc and then we can always do H we can always watch if we're prepping on a recorded round we can always watch the round and this is kind of help for both in terms of like H seeing a seeing other other things that people do but a lot of times also seeing how a case you would think about being implemented because probably the analysis won't be the same probably they will have some other mechanisms or some other other weighs and stuff like That and you would have seen and you would

have SE rebuts to the case that you didn't think about so all those sorts of things are very helpful and because similarly is what we talked about before it kind of works on stuff that you already invested in so you already have the prep session and the speech ready and you kind of already know what you can do entering those things and then you're building on a basis that is kind of stronger because You already understand the motion you already know uh you already know H like the the be sort of like maybe not the

best but like the the average work that you can do on this motion then building on that is a bit easier than doing an entirely new round and it's easier to also learn those cases when it's on a motion you already worked on rather than just watching a debate that you didn't think about at all or watching a debate that You didn't prep because when you're watching a debate that you didn't prep it's harder for you to H to follow it's harder for you to H remember those stuff it's harder for you to understand what

you can and can't do from what the other speaker are speakers are doing so a lot of times I'm here during a wonderful case that are being run but realistically I know that I probably can't run it I know that I probably wouldn't wouldn't have thought about it During prep this is not something that fits how I'm thinking this is not something that is uh in my in like in my knowledge um and to say something that I know of or it's not something that is very fits my style Etc but when you are kind

of already prep for it you could take specific stuff from those fees and say oh okay I maybe could couldn't have run it like this but I probably could have have this specific example as well or I probably could have had this Specific wi as well and then you can you can do the extra step of trying to think but why didn't I think about what can I do in order to think about those things so if I didn't think about the example maybe this is because we didn't discuss examples at all or maybe this

is because I was very much focused on one area like I was only thinking about this debate in Europe and not in other countries or maybe I was too focused on different stuff and then I can note it to myself For other runs like I know I can think of this example or I know I can think about this way what is the extra step needed for me to think about it and this is where you can easily then implement it afterwards by simply having it written down on your page just write on your page

different country or WR on your page think about CG and in or like WR on your page a a waying that uh that talks about a prior a priority stuff like that and you would be like okay Yeah those are things that I can do I just didn't think about them specifically here this is what I need to do in order to think about them so those are all stuff we can do after prep we can obviously also M A make a a like a larger discussion or a more of a prolonged work afterwards so

if we are think if we kind of found that the specific motion that we work with we had problems or the position that we prepped on we had problems or is something Didn't didn't work we can have a larger discussion about it we can kind of build more practices on top of it stuff like that so this is something that sometimes is harder for us to do during an entire round because an entire round H has different focuses many different things a lot of Randomness inside it a prep R is more focused for for us

to then have specific conclusions afterwards What specifically didn't work and should we then work more about it or Not so kind of do doing a reflection after a prep session and reaching conclusions is important um lastly then prr are very important in in order to work on Partnerships Partnerships I think I pronounce it okay so this is where you're kind of H very much H this is where you will be good in understanding what your partner H what your partner lacks how your partner could improve this is where you work Specifically on your um not

engagement how you say communication skills on how you talk with each other how you understand each other how you track each other how you make each other stronger where you need to help your partner where you need their help all those sorts of things are very much exclusive to prep DRS I think and a lot of times those are things that we will miss when we're doing actual rounds because actual rounds are they have more Stakes on it We're we're more focused on ourself we're more focused on the actual debate that will happen afterwards we're

more focused on other teams a lot of again a lot of those things come into play so partnership is something that I think prepers are very good to work on exclusively and anybody has questions specifically about prepd before we're moving to the next Stu no okay ER then so not sure how let me just See how much time we we are left with because I think not much much right yeah not much at all okay I was bubbling for too too long and okay then so we don't okay I can thank you ja okay ER

so then I will cover this one much more quickly ER because obviously my time management need Improvement and I promise you that I would uh work specifically on time management for uh H for the rest of uh for the rest of my uh Prepping uh okay so then another another way of uh that we can look at self-improvement is working specifically on knowledge and Case Files I will run through it right so the first thing is you should read and watch and focus on consuming knowledge that you are lacking H lacking on you should you

know read The Economist okay everyone talking about the economist you need to read it but then also like try to listen to podcasts or read articles specifically About things that you think that you are lacking try to go and find some um introduction to econ with two pages not with 200 pages that you can read in order to understand things a bit better watch debates that are focused on the specific again topic that you're lacking H lacking onor that you need to build knowledge on try to prioritize watching those debates try to prioritize watching those

cases when you're building a case fire and this is where we don't have the Time to cover all of it because I have a lot of things to say here but when you're building a topical case fire a few of the most important things to note here is that you want to make it short you want to make it accessible and you want to make it very much debate focused so you don't want to just have 10 pages on Scotland and the and the history and the economic policies there and whatever H in order H

because honestly you won't be able to use it you want to have one Page or two pager of specific of specific stuff like economy like welfare like I don't know history that you think that are relevant or what or whatever that you would be able to then Implement into the debate so try to think about past motions and try to see how those motions then affect those specific topic you can always try to H then write a more General case File this is where I'm moving forwards about a specific um about like a political A

political debate where you are analyzing representation versus electability or efficacy or whatever if you know those are Thea the things that you're struggling with ER and the thing to note here is that don't then go and use it in a in a debate round as it is don't just read it out because it won't work every round is specific right but this is where you can practice your skills this is where you can practice your analysis this is where you can Think of different ways to do stuff that you didn't do before for judges you

can do OAS and you can do a you can watch you can watch a debate or build an an OA while uh while by yourself obviously by just watching rounds by just watching coms all those sorts of things so this is not just helpful for debators to H watch a debate round in order to learn about new stuff this is also helpful for judges and the same thing is important here as a judge as well we still have The same problems we still are having problem with Eon debates or we still have problem with philosophical

debates or stuff like this because you know simply because the because we switch to a to a judging role doesn't mean that we just now know everything so try to also see H see the Gap that you have and watch those debates focus on these debates specifically then last not notes set specific goals uh we will not talk During comp you will have an entire session I think on comp so those will be covered there I hope if not if you have specific questions on what to do during a competition just reach out to me

and I would kind of elaborate and all those things but some general notes to end this session track your feedbacks right so everything I just said won't work if you don't actually track your feed have a Google sheet have a notebook I don't care have a toilet paper stuck on a Magnet wall somewhere but note the specific things that you need to work on so you always want to know what you're working on you always want to know if the if those things are repeating themselves you don't just work on General things without without setting

without tracking without setting specific goals always ask help if you're stuck so don't just work for two months on or or even two weeks if you think it's too much it's very subjective don't Just work on the same thing and feel frustrated and don't and uh and then quit or then move to another thing if you feel you stuck ask for help ask for different approaches ask your partner ask your coach ask another debator and the last thing is guys keep it fun right if this is a hobby this is something that we do because

we like it if we will work too hard if we would spend too much time eating on ourself and uh judging ourself and trying to make to make it Into a thing that is too hard on ourself we will lose the motivation to do it and we do need to keep it fun so know when to have a break know when to have a beer know when to ditch around ditch a case understand that something that you just need to perhaps have a fun round have a fun motion don't work on hard stuff today but

just uh like bring yourself up and make yourself feel better and more motivated will help you in future ER sessions and we'll give you the Motivation to continue to do the hard work so remember to also have fun while doing those things I hope you don't have questions we don't have the time to practice but if you do have some questions this is the time to ask them um if not then I would not uh I would not dare to take Jack's time so H I presume you will go to the next session about politics

and democracy