Tactics and POIs

1. Tactics and POIs

2. What we will look at • We’re going to cover: • POIs • Tactics • I am going to tell you every single tactic I can come up with, some of these will be harmless, some will be a bit suspect and others will be borderline cheating. • I am showing you them not necessarily so you can use them but so that you can recognise them when they are used against you. • Feel free to use this information at your own discretion.

3. Firstly some basics • A POI is a question or statement made at any point in unprotected time. • A speaker can choose to accept or reject a POI at their discretion. • A speaker can choose to accept as many or as few POIs as they wish. • A speaker can stop the person offering the POI from speaking at any point. • A speaker should try and take at least one POI during their speech.

4. POIs • There is a good way and a bad way to make a POI. • The bad way is: • “But what about the oppression of the women by paternalistic men?” • The good way is: • “Given that men in some Muslim communities use the burka to oppress women, surely banning it causes more good than harm?”

5. POI structure • What you will have noticed is the good way of giving a POI gives the person offering it the maximum opportunity to speak. • Instead of just asking a question the speaker is able to give a statement of analysis to base their POI on, as well as to take more of their opponents speech up. • “Given that X… Y” • “If X is true… Y” • This forces the speaker to deal with your analysis as well as deal with your point generally before they can convince the judges that they have dealt with it.

6. Lets do some fun stuff now :D • If it’s written in Black, you can probably use it or get away with using it. • If it’s in red, then it’s probably a dodgy thing to use, and I wouldn’t recommend it because it’s borderline cheating, but like I said I’m giving you everything. • I’m just going to list the tactics and talk about them as I go.

7. Tactics • When giving POIs consider how you are most likely to get your POI accepted: • Try to give POIs when you see transitions between points, possibly with the statement “before that”. • If one of your team is for some reason more threatening, the less threatening speaker will likely be taken more often, use this to your advantage. • If you look or sound less threatening than your partner you will be taken more often.

8. Tactics • Make eye contact with the speaker if you want your POI taken. • If you are polite in a moment of insanity you will likely be taken. • If your partner or the other team gives a point, give a point at the same time “piggyback” off of their POIs so you don’t barrack. • Use your body mass to block the eye line to the second half speakers. • If you are a second half speaker, anticipate this and stand back a bit more so that you can still be seen.

9. Tactics • Use different words when you stand up to vary your POIs. • Use inflections in your voice when POI’ing to symbolise that you disagree with what they are saying, but don’t over use this or it will loose effectiveness. • If they don’t take your POI or are shutting you out, you can look at the judges as if you are sick of this lack of engagement. • Do not make your point in the “on that point” statement, except if it’s the 1st minute of 1st prop you can get away with saying “point of clarification”.

10. Tactics • Barracking the speaker isn’t acceptable, although you might be able to get away with it in the last 45 seconds of their speech if they haven’t taken a point yet. • If they say “no thank you” to your POIs, you might want to offer them a few more than you usually would, it will take up time in their speech. • If they don’t say anything when declining POIs, you can look at the judges so that you don’t see the hand gestures. • Equally don’t say “no thank you” when declining POIs, just wave them down with authority, don’t flap.

11. Tactics • If they say “No I am not taking any more points” keep offering them points, they have no right to tell you not to offer them. Equally, don’t ever say this. • If a speaker spends 3 minutes on a argument and they keep repeating it in different ways, give them a POI, make them spend another 3 minutes repeating it even if you understand it. • Make them deal with your arguments “That’s all well and good but when I told you about X I dealt with that, are you going to engage”, if they don’t engage you win if they do they waste time.

12. Tactics • Point out contradictions “1st half said this, you guys have said this, which one of you is wrong and why?”. Don’t over use it. • Give leading points “Have you ever visited the BNP’s website”. • If they are a really quick speaker, give your POIs REALLY slowly, I guarantee it will irk them. • If you are an extension speaker, please God don’t give your speech away in a POI. If 2nd half give away their extension speech in a POI and you are 1st half, STEAL IT.

13. Tactics • If you are receiving POIs then take them when you are comfortable, not mid sentence, not on a point you are shaky on. • If they give a really stupidly offensive or annoying argument, use them as a punching bag. • If the other team is barracking you, leave them stood up for a while (Never more than a minute). • If someone offers a POI leave them standing so that they forget the POI then take them.

14. Tactics • If the speaker directly after you is stupid enough to offer you a POI at 3 minutes, leave them standing until 4 minutes then sit them down or take them. They are straight after you and will have wasted a minute or more not writing down your arguments. • If you are second half of the table, it is sometimes a good tactic not to take POIs from first half to shut them out of the debate. • Never, ever, ever seem flustered when you are offered a lot of POIs.

15. Tactics • If it gets to the last 30 or 15 seconds and they haven’t taken a point you can say “before you run out of time”. • If the entire side opposing you is refusing to take your POI, or if a person isn’t taking POIs, you might be able to get away with “Scared?”. • If the other team gives you a point on the first bang, it’s probably bad, if that’s the case you might want to take an early POI. • If someone stands up to offer a POI, take them before they say anything, some times it will startle them.

16. Tactics • If you are first half of the table, take a point from second half so that you and your partner know what they might say. • Communicate shock or condemnation for the speaker to your partner, make it obvious that it they are talking rubbish maybe a little grin to each other and a lean back in the chair.

17. Tactics • If the judges are looking confused at the speakers speech, hit them with a POI. • If the judges are nodding away and are loving the point they are making, don’t hit them with a POI. • Equally if the judges are writing franticly it’s probably a good point. • And if they are writing slowly or not at all it’s probably a bad point.

18. Tactics • When you come into the room, be confident. Smile, say hello to the other teams, banter with your partner and banter with the judges. • When you are speaking, never give an opinion on your speech, if it’s bad the judges will tell you but there’s no point you telling them. • If you think you’ve made a bad speech don’t wince or say “that was shit” to your partner as you sit down. Conversely, probably don’t high five, or seem too cocky unless it’s deserved.

19. Tactics • Learn some stuff, if you know the name of neighbouring countries or if you know the name of country leaders you will sound more convincing even if you are full of it. • Make the chair the butt of your jokes, the wings will love it and probably everyone else too. • You can make the best arguments in a really persuasive way, thus shutting out the second half teams. • On the first half of the table, have tonnes of examples that way if second half use your example you get credit.

20. Tactics • If you are second half and first half hasn’t used many examples, pick an example they haven’t used and give it in-depth analysis. • If you want to extend on a 1st half point, you can say “We think this point is missing some analysis so we’re going to extend upon it.”

21. Tactics –Knifing • Normally you shouldn’t knife, however if first half has screwed it up you can use these techniques: • “We heard practically one way we think that this policy could be implemented from first half, we think the mechanism isn’t that important and if it’s principally good we should do it.” • If the mechanism makes no sense: • “We think that in this debate we should look at likely ways that this would be implemented, we think one of those ways is X we’re not saying this is the mechanism but this is a point and if they want to argue against it they are welcome to do so.”

22. Tactics • There’s a clever way to steal a point: • If 1st half make a point and your opponents rip it to shreds and then your extension speaker fixes it, when in summation you should put emphasis on the fix so that it sounds like your partner now owns that point.

23. Forcing clash and the prebuttal • Engagement and clash wins debates, I’ve said it a million times and I’ll say it a million more before we’re done. • So lets talk about two ways you can create clash particularly on first half. • 1) Forcing clash is sometimes a risky tactic, the general gist of it is when the team you want to clash with has made their points badly or missed the point of the debate, you make their points for them then engage with them. • 2) The prebuttal is a technique you can use primarily on first half, if it is obvious which points a future speaker is going to bring up then say something along the lines of “We think closing is going to tell you about this… clearly this doesn’t hold for them either because…” to beat them.