summary speech public forum

Debatetrack

• Apr 26, 2021

Secrets of the Summary Speech

The Summary speech is probably the most complex of the Public Forum speeches. There’s a lot to do: collapsing on a certain argument or line of offense, framing the debate, frontlining rebuttals to the argument, extending defense…and a whole grab bag of other random tasks depending on what’s happened in the round so far.

This can be, frankly, overwhelming. Summary speeches are often the messiest of the speeches I hear in practice and competition.

Yet, they’re crucially important, and many rounds are truly won or lost in the Summary. So, here’s a few models to help you simplify the process. You should practice each as a potential tool in building up your Summary arsenal.

Model 1: Even Split This is the most straightforward and simple model I introduce to new students, yet a powerfully effective general model: Spend half your time on extending and front lining offense, and the other half on extending defense against your opponents’ key arguments. This works particularly well for 1st Summaries when you’re not quite sure of your opponents’ collapse.

Model 2: Down-the-Flow Here, we simply go down the flow on our case, then our opponents’ case, answering everything from our opponents’ last speech. This model has the benefit of splitting time by necessity with a focus on your offense, rather than a simple 50–50 split. This model works great for 2nd Summaries, especially when the 1st Summary was complete and organized. If you feel behind the 8-ball in a 2nd summary, break this model out.

Model 3: Two Worlds This wildly popular model conceptualizes the round in terms of two worlds. Your offense is included in ‘Your World’ (a perfect heaven), and your defense is included in ’Their World’ (a wretched hell). Within your ‘world’, you should still collapse on key arguments.

Model 4: Weighing Summary Collapse on 1 or 2 arguments, then weigh your opponents’ arguments against your collapse. This model is a way to double-down on the advantages of weighing, and can help you win rounds that you probably should lose or against opponents whose case and preparation truly are better than yours.

For adequate weighing, you should invest prep work in thinking about how each of your potential collapses may outweigh your opponents’ arguments on magnitude, timeframe, probability, scope, reversibility, topicality, framework or other weighing mechanisms.

Model 5: Thesis This is the most advanced and powerful model, one that’s taught in-depth in our PF Quickstart course.

Begin your Summary with a thesis that fits this formula: “our collapse outweighs our opponents’ collapse/case because _______”.

The rest of your speech will be built on this thesis, ensuring maximum efficiency in your speech, because anything you say should reinforce the thesis at the top of the speech.

Any other preferred strategies for the Summary? Comment below and let us know!

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• Mar 18, 2021

How to Structure a Summary

Whoever named this speech the summary speech provided us a bit of a misnomer; your goal in the summary speech is not to summarize. Rather, it is an opportunity to synthesize what matters in the round and to present a narrative that favors your side.

The first big question is: how will you approach synthesizing 16 minutes of speeches and 6 minutes of crossfire into one 3-minute speech? The summary speech is often called the most challenging speech in the round, and for good reason.

Debate Resource recommends two approaches to summary. Each is perfectly valid and will be effective, but each works better for different people. Some debaters even alternate between the approaches depending on circumstance, although that is not necessary. We recommend you practice both approaches to learn what will be best for you.

Approach #1 : Defense/Offense (D/O)

This approach is the simpler one, as you don’t have to create any new categories or “voting issues” for the judge. Rather, you start on your opponent’s case and just go point by point, responding to your opponent’s arguments. Then you return to your case and respond to your opponent’s responses, extending and emphasizing the arguments that should win you the round.

For a template regarding how to approach a Defense/Offense summary, we’ve provided a screenshot of a simple summary structure document.

In the sample structure above, the debater picks 2 points on each side to discuss. This is just a template; which points you pick will depend on what is going on in that specific round, and which points you need to address.

However, we strongly recommend you do not try to cover everything that has been said in your 3-minute speech - you run the risk of spreading yourself too thin and presenting the judge a poor narrative. Don’t go for every single one of your contentions. A good rule of thumb to follow is you should have at least three independent pieces of offense extended in summary – these can be contentions, sub-contentions, or turns. The big lesson though is: be strategic with what you try to cover and hammer home the points you are clearly winning instead of trying to touch on everything, but emphasizing nothing.

This formulaic approach to summary is very helpful if you are a beginner who is still learning how to organize their arguments. It also can be very helpful if you are an experienced debater who knows her judge is a flow judge. It is very easy for the judge to follow along with this structure and to know where you are on the flow. We suggest more time on Offense than on Defense, but the exact timing breakdown is, of course, up to you.

(Note that you can also go Offense first, Defense second. This may be a good approach if you are having trouble fitting all of your arguments into the limited time. The issue is you are ending the speech on your opponent’s points which is not an especially powerful way to end a speech.)

The pitfall with the Defense/Offense approach (and the Offense/Defense approach as well) is that you are passing up an opportunity to shape the image of the round in the mind of the judge. What you DON’T want is for you to finish the speech and for the judge to think to herself huh, they said a lot of things and covered a lot of the flow but I’m still not exactly sure why I should be voting for them.

Approach #2 : Voting Issues

Using the Voting Issues approach solves the aforementioned problem. In this approach, you pick 3 main categories (“Voting Issues” or “voters” for short) that this round has boiled down to and incorporate relevant arguments from both sides into those voters.

It is very likely that your case and your opponent’s case will “clash” meaning you will both be using arguments that are directly relevant to each other; to use an analogy you on the PRO side are arguing for Heads and your opponent on the Con side is arguing for Tails. When clash like this exists, it may be wasteful to spend time discussing each argument separately.

The biggest advantage of the Voting Issue Summary, however, is that you are telling the judge which points actually matters and making it clear why you have won those points. Another way to describe a Voting Issue Summary is you are “writing the judge’s ballot for her.” If you do this successfully the judge will be very grateful, as you limit the amount of thinking she has to do in order to arrive at a decision. Instead of forcing the judge to figure out which points on the messy flow are important, you are providing that information for free.

A good way to begin your Voting Issue Summary is with an “off-time roadmap” (some judges allow this before you start your timer as long as you keep it short and concise) that sounds like “In this speech I will be presenting the 3 major voting issues in this round and explaining why we have won each of them.”

There are two major risks involved with a Voting Issue (VI) Summary.

First, your judge may not know where you are on the flow. If you confuse the judge and they don’t understand which argument you’re discussing or don’t understand where they should physically be taking their notes on the paper, they will have trouble focusing on your content. That is why we at Debate Resource recommend that you explicitly say which contentions you are incorporating into each specific voter – something like “The first Voting Issue is Entrepreneurship, which is a synthesis of our contention 3 and their contention 2.”

Second, you may accidentally drop (debate-speak for ignore) important responses or pieces of evidence. If you are going straight down the flow, using a D/O approach, you can see all the arguments that have been made laid out in order, making it easy to respond to each. If you are using the VI approach, you need to be vigilant and ensure you are hitting all the important points over the course of your synthesis.

We will provide one helpful tip to finish off this post. Once you have gotten used to both of these approaches, try combining them and messing with them until you find an approach that works for you. Remember that these are just templates.

For example, what do you do when you have 3 voting issues you want to cover (that provide you offense and you think you’re winning clearly), but you still need to address some of your opponent’s offense that falls outside the scope of those voter? You may want to combine these templates into something of a “Defense-Voter” (call it DV) approach, where you spend your first 30 seconds addressing your opponent’s points before jumping into the voting issues.

The language you use here is important, and you can adapt your phrasing to empower your points and present your opponent’s points as insignificant. Don’t make a point your opponent is clearly winning into a “voter.” Instead, you can say something like “I will touch on a couple of my opponent’s points before getting to the real, important Voting Issues of this round” to downplay their major offense. But remember: you still need to respond to the point in full.

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(PF) 1. Summary Fundamentals

This course goes over the fundamentals of a strong summary speech in Public Forum

Course Curriculum

Welcome to the course.

A message from the instructor

How to use this course

Before we begin...

Summary Introduction

Video: Summary Introduction

Test your learning

Summary Core Components

Video: Summary Core Components

Summary Strategic Vision

Video: Summary Strategic Vision

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101: Introduction to PF

What is Public Forum?

How to Win a PF Debate Round

How to Judge a PF Debate Round

How to Prepare for a PF Tournament

Speech Types & Lengths in PF

The Case: Constructive

The Rebuttal Speech

The Summary Speech

The Final Focus

102: beyond the basics.

Constructing a Case

Mastering the Constructives

Mastering the Rebuttals

Final Speeches

The final focus in Public Forum (PF) is the last speech that each side gives in the round. Importantly, it is the last speech the judge hears before they make their decision, so ending on a good note is critical. The final focus is also the shortest speech in the debate, clocking in at just two minutes. This means that efficiency will largely determine how effective your speech will be. For those trying to improve their final focus skills, I would strongly recommend efficiency-based re-dos, where the debater re-does a speech again and again, under increasingly harsh time constraints. For new second speakers, this is a great way to get used to the time constraints in the final focus.

What makes a good final focus? This speech will need to accomplish many of the same items as the summary. Extending your argument, frontlining your argument, and weighing your argument must all occur in the final focus speech. Additionally, the speaker should leave some time to address their opponent’s case and explain why they have failed to win their argument. However, there are some notable differences between the summary and the final focus. First of all, the final focus must crystallize and more heavily prioritize important points than the summary speech, which can afford to cover more arguments because the summary is a minute longer than the final focus. Especially for newer debaters, I would suggest collapsing on no more than one offensive argument in the final focus, and dedicating the rest of the time to weighing & beating back your opponent’s case.

Because the final focus is the last speech in the round, it is critically important that you help write the ballot for the judge in this speech. Point out positions that your opponents dropped/undercovered and places where you are clearly ahead in the debate. Then, explain why the areas you’re winning were the most important points in the debate. Keep in mind you should not be presenting any new arguments in the final focus. The only exception is that first final focus can make new weighing arguments (while second final focus cannot).

Structure of Public Forum

Constructive Speech Team A- Delivered by the First Speaker (4 Minutes)

Constructive Speech Team B- Delivered by the First  Speaker (4 Minutes)

First Crossfire- Between Both First Speakers (3 Minutes)

Rebuttal Speech Team A- Delivered by the Second Speaker (4 Minutes)

Rebuttal Speech Team B- Delivered by the Second Speaker (4 Minutes)

Second Crossfire- Between Both Second Speakers (3 Minutes)

Summary Speech Team A- Delivered by the First Speaker (3 Minutes)

Summary Speech Team B- Delivered by the First Speaker (3 Minutes)

Grand Crossfire- Between ALL Speakers (3 Minutes) Final Focus Team A- Delivered by the Second Speaker (2 Minutes)

Final Focus Team B- Delivered by the Second Speaker (2 Minutes)

*Keep In Mind ~ this structure is specific to the Public Forum U.S. National Circuit 2021 - 2022. Different local circuits may have slight variations on this, so make sure to check with your coach / teacher / tournament director*  

*Prep. Time --  For the Public Forum U.S. National Circuit 2021 - 2022, tournaments generally give 3 MINUTES of prep time. That being said, local tournaments, and even potentially some national circuit tournaments, may operate differently. Once again, make sure to check tournament rules*

Below is a Visual Representation of a Public Forum Debate Round

"Education's purpose is to replace an empty mind with an open one"

- Malcolm Forbes