Madison Cup Debate

The Madison Cup debate gave me a better understanding of what debate is supposed to look like. I noticed that the debaters from Johns Hopkins used "I believe" and "I think" a lot, which was persuasive in that it made their arguments more personal. However, the second Johns Hopkins debater's speech was too planned, discouraging questions and overall debate. He also came across as rude and seemed to "talk down" to other debaters, which made his and his partner's arguments seem less credible. I also realized that I was paying attention the way the debaters were dressed, which, though facetious, did affect my perceptions of their arguments. The affirmative side was the more personable side, but they did focus too much on the Jeremy Davis case, as this is only one incident. If they had more cases like that one, their arguments would have been more persuasive. However, the negative side tended to irritate me, as they seemed to take themselves just a little too seriously, and though I tried to distance myself from making judgments, I just found myself not wanting to listen to the negative side's arguments any longer. One aspect of the debate that I really liked was that many different arguments were brought up, giving me a broad spectrum to draw from.