A Stand Against Spreading in Debate

110 words per minute is the average speed of a person talking. 260 words per minute is the average speed of a debate speech. 400 words per minute can erode the very purpose of discourse. 

It was my fifth round at a public forum debate tournament and I had entered a classroom not knowing I would leave with my perspective on language transformed. As my opponents stood by the podium to give their speech, they took a deep breath and began speaking at an unintelligible speed. I was jarred and frantically attempted to take notes. I realized this was a manipulative practice from old forms of debate to win a round by speed-reading more points than a team can cover, thereby inevitably conceding one.

I was at a critical juncture. I could either reciprocate their strategy and speed-read my responses, thus betraying what I believed to be the very purpose of debate–expression with clarity, logic, and reasoning–or I could risk losing the round by critiquing the abuse and appealing to the judge’s ability to set a precedent by not signing the ballot in favor of them.

Words convey powerful messages, but the delivery of them holds the power. A sport that uses rhetoric to create powerful statements can also be morphed to conceal and muddle. While my opponent's 400 words per minute speech was an insurrection against the pillars of democratic debate, my 260 words per minute speech upheld my responsibility to respond vigilantly to injustice, regardless of the circumstances.