Debate Summarization Techniques

Study Notes

Persuading the Audience: The goal is to convince the audience of your viewpoint's correctness. This requires a persuasive closing argument.
Summary Structure: The summary acts as the closing argument in a debate. It justifies your position by reviewing the arguments, connecting with the audience through logic or emotion.
Audience Engagement: Connect with the audience by appealing to their intellect or emotions in the summary.

Creating a Summary: Duplicate a slide from the debate and move it to the end, placing the PRO summary before the CON summary.
Summary Content: Restate your position, reiterate main points, explain why the opposition is wrong, and persuade the audience of your correctness.

Highlight Importance: Emphasize the issue's significance.
Audience Relevance: Provide points that resonate with the audience.
Counterargument Response: Address the flaws in the opposing argument.
Emotional/Logical Appeal: Use persuasive language. Avoid introducing new information.

Examples of sentence starters for summaries:
- In summary...
- In conclusion...
- It is vital that...
- At the forefront of this debate is...
- The opposition has tried to convince you...
- Everyone should be concerned about...
- The evidence presented shows...
Other useful phrases: It is important to understand...; It is difficult to ignore...; I am sure you will agree...; For all these reasons, it is essential...; It is logical to conclude...; It is clear...; Say "yes" (or no) to...

Visual Appeal: Make slides visually appealing.
Adding Text/Shapes: Draw attention to main points using shapes and text.
Formatting Text: Use different font styles, sizes, colours, etc.
Adding Pictures: Illustrate points using graphs, clip art, images, signs, etc.
Copying/Pasting: Reuse an image on another slide by copying and pasting.
Object Order Adjustment: Adjust the order of objects (images, text boxes, etc.) to avoid overlapping. Use "Bring Forward" or "Send Backward" options.