Sunday, 19 February 2017

Debates

During this week’s lecture, we had to debate about the controversial tunnel that is being proposed between Malta and Gozo. I was chosen with the in-favour group and another group were against. So, we started researching as a group from our devices to find the best arguments possible to attack the opponent and also to formulate good arguments to defend our side. In my opinion, it was a very interesting topic to debate on, and last week's topic, was on the flood relief project in Malta, which it wasn't a really interesting subject to have good arguments on.

These exercises (debates) have been happening for the last weeks to help us understand the real purpose of a debate. Debates for me are quite a difficult task to do and I think that such exercises during the lecture will help me out understand what and how to actually do debates and put us on the right track. My main difficulty is that I’m a very shy person and talking in front of a number of people with their full attention towards me gets me nervous and I usually feel very uncomfortable in such situations. I believe that having great arguments won’t do magic in debates, I think that having an outgoing and a confident personality is much important as to convince the opponent, which I feel that such thing might get against me in debates.

Something that I’m not that sure and still need to get used to is how a debate is build up. If I recall correctly firstly, the first round starts by a five-minute introduction, then the opponent another five. Then only one group gets a five-minute round to ask multiple questions to the other group. This round needs to be done by quick questions from one group and the opponent needs to just answer. Then the debate continues by five-minute each group one after the other, answering, defending and attacking the previous arguments being mentioned in the same debate. Things that needs to be avoided during debates are the tendency to interrupt each other and that we let our emotions talk rather than the real arguments themselves. 

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