Reading
Introduction
When debaters first start competing, they look forward to the Summary speech, as the Summary speech is only three minutes long and they’ve just had to struggle with giving four-minute rebuttals. In Summary, they think, they just have to summarize everything.
More experienced debaters have the opposite problem — they struggle to figure out how they are going to say everything they need to say in a three-minute speech.
To deliver a strong Summary speech, whether you are a Beginner or a more experienced debater, you must understand how to do several critical things that we will cover in this chapter.
Critical Components of all Summary Speeches
Generally, in the Summary speech debaters need to crystalize their key arguments (their original contentions), extend key answers to their opponents’ contentions, respond to their opponents’ rebuttal arguments and then start to weigh their arguments against their opponents’ arguments.
Many debaters will organize the speech by starting with what they will refer to ask the key “voting issues,” which are simply the major issues in the debate. For example, in the immigration surveillance debate, the key issues may be US safety. The Pro team will go through the arguments and explain why they are winning the “safety” debate and then explain why “safety/security” is the most important issue — remember the “framework” debate discussion from chapter 3.
Once the Summary speaker covers each of these issues, he or she should weigh the arguments in the debate. For example, Pro debaters may talk about why promoting security is more important than reducing humanitarian suffering. Con debaters may talk about why alleviating humanitarian suffering is the most important issue.
As you can already see, the Summary speech is about more than summarizing; the Summary speech is about making choices in arguments, extending critical arguments, answering arguments, talking about why a particular argument is the most important, and weighing arguments (more coming on that).
Let’s look at these individually.
Making choices and extending arguments. “Making choices” in Summary means choosing which contention to extend (more on that later) and choosing which of the rebuttal arguments your partner originally make that you want to extend and defend.
It is also very important that the Summary speaker discuss what contention they are going to extend with the Final Focus speaker so that they are on the same page. There has to be consistency between the Summary and the Final Focus speakers or the judge will think that the Final Focus speaker’s arguments are new in the Final Focus.
Answering arguments. If you are the first Summary speaker, this will be your team’s first chance to respond to arguments the other team made in Rebuttal. To prepare to respond to these arguments, you need what PF debaters call “frontlines” or “responses to responses.” In order to have these prepared, you want to think about what an opposing team is likely to say to your responses and then write responses to their arguments.
Since you know what your own contentions are it is useful to write out summaries of your major arguments in advance, to think about what arguments you want to extend, and to think in advance about how you will address key stasis points in the debate.
Advanced Summary Speech Considerations
With the complexity of Public Forum debate increasing, there are a couple of important things to understand about the Summary speech.
Go for one contention. It is very rare for Summary speakers to extend more than one of their original contentions in the Summary speech. It is far better to spend time “frontlining” responses from the other team’s Rebuttal two of the contentions than trying to extend both contentions. Responding to answers made in Rebuttals is sometimes called “rebuilding the case.”
For example, you may have started the debate with two contentions — increasing drug interdiction and reducing US unemployment (see the chapter on constructive speeches), but you now should decide to just extend one of those.
Be careful when dropping a contention. “Dropping’ a contention simply refers to not extending the contention. When you “drop” any contention, you must respond to any link turns or impact turns that are made against the contention (see the Rebuttal essay). Otherwise, teams will extend the link or impact turn in Final Focus as a reason to vote for them. This will essentially give them a new contention.
Extend responses. In modern Public Forum debate, debaters cannot simply extend their original contentions and summarize them, they must also extend answers to the other team’s contentions. I know I said this above, but I’m repeating it because it’s important :).
Situational Summary Speech Considerations
There are some situational considerations to account for when delivering the Summary speech.
Speaking first and second. The most important situational consideration reality is whether or not one is speaking first or second and there are two situations related to that.
One, if you are giving the first Summary speech, this will be the first time you have to address the Rebuttal arguments, and it is critical that you answer the arguments in Rebuttal against the contention that you are going for.
Two, if you are giving the second Summary speech you have this opportunity to address the first Summary and to point out any responses you made in your Rebuttal to the other team’s contention. You should pay special attention to any turns the other team dropped and any new “add-ons” you read.
Time Considerations
As noted, the Summary speech is only three minutes long. Given this, Summary speakers have to think carefully about how to allocate their time. With this in mind, Summary speakers may want to consider the following —
60 seconds — Summarizing your contention(s), responding to your opponent’s answers. Any “summary” needs to be very brief; what you really need to stress is the impact to the contention.
60 seconds — Extending key answers to your opponent’s contentions
60 seconds — Weighing (more coming on that, I promise!)
Next: Final Focus Speeches