Matter
It’s great to have an engaging, fluent and vivid manner, but you also need to have something worth saying. This is what matter is all about: what you are saying, and how strong your arguments are. This is often the most complex part of a debate, and takes the most training and practice to perfect. It is also the most rewarding aspect of debating, as it allows you to explore new ideas and develop your own knowledge of the society around you. Note that your rebuttal will also contribute to your matter mark.
Arguments vs Assertions
In debating we love arguments and hate assertions. An assertion is where you simply state that something is true without providing any evidence or analysis that proves that the statement is true. An assertion is not persuasive because, while you may believe it, you have not provided any reason for your audience to believe what you have just said. For example, merely saying “dogs are better than cats” will not convince anyone that this is the case. However, if you start to provide evidence – perhaps through explaining the different jobs that dogs perform in our society, how they can help people with disabilities, and anecdotal stories about how they can save lives – then you are going to be much more convincing.
This is what an argument is: a statement which is backed up by careful explanation and some sort of proof. A good, well-structured and logically thought-through argument is the only way that you can hope to do well in relation to manner. Only arguments will gain you matter marks.
Constructing an Argument
You might find this model to be a useful one to follow in order to ensure you always present well founded and constructed arguments. In its essence, an argument will be constructed of three things:
1. THE IDEA
Your idea is the point you are trying to make. You should be able to sum it up in a brief one-sentence statement. The idea is how you introduce you argument and it will often be the thing that you mention when signposting your part of your team’s case.
Example: “People should go vegetarian because it results in a much healthier diet.”
2. ANALYSIS
At this stage the idea is merely an assertion, because you have not provided the audience with any reason to believe that this statement is true. This is why you must follow up an Idea with some detailed and thoughtful analysis, were you explain your reasoning in detail.
Analysis is the most important part of your argument. This is because your analysis is where you show logically and analytically that the Idea is likely to be true. You need to provide an explanation and justification for your statement, and explore the thought process that led you to believe that it was true.
Analysis will not ‘prove’ something to be true. All that you are doing is providing a context which shows that what you say is ‘highly likely’ to be a valid potential outcome.
Example: “A vegetarian diet will be high in fruits and vegetables, which in turn provides the body with many more vitamins and minerals and a much lower amount of fat than a meat-based diet, all of which help people live longer, healthier lives.”
3. EVIDENCE
A good analysis will be persuasive in its own right, because you will be providing a thorough justification for your stated Idea. However, your analysis will become stronger again if you can now provide some evidence to back it up.
Evidence is quite an easy step, particularly in prepared debates, and refers to anything that gives your case greater credibility and believability, such as statistics, case studies, a survey, an analogy, an anecdotal example, a research study, and so on.
Example: “For example, a recent British study found that a vegetarian diet resulted in a 25% decrease in heart disease, while a vegan diet saw a 57% lower incident of heart disease when compared with a meat-based diet.”
When these three elements are put together, the argument will naturally build in complexity and persuasiveness. The abovementioned elements come together like this:
You have probably noticed that this approach is very similar to how you write a body paragraph in an essay. This is because both are trying to do the same thing: convince an audience that your argument is logical and supported by evidence.
Through this process we now have a fully developed argument that will be much more convincing for the audience and much more difficult for the opposing team to rebut, because it is backed up by some detailed analysis and is supported by evidence. We are now on our way towards presenting a much more effective set of matter!
Putting it into Practice!
Click here for some practical exercises you can do to improve your matter score.
Quick Tips (Matter):
- Ensure that all of your arguments are relevant to the topic, and have been both explicitly and appropriately linked back to the topic during your speech.
- Always try to have at least one piece of evidence, example, quote or statistic to help support each of your arguments.
- Remember that your rebuttal will contribute towards you manner mark (for every speaker except for the first affirmative).
- Thorough research is a necessity in prepared debates: it will always be more difficult to rebut a team whose arguments have been carefully prepared and are backed up with thorough evidence.
- Constructing arguments that are based on first principles is an excellent way to improve the quality of your matter, particularly in secret topic debates.